by Eric Larson, LT USN January 10th, 2000

  Back to flying the bird. Since it takes a lot of input to start a maneuver, there is also a level of "fineness" to the controls that isn't present in Falcon4.0 (I'm picking on F4 because, obviously, its the latest and greatest F-16 sim on the market and one to which the readers can relate). I don't know how to solve this problem without having joysticks that require about 35lbs of force to attain max deflection. I'd really like to see that happen...

Also, when the scenario began there was a little bit of trim factored in so there was a constant slow roll to the right. Pushing the coolie hat on the joystick didn't have any apparent effect. But it got annoying enough that I revisited the problem again. It worked - it just took a lot (relatively) of input. More than I thought would have been needed. Which also points to very fine level of control: Input was actually being made - it was just so slight that I couldn't perceive its effect.

Since I obviously wasn't going to take on any fuel today, it was suggested I try my hand at flying in formation with the tanker. Not too hard, although canceling out that vertical oscillation was kicking my keester.

Once we were happy with flying formation, I slid back to about half a mile and had a little gunnery practice. Selecting guns prompted the requisite change in HUD symbology. There were additional cues there that I didn't recognise. Seemed to be an additional TD box, but was actually something different. Dunno...

The view of the bullets flying out was interesting. Very little white dots (the resolution on this sim was fantastic) disappearing into the distance - not much drop in the pattern at distance at all. The pilots really liked shooting guns so we were treated with some whoops and yells. Go Air Force.

They were calling my burst a hit, but the bullets were obviously above the port wing root, so I let fly with another burst which went from below the port wing root to above it. That must've been a hit and after a second the tanker just disappeared. (I think the guy sitting back at the console simply hit "delete" on that entity, though). So much for damage modeling...

So, with my concentration free of close maneuvering objects, I took a look around. The terrain was notional - not representative of any particular area on Earth. The ground was primarily green and hilly and had a photo-realistic appearance.

Click to continue

The techs soon placed another aircraft in the sky and I was given cues to steer the jet towards it and prep the fire control system. Soon a tiny white blur appeared against the cloudless sky (no WEAX here, either, by the way - not even a hazy horizon) and I had to reference the radar to get aspect and distance info.

Maneuvering was still a challenge. Let me restate that as, maneuvering "well" was still a challenge. It didn't appear as if I'd been flying flight simulators for years. I was able to understand the lingo, recognize symbology and knew where to look for things inside the cockpit, but handling the real deal was... different.

We set up for an AMRAAM shot from STT and away she flew. I was hoping for cloudy/transparent missile smoke (on the order of Janes F-15), but was disappointed. Again, very rudimentary graphics. Again, the contact simply vanished. No smoke trail, no burst of light, no debris falling on a ballistic trajectory... nothing.

I was surprised to see how much buttonology is *not* done on the HOTAS. As we were changing modes, searching, locking on, and setting up the missile shot I was being prompted to throw this switch, toggle that, select SOI, etc - most of it wasn't on the HOTAS. This is a change for me because I, and several of my online friends, tend to max out the functions programmed into our HOTAS setups. Maybe, in the pursuit of realism, we ought to reconsider our approach to this concept.

On to the landing pattern. I was directed to maneuver the ship towards the airfield and soon saw it over the nose. I was approaching at near right angles and closing fast so I chopped the throttle and turned right while dropping altitude. Since I was rather high for such a close approach I elected to come back around at about a 1000ft and fly a mid-field break... to show my Navy pride.

Go to Part V.