by Tim "Flyboy" Henderson with Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson January 11th, 2000

  Carrier Ops

DI models deck hands in their carrier ops, which Jane's does not. Does it really matter?

It matters to me (Tim) but doesn't matter very much to Len. 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.

The on-deck procedures in DI are very immersive. They aren't perfect to those who 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's 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 with the exception of a large collision bubble. You don't have to actually contact a crew man in order to collide with him, so be cautious. Systems modeling for startup is quite complete, including the APU. You won't be able to spool up your engines before you turn on that auxiliary power unit.

Lifting Off the Deck

Viking1: The limitations of DI's carrier ops 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 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. Granted: in real life there is no PAUSE function. But not having it complicates the learning process; having access to views and controls while paused is an important component of game play.

Click to continue

Tim: It's in the process of leaving the deck that you will notice something else missing from DISH: comms. In JFA there are comms galore. On the carrier alone there are four different controllers who will give you instructions. Once off the deck you are passed on to yet another controller, and all the time you will also hear calls from other flights. It's a bit overwhelming until you are outside the marshall area. All this contributes greatly to immersion.

Auto or Manual?

Now suppose you want to quickly reference a key command in DISH? 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 (Tim) 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.

Training Flight in DISH

Terrain and Graphics Models

Viking1: 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 stuff which impacts the immersion factor for me.

Go to part III.