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Cosmicus A340 simulatorThe Cosmicus A340 simulator was a historical educational and social project of ASK-Solutions. It brought together flight simulation, technical learning, free software, free hardware and work with children with fewer opportunities.
The project was carried out in collaboration with Stichting Cosmicus in Amsterdam and was funded by the then Dutch Ministry of Education. It was one of the foundation’s first official projects and strongly influenced how the foundation’s early formal purpose was described in the initial statutes.
The project shows the same educational philosophy that was later visible in the guidance work carried out in collaboration with Stichting Witte Tulp. Children were not approached only through a deficit, a delay or a need for extra instruction. They were invited into a real technical project: a flight simulator that could be built, understood, wired, tested, discussed and improved.
That mattered because a simulator makes knowledge tangible. Mathematics, electronics, software, mechanics, aviation, communication protocols, displays, sensors and control systems are no longer abstract school subjects. They become parts of something visible and exciting. A child can see a switch, a display, a cable, a control input or a cockpit panel and ask what it does.
The aim was not only to build a machine. The aim was to create a situation in which children could take part in technical work, build confidence, see that complex systems are made by people, and discover that knowledge can be shared, learned and used.
The A340 simulator was built for and by children in the context of the work with Stichting Cosmicus. It was not only a classroom example or a simplified teaching model. The project worked with real simulator material, cockpit references, photographs, measurements and technical documentation, so children could encounter aviation technology as something concrete, detailed and buildable.
Peter Cos, founder of FDS (Flight Deck Solutions), was an important contact in this work. The foundation exchanged reference material, photographs and measurements taken from actual aircraft with him, so panels and controls could be improved and designed more accurately. This connected the educational project with real simulator-building practice: children were not only learning about technology, but helping build something that related to actual cockpit hardware and documentation.
This gave the project a different character from a normal technical build. The simulator was also an educational environment. The process of building, connecting, explaining and testing the system was part of the work. Children could encounter technology through participation instead of only through instruction.
The Cosmicus A340 simulator was funded by the then Dutch Ministry of Education. That funding documentation is important for the foundation’s history because it shows that the project was not only an informal technical experiment, but one of the first concrete public-benefit activities around which the legal foundation was being formalised.
During the registration process, the founders were trying to describe a broader mission around shared knowledge, cooperation, free software, free hardware, practical education, social responsibility and public-benefit technical work. That language did not fit easily into the legal framing offered at the time. Knowledge sharing, free software, free hardware and the social or educational value of technical work were pushed toward more concrete categories such as building, buying, selling, supporting or delivering something recognisable.
The Cosmicus A340 simulator therefore became the concrete project through which much of the broader mission could be recognised. It involved children, education, simulation, software, hardware, mathematical models, cooperation and funded public-benefit work. As a result, the initial statutes focused heavily on simulators, simulation software and hardware, mathematical models, and support for schools, universities and foundations in that area. For many years, the foundation relied on the broader closing wording in the statutes: activities directly or indirectly connected to those purposes, “in the broadest sense of the word”. To continue the wider mission behind the formal language.
The technical history leading to the Cosmicus A340 simulator reached back to the F.28 simulator work at Hogeschool Haarlem. In that earlier work, BFX and RDDP had emerged around the question of how simulator software, data exchange and physical cockpit interfaces could be connected in a reusable way.
BFX formed an early hardware interface for simulator work. It was later succeeded by OpenBus, which developed the interface concept further with a bridge, shared bus and different interface cards. OpenBus could communicate with the later simulator software through RDDP and was the hardware interface associated with the Cosmicus A340 simulator.
For the technical implementation of the Cosmicus A340 simulator, several closely related ASK-Solutions projects came together. A340GC provided the glass-cockpit displays, libGC provided reusable functionality for graphics, audio and communication, RDDP handled the exchange of simulator data, and OpenBus connected the software environment to physical switches, encoders, displays, indicators and other inputs and outputs.
The aim was not only to make one simulator work, but to build knowledge, firmware, schematics, protocols and software that could be studied, adapted and preserved.
The Cosmicus A340 simulator belongs close to the beginning of the formal IRADIS Foundation history, but its importance was not only organisational. It was one of the first concrete settings in which the foundation’s educational and social approach became visible: children could work around a real technical object, ask questions, handle parts, see systems being connected and take part in building something that was larger than a classroom exercise.
The project treated technical work as a way to build confidence. Aviation, simulator hardware, electronics, software, mathematical models and cockpit documentation became routes into learning. Instead of presenting knowledge as something distant or already finished, the simulator made knowledge visible as something people can investigate, assemble, test, improve and understand together.
That made the project a practical example of the foundation’s public-benefit work. It connected education, social support, shared knowledge, free software and free hardware in one setting. Children were not only being taught about technology; they were being invited into a working environment where technology, cooperation and explanation could help them stand stronger.
The simulator work connected technical development with broader questions around practical freedom, shared knowledge and meaningful control over technology. This included proprietary control versus practical freedom, closed systems versus shared knowledge, and ownership in name versus the real ability to study, repair, adapt, reinstall, rebuild and share what people depend on. That line connects the early work around free software and free hardware directly to the later public language of Right to Repair and Right to Ownership.
The Cosmicus A340 simulator started before the guidance work carried out in collaboration with Stichting Witte Tulp, but the two projects later ran partly in parallel and shared a related educational philosophy. Both were concerned with children who needed more than extra exercises or more lesson time. The aim was to create situations where knowledge became visible, meaningful and connected to confidence.
In the Cosmicus project, that happened through aviation, simulator hardware, electronics, software and building something real together. In the Witte Tulp context, the same wider approach appeared through mentoring, cultural confidence, science history, safe computer use and technical explanation. The settings were different, but both treated knowledge as something that can help children stand stronger and understand more of the world around them.
Within ASK-Solutions, these projects developed alongside other early projects, including a project that was later developed further under the name The Owl’s Nest. The different projects gave different practical forms to broader concerns around knowledge sharing, learning, participation and people’s ability to understand and act for themselves. That social and educational dimension also remains relevant in the way ASK-Solutions implements The Owl’s Nest at its own locations.
The Cosmicus A340 simulator is a historical project of ASK-Solutions. Its role today is explanatory: it shows how the foundation’s social, educational and technical mission came together in one of its first official projects.
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