his photo above is of a General Electric Differential Analyzer (analog computer) fitted with an airplane stick and controls to create a simulator. The equipment belonged to the Air Force to be used as a simulator for the Bell X-2 and other research airplanes. Dick provided the analog computer with equations of motion to study the roll-coupling of the X-2 airplane and to do reaction control studies. Simulations validated predictions from NACA wind tunnel tests on models of the X-2 airplane.

		Sometime in 1953, the Edwards test group purchased a general-purpose Goodyear Electronic Differential Analyzer (GEDA) analog computer. For the first time in aviation history a flight test program was to be supported with a computer simulation. The analog computer was capable of the simultaneous solution of the complex interdependent equations that described the motions of airplanes. The first computer simulator developed for use in flight research was the Goodyear Electronic Differential Analyzer (GEDA), bought by the Air Force in 1955 for X-2 flight planning and pilot training. NACA engineers at the High-Speed Flight Station (HSFS, as Dryden was then known) used it for studies of inertial coupling in the X-3 and F-100, the X-1B reaction control jets, and other research activities. The simulator pilot used a spring-loaded control stick, voltmeters for instruments, and a cathode ray tube for the video display. The GEDA computer itself required several large electronic cabinets the size of a room.
Goodyear Electronic Differential Analyzer (GEDA) logo.

NACA engineers provided the five-degree-of-freedom equations of motion, aerodynamic derivatives, and displays and controls for the analog computer to develop the X-2 simulator. NACA engineers also provided X-2 simulator operations and pilotbriefings. Incidentally, this was the first simulator used (1954) for the combined functions of flight test planning, pilot training, aerodynamic derivative extraction, and analysis of flight data.

With the GEDA line of analog computers, the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation was an early force in the development of the electronic analog computer. Each model had three major units. The L or linear unit contained the amplifiers, plugboard and controls that were needed for all problems. The N or nonlinear unit contained components to generate nonlinear curves, do multiplication or division of voltages. The R or recorder unit was a multichannel recorder that recorded 6 transient waveforms on chart paper, providing the output information. The first model was the L1/N1/R1.