FROM THE IDEA TO VIPER 01

A simulator built around one ambition: to recreate the experience of flying a real F-16 as closely as possible

Viper Unit was born first and foremost from a shared passion and a family project.

Michaël and Yves took on an ambitious challenge together: to design and build an F-16 flying experience that goes far beyond flying in front of a screen, combining virtual reality, a physical cockpit, real controls and six-axis motion.

From the outset, their aim was to build everything themselves rather than simply purchase and assemble existing solutions. Designing the structure, finding the right components, solving technical problems and, above all, continuing to experiment until the desired result was achieved gradually transformed an idea into a genuine technical development project.

The simulator was designed and developed entirely around this single ambition, with particular attention paid to flight sensation, immersion and realism.

A genuine technical development project

Building the Viper Unit simulator required bringing together several technologies that were not necessarily designed to work with one another.

For Michaël and Yves, this meant many hours of research, construction and testing. Some solutions worked immediately, while others had to be adapted, improved or sometimes completely redesigned.

The structure was developed around a motion platform with six actuators, capable of simulating the aircraft’s movement across six degrees of freedom: pitch, roll and yaw, together with vertical, longitudinal and lateral movement.

The platform geometry, actuator positions, travel and speed, as well as the position of the centre of gravity, required numerous calculations, tests and adjustments to achieve fast, coherent movements suited to the dynamic nature of a fighter aircraft.

The objective is not to reproduce sustained accelerations of several Gs—which is physically impossible on a platform of this size—but to use the simulator’s movements to provide the pilot with the sensory cues associated with the aircraft’s behaviour: acceleration, deceleration, turns, rolling movements, changes in attitude and even turbulence.

Virtual reality at the heart of the experience

This mechanical platform is combined with a high-definition virtual reality environment.

The pilot is therefore not looking at a cockpit displayed on screens in front of them. As soon as the VR headset is put on, the pilot is placed directly inside the F-16 cockpit.

By moving their head naturally, the pilot can view the instruments, look outside, search for another aircraft in the sky or simply look behind them.

Achieving this sensation, however, requires far more than simply connecting a VR headset to a computer.

Image quality, graphical performance, smoothness, motion tracking and synchronisation with the motion platform all had to be extensively tested and adjusted. Michaël and Yves worked intensively on these parameters so that the different systems would ultimately function as one fully integrated whole.

Today, the combination of virtual reality and the platform’s physical movements is one of the key elements of the immersive experience Viper Unit aims to provide.

An F-16… for two

One of the project’s defining features is that the installation was developed around a two-seat F-16.

This choice also perfectly reflects the spirit of Viper Unit: a project built by two people and an experience that can also be shared by two people.

The system combines two complementary positions: the pilot in the motion simulator and a second station representing the rear cockpit.

This architecture required advanced computer integration. Several computers, flight controls, displays, instruments and peripherals must work together and exchange information in real time.

Making each of these elements function individually was already a challenge. Making everything operate simultaneously and in perfect synchronisation was an entirely different challenge.

The result transforms an ordinary simulation session into a genuinely shared experience, with both participants inside the same aircraft, at the same time and on the same mission.

Physical flight controls

To enhance immersion even further, the simulator uses physical controls inspired by those of the F-16: stick, throttle, rudder pedals and various cockpit panels and controls.

The objective is simple: once seated, the pilot should gradually forget about the computer and focus entirely on what is happening inside the cockpit and around the aircraft.

Every control, position and setting was integrated according to this philosophy.

During construction, the simulator evolved one component at a time, with each new element having to find its place and integrate seamlessly with everything that had already been developed.

Thousands of details behind one hour of flying

Building Viper Unit involved far more than simply assembling a motion platform and installing a VR headset.

The flight simulation, motion system, virtual reality, physical controls, instruments, haptic effects and various computers all had to communicate and work together.

Every stage required testing: platform geometry, range of motion, latency, synchronisation, graphical performance, pilot position, VR settings, flight controls and the simultaneous operation of both stations.

And behind every one of those tests were Michaël and Yves—their ideas, discussions and successes, as well as the inevitable technical problems they had to understand and solve together.

The simulator you see today is therefore the result of hundreds of hours of work, testing and continuous improvement.

A major part of its development involved finding the right balance between realism, performance and immersion.

And that process never truly ends. Viper Unit remains a living project, constantly evolving as new ideas emerge and further improvements are introduced.

The result: Viper Unit

What began as an idea shared by Michaël and Yves gradually developed into a complete simulation experience.

At a certain point during that journey, a new thought naturally emerged:

why not give other people the opportunity to experience it too?

And so, a family project grew into Viper Unit.

Today, all these technologies come together in one installation. Behind the mechanics, computers and virtual reality, however, are above all the hundreds of hours spent together imagining, building, testing and improving this machine.

Because ultimately, technology is only a means to an end.

The true objective of Viper Unit is much simpler:

to make you forget, even if only for a few moments, that you are inside a simulator.