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The world's most popular simulator, Disneyland's Star Tours, poses no such hazards. As many as 27,000 people a day wait between 45 minutes and two hours for a chance to take a 4 1/2-minute imaginary excursion to the Moon of Endor. They are rewarded with a nonstop thrill ride in which a mock spaceship climbs, banks and even reaches the speed of light -- all with white-knuckle realism. "This is easily the most popular ride," says Bob Roth, manager of publicity for the park. "On a roller coaster, you have the lingering feeling that the car can go off the tracks. Star Tours gives you all the thrills without the insecurity."
Earlier this year, Los Angeles-based Showscan opened a 36-seat space-flight simulator at Futuroscope, a high-tech theme park in Poitiers, France. Universal Studios Tour in Universal City, Calif., is working on a time-travel simulation, based on the movie Back to the Future, that is scheduled to open next summer. By 1990 Texas-based Six Flags plans to install a Dynamic Motion Theater at its Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey. It will feature a series of changing attractions that may include airplane dogfights and car chases. Meanwhile, the folks at Disney are putting the finishing touches on an anatomical extravaganza called Body Wars that will take visitors on a microscopic race against time through the human immune system.
None of this comes without a price. Star Tours took six years to make and cost $32 million. Link's Apaches, at $20 million apiece, cost at least $5 million more than the helicopters themselves. Even so, simulators are a bargain compared with the expense of training on the real thing, not to mention the expense in equipment and human lives when a real-world training mission goes awry. "One of the greatest things about simulators," says Honeywell's Figgins, "is that after the worst possible accident, everybody goes off and has a drink."