From the cockpit inside an EP-1000CT, the view is ominous. Brisk winds push a blanket of heavy snowfall across the runway. What's worse, murky, vision-dimming fog obscures the guide lights. Forget about seeing the clouds.

It's going to be a rough ride.

But there's no need to worry, because the EP-1000CT is a simulator.

That's the magic Salt Lake-based Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.'s powerful technologies can create, enabling pilots to train without putting either themselves or huge planes in jeopardy.

But while the poor weather in the simulator was only an illusion, the storms of the past few years have been all too real for people associated with E&S. Several years without a profit and a series of employee layoffs have been a recent company staple.

Yet, just as the EP-1000CT can furnish fair weather for the training pilots, the company's top official and analysts believe E&S is heading in the right direction, with a clear view of a promising horizon.

"We have been around a long time and made a real contribution to the technology of computer graphics and simulation, and we intend to keep doing that," said James R. Oyler, president and chief executive officer. "We have some really unique new products that will be introduced next year, and I think they have the potential for making the company bigger and better than it has ever been."

It has been bigger in the past. In the late 1990s, E&S was profitable and had more than twice the number of employees it has now. Revenue was about $200 million in 1999, but had shrunk to $123 million last year. The net loss in 2000 was nearly $70 million, but that had been cut to $11.7 million in 2002.

"If you look at raw numbers, they peaked in about 1997 to '98. You've got to wonder why a computer company would peak before the IT sector peaked in 2000," said Jerry Weltsch, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan in Palo Alto, Calif.

"But this is not a typical IT company. It's focused on the training and simulation world, more specifically in aerospace, a sector that tanked hard. They have a lot of eggs in that basket, which was healthy in the mid- to late '90s."

"It's a company that did go through years of tough times from about the 2000 to 2002 time range, but the past year has been a boon for the company, all things considered," Weltsch said. "They've been going through a semi-long-term restructuring process that has been completed, and they've had some final layoffs, a result of any restructuring process, when things get shaken out. But they're set to move forward."

A new way