By Thomas "AV8R" Spann

  If you are new to Soviet cockpits, you will see that they are Spartan in their layout, with basic navigational avionics along with a radar warning receiver and radar display in a powder blue console. The more modern Flankers and MiGs have digital MFDs like the F16 and F18, but that is not the variant modeled in F2.

Thanks to the very talented artwork of Dave "HAM" Hamilton, nice touches like Cyrillic cardinal axis in the ball compass and the pilot's reflection in the radar tube can be added. (Look very closely at the radar MFD in the picture provided). The one flaw I found was the failure of the landing hook indicator to let you know if it's in the up or down position, which makes a big difference in carrier landings.

The Padlock

Padlocking (PLCK) is the mechanism whereby the virtual pilot simulates keeping his/her eyes glued to the object of interest. Typically the object being padlocked is your air or ground target, wingman, or incoming missile. In the early days of combat sims there were primitive padlocking systems that would magically lock on at any distance and even through mountains.

Those days are long gone, and F2 takes a very realistic approach to padlocking. If the object is not within range of what they believe is discernible to the eye or targeting system, then you cannot lock on to it. I believe the visual range for object identification is about 10 NM or so on average. Beyond this you will have to track the object with the radar or IRST Infrared.

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Within this visible range you can use the SHLEM or helmet mounted target lockon and tracking system (even then, only within the range of the pilot's head movement.) To further qualify Flanker's modeling, you will have to visually lock your eye onto the target and then slew the SHLEM monocle over the target and acquire it as you would in the real system.

What you gain for all this work is an appreciation of the work involved in having to manually scan the skies and slew the radar antenna, plus the realistic ability to terrain mask or hide from radar by hiding behind the geography. The only problems I've seen here is that the clouds don't attenuate the padlocking or acquisition systems, and the lack of being able to lock on incoming missiles. Again, SSI knows of these and considers them hot issues.

How does one keep SA when you're trying to stay alive in a hostile theatre? Trying to keep your eyes on the skies around you is a real chore in a 3D world viewed with only a 2D monitor's perspective.

Worse, unless you use virtual reality goggles you lose the sense of orientation when your view leaves the cockpit or HUD. In the real world your eyes are attached to your head, and your head to your body through your neck. This direct tactile feedback allows a real pilot to know the relationship between his own ship and the target that is out of the top of the canopy.

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