by Tim "Flyboy" Henderson

  Quick Impression Overview

DI models full carrier ops, which Jane's does not. Does it really matter?

It certainly matters to me. If you never tried DI's simulation, you likely wouldn't miss these features when you fire up Janes' simulation. But I spent almost two hours in DI's sim prior to walking onto the deck in Jane's sim. I went, I saw, I was conquered.

Carrier ops in DI are so good they make me cry.. Seriously, they aren't perfect if you really know the ropes, but they have that "I am really there" quality to them that adds greatly to the beginning of your mission. It is really incredible.

The last mission I flew was a ground strike mission late at night, and as I rotated my view to cockpit right, across the glare of the deck lighting, I watched another Hornet firing up on the CAT and the Plane Director interacting with the pilot. The Director gave him the signal then ran out of the way. The pilot spooled up his engines and went to full afterburner, and then was away, a steam trail from the CAT operation following in his wake.

Damn.. it was good to be there!

There are no problems or limitations to Super Hornet when you're on deck. They have even modeled the APU. You don't get any engines spooling up before you turn on that auxiliary power unit.

Lifting Off the Deck

The problems with DI's sim don't show up til you're off the deck.

First, in the name of realism, they don't allow you to manipulate a single control while the game is paused. I call this, "the Pause function from Hell." Most likely this was dreamt up by a bureaucrat in Washington.

Hit CTL P for DI's Super Hornet (hereafter DISH for short) and the screen goes dim and all functions cease. You can't access another view, and you can't experiment with control modes. In other words, you better have that manual at your side and you had better hope you understand the directions explicitly. This makes the learning curve nasty.

Jane's FA18

Compare Jane's F/A 18E (hereafter JF18 for short) where you hit P or ALT P to pause the sim, but still have full access to the viewing system and full functionality for radar etc. The only thing Jane's doesn't allow you to do is to launch weapons while paused. No problems there.

Click to continue

As if this wasn't frustrating enough, in DISH when you want to quickly reference a key command you must pull out a budget version of the key command card. No, you don't actually get a command card, you get a small slip of colored paper and a magnifying glass. Oops. Scratch that, they forgot to include the glass. You had better buy one if you are 35 years plus however, because at my 39 years of age I need one to read this sheet.

And you WILL be searching on this sheet for commands, because few are obvious. Granted, F1 will give you the straight cockpit view, but it won't return you to a non-slewed perspective. When you want to move the target designator you'll have to reach for DEL plus I,K,O or P. Thankfully, you can also accomplish this action with the right mouse button or program the chorded function to your HOTAS.

Jane's, however, provides a fold-out command card and a spiral bound manual which is considerably more detailed in the radar and targetting sections. Why? There is more detail modeled in the weapons and targetting systems. More on this later.

Terrain and Graphics Models

Training Flight in DISH

By now you may have heard the rumor that the terrain engine for DISH is taken from an enhanced F16. I have no idea if that is true, but it certainly looks to be true. It's bland folks, very bland. No immersion factor here.

The terrain model in JF18, on the other hand, looks like an enhanced WW2 Fighters. I suspect there is some level of detail thingy happening here, since it looks great from up high, and looks great from down low. Sense of speed is quite good.

Clouds, friends? DISH has done alright, but JF18 is better. Again, think WW2 Fighters but improved. And varieties and layers of cloud, fog, weather etcetera in JF18 are truly splendid. Graphics are a non-issue for me in JF18, a bit disappointing in DISH.

COMMS and Control

If you are a multiplayer hound, DISH may disappoint you. Deathmatch mode is the only game in town for this edition of DI's sim.

Go to part III.