This paper presents information gained during the rapid proto-typing effort for the Rotor Wing Blade Element Simulator Program being conducted by the Simulator Systems Division of FlightSafety International. In this project, a full-flight simulator will be developed for a Bell 212/412 helicopter. Software for the device will be developed in Ada and hosted on a dual-processor Harris Night Hawk Computer System. The software is computationally intensive and includes a 200 Hz finite-element rotor-blade simulation. The goal of the project is to investigate the use of Ada on a production simulator with stringent real-time processing requirements.

This paper will address many of the architectural issues considered in the rapid prototyping phase of the development effort. The discussions will focus on the application of Object Oriented Design (OOD) Techniques in the design of software for critical real-time systems. The discussions will highlight some of the advantages afforded by Object Oriented Architectures as well as some of the key problems encountered when using Object Oriented Design in large real-time applications. In addition, the discussions will address many of the operating system capabilities that will be required in order to make optimum use of Ada and Object Oriented Programming in future simulator systems.