This episode of Futurismo is brought to you by EY's Automotive and Transportation

Sector, the global leader in delivering innovative, pragmatic solutions to enhance mobility.

To learn more about EY's commitment to building a better working world

please visit W.W. EY.com slash automotive. Okay, so what you're seeing here is our simulators.

This is Tom Finnes. And I'm the recruitment and outreach manager for Western

Michigan University's College of Aviation. It's a chilly overcast afternoon in Battle Creek, Michigan,

and Tom and I are in a large hangar with white paneled

walls.

Scattered throughout the hangar are large containers, each one covered in black plastic, as tall as

a giraffe and about the size of a small conference room.

These are Western Michigan's flight simulators where future pilots learn how to soar.

Now right now in the simulator you've got the front half of one of our cirrus

S.R. 20 aircraft in the front you've got a 12-foot screen 220 degree wrap-around

screen so as you're sitting in the cockpit there screen, 220 degree wrap around screen.

So as you're sitting in the cockpit there,

you cannot see anything else.

All you can see is the screen.

We go inside one of the simulators,

where two Western Michigan students are training.

The fake sky around us is covered in gray.

One of the students is in the pilot seat maneuvering the plane.

The other sits further back at a computer that controls the simulation. His job is to cause trouble.

...