SIM001
SIM001 is a flight simulator for small FPV planes. It supports two planes of the HEEWING T1-S, and both are complete.
The T1-S Ranger is the plain plane: two motors, a V-tail, and only a receiver and two ESCs, with no flight controller. You throw it by hand and fly it from the keyboard or a radio, in MANUAL.
The T1-S VTOL has two tilt-rotors, a rear rotor and a flight controller. ArduPilot flies it, so it takes off and lands vertically, flies missions, and has self-levelling modes. You fly it from the ground control station, with a radio.
Start with The simulator to fly either plane by hand: it opens with the Ranger. Use Flying with a flight controller for the modes that the VTOL adds, and the Ground control station to plan missions and fly the VTOL with ArduPilot. The ground control station runs ArduPlane on the physics of the sim.
Getting started
Requirements and installationThis page tells you what a computer needs to run SIM001, and how to install it.The launcherThe launcher is the window you start SIM001 from.ControlsThis page lists every way to fly SIM001: the keyboard, a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, and a RadioMaster TX15 (or another EdgeTX radio).Setting up the radioThe sim reads a radio that is in USB joystick mode as a game controller. The first time, it has to learn which stick is which, and which channels the switches are on. This is the calibration. The sim saves it in the file controls.cfg, and the next start uses it. This section uses the RadioMaster TX15 with EdgeTX. Another EdgeTX radio works the same way.
Flying in the sim
Flying the VTOL
Flying with a flight controllerA plane with a flight controller can help the pilot. The T1-S VTOL has one, and the T1-S Ranger, which is a plain plane, does not. With a flight controller the sim has three flight modes: MANUAL, ANGLE and ACRO. On a keyboard, M selects the next one. On a radio, the switch you gave to ArduPilot mode does it.Flying a VTOLA VTOL takes off and lands straight up, like a copter, and flies forward on its wing, like a plane. The T1-S VTOL has two tilt-rotor motors on the wing and a third rotor in the tail. In a hover the two wing motors point up, and the three rotors hold the plane in the air. In forward flight the wing motors point forward and the wing lifts the plane. The change from one to the other is the transition. ArduPilot does it, and the console gives it the modes: the Q modes (QLOITER, QLAND) hover, and the normal modes (CRUISE) fly forward.Flying with a radioThe T1-S VTOL flies with a radio. A RadioMaster TX15 (or another EdgeTX radio) in USB joystick mode gives the sim the sticks and the switches. The sim sends them to ArduPilot as the radio signals of a real receiver, so the plane reacts as it does with the real radio. ArduPilot reads the sticks, the arm switch (SE) and the mode buttons (1 to 6 on the front of the radio). In the hover modes, the middle of the throttle stick holds the height. Above the middle the plane climbs, and below the middle it goes down.
The ground station
Ground control stationThe ground station flies the T1-S VTOL, the default plane of the sim, through ArduPilot. (The plain T1-S Ranger has no flight controller, so it is flown from The simulator.) You plan a mission on a map of the valley, and you write the mission to the plane. Then you arm the plane, and you throw it. The ground station talks to ArduPlane with MAVLink, as Mission Planner and QGroundControl do.The screens of the consoleThis page names each screen of the ground control console and says what it shows.
Games
RecreationFly games against three computer pilots. Each one flies a T1-S, on the same physics as your plane. Press G for a pylon race. Press T for a game of tag. Press the same key again to stop the game and fly freely.Games with ArduPilotWhen the station flies your plane, the computer pilots fly theirs with ArduPilot too. Each one has a T1-S VTOL of its own, with an autopilot of its own. It flies the plane with a radio, as you do with the TX15: the sticks, the arm switch and the mode buttons. So each plane takes the same time to get into the air.
Beyond the cockpit
Other aircraftThe station shows the other aircraft near your plane on the tactical map. It does not see them itself. The station only gets the telemetry that the TX15 radio passes on. Your plane tells the station about the other aircraft that it can hear.The flight computerThe flight computer is a small computer that stands between the TX15 and ArduPilot. In the simulator it takes the place of the receiver and of the wiring in the plane. The TX15 sends the sticks and switches down a serial line. The flight computer turns them into the radio channels that ArduPilot reads.The TX15 on the serial lineOn the real plane, the TX15 is not a USB game controller. It sends its sticks and switches to the flight computer on a serial line, in the protocol of ExpressLRS. The flight computer gives ArduPilot the radio channels. ArduPilot sends its state back on the same line, and the TX15 shows it on its screen. The lamps along the top of the screen show the flight mode, whether the plane is armed, GPS, the link and the battery.Watching a real planeThe 3D view of the simulator can also show a real plane. sim001_view listens for the MAVLink telemetry of the plane, and it puts the plane in the same scenery as the simulator. It does not fly anything. You can watch a flight from the pilot box, from behind the plane or from its nose, and a camera system can learn from the same pictures.Flying by planIn this section, a computer flies the plane. The ground control agent decides what each plane does, about once a second. It sends the decision to the plane as an agent plan. The plane flies the plan in AGENT mode, a flight mode of our ArduPlane fork. In the plane, the executor turns the plan into a bank, a pitch and a throttle. ArduPilot flies them, as in FBWA.