Recently I had the good fortune to spend some time flying a real Hornet simulator thanks to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), so I thought I would share this experience with those of you who fly computer simulators so you will have some idea of the similarities and differences of the two.

To give you a quick background on myself, I am currently a serving officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), however I am changing over to the RAAF in 1998 to commence pilot training. My computer is a Pentium 166 with 48MB of RAM, with a Diamond Monster 3D card (3Dfx Voodoo chipset) and the full Thrustmaster FLCS/TQS/RCS setup for the ultimate in fighter simulator realism. OK, enough of me, now for the comparison.

The first obvious difference between the PC and the real thing is price! Whereas my setup cost me around AUD$4,000 the real simulator cost millions and has an ongoing maintenance budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year plus more if you add any upgrades. So what do they get for the money?

The physical simulator system consists of the actual cockpit and monitors (note that this simulator was not of the full dome variety that the United States has), the control room which is where the supervisors 'control' the Hornet's systems and opposing aircraft (with every conceivable malfunction known!), and the computer room which houses all the hardware that runs the system. Compare this then to your average PC which is housed in one small case and has one monitor, with no cockpit to speak of unless you are an absolute diehard who is also rich enough and has the room to custom build your own.

Flying the real Hornet (sim!) is definitely a new experience though. I began the day by sitting in the control room watching a real Hornet pilot take the aircraft through some touch and go's, seeing his view out the cockpit through the duplicate monitors in the room.

The control room mirrors all the cockpit instruments as well as having graphical representations of the aircraft's flight profile for instant appraisal of glidescope accuracy etc. It gave me a feel for the instrumentation of the cockpit and HUD symbology, and what to look for in the approach.

Although I don't own the game F/A-18 Hornet 3.0 from Graphic Simulations Corporation (I intend to buy FA18:Korea which will have 3Dfx enhancements) I have seen it played and can attest to its cockpit accuracy. Bitchin' Betty sounded exactly the same (she was bitchin' to me quite often during my first approach!), the scopes looked the same, and generally all the system lights and instruments are completely accurate in the GSC sim.

After watching this for some time, I got my turn in the cockpit for some hands on flying. The instructor gave me a quick appraisal of the buttons and controls I would need for flying and landing, then I closed the canopy and spooled up the engines. The operator placed me at the start of the Sydney runway (for some Sydney Tower buzzing!) and I pushed the throttles forward for takeoff. At this point I need to mention the graphical aspects of this particular simulator - they weren't as good as the PC!

My favourite simulator is EF2000, and I fly it most days to keep 'current' on dogfighting and general handling. With the TACTCOM addition and the 3Dfx patch applied, this simulator is about as close as you can currently get to realistic handling speed and dynamics, and as a bonus the graphics are fantastic, smooth and realistic with nice fog effects and great distance fade.

None of this was present in the real Hornet simulator though, and I was flying in a twilight world where there were polygon buildings and lots of lights and stars, but no real terrain or atmospheric effects to speak of. The only benefit of the real thing over the PC was that it had multiple monitors for a wrap-around effect, enabling you to turn your head naturally to follow ground features etc.

Given that PC technology is slowing making this possible thanks to the VR headsets currently on the market and better models to come, I have to say that the PC wins this aspect hands down. A proper dome simulator may turn this around a bit, but I can only write on what I know, and having seen pictures of these I still think that PC's have the edge.

Back to the cockpit, and as I approached takeoff speed I rotated the nose gently to lift off. Now my 'training' with EF2000 started to pay off, as I kept the nose at about 5 degrees above the horizon to gain speed and altitude whilst cycling the landing gear and flaps before the speed caused any damage to the aircraft. At about 400kts I did a quick aileron roll to gauge the roll rate, then commenced a steep turn through 270 degrees to line up with Sydney Tower. My EF2000 experience paid off as I was able to correct for the 'pitch bobble' effect that occurs after a steep turn before it happened. A new aspect to turns was that although the Hornet is a fly-by-wire aircraft, the stick does reproduce force effects to let you know how the aircraft is loaded in flight, so pulling around in a steep turn actually required effort to do, especially in a high G turn. Speed bleed off is fairly similar to the effects in EF2000, and I remembered to increase throttle power to compensate.

By now I was at about 10,000ft and doing 550kts, so I opened the speed brake and throttled back whilst at the same time pushing the stick forward to enter a dive towards the Sydney Tower and the Opera House. Due to the speed I discovered, much like EF2000, that it is quite hard to just push the aircraft forward into a dive, so I rolled inverted and pulled it into the dive instead. This was much more responsive and once again I was reminded of just how good PC sims have become in the physics modelling of real fighters. They will only get better too!

Rolling right way up once more I increased the throttle to full and leveled off at about 800ft, aiming to the right of the tower..... and then it was gone, all the windows no doubt shattered by my (by then) supersonic flyby! Pulling up hard I went vertical to about 15,000ft, then levelled off for some aeros. After a loop and another aileron roll I decided to try a landing back at Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport. To save time, the operator was able to slew the aircraft so that it was on finals approach at about 5 miles out, and this procedure reminded me a lot of the Microsoft Flight Simulator slewing method, with the graphics whizzing past.

Back to normal mode and the slew tactic suddenly presented a problem - I still had the throttles at 100 percent! Quickly I pulled them back to idle and deployed the speed brake, but it shook me up a little and I spent the rest of the approach trying to get the correct speed and power settings for the throttle. This was made more difficult by the fact that my home setup uses a Thrustmaster TQS, which has an arced throttle movement and sits forward on my desk, whereas the real thing is of a sliding nature with a fair range of movement, as well as being a split throttle and not quite as ergonomic as the F-16's.

This throttle also sits down by your left side, which is much more comfortable than my home throttle, but meant that I was not used to the movement. I can definitely say that having now played with both, I can see why the F-16's HOTAS setup is widely regarded as the best in the world. People, if you want the ultimate in ergonomics and function, with the design development thanks to the multi-million dollar budget of the US Government, the F-16 series joysticks as copied by Thrustmaster are THE BEST, not just in games but in the real world too!

The culmination of all this fiddling and over-correction was that I messed the landing up big time and pancaked the aircraft just short of the runway. Oops! Even Navy hardened landing gear can only take so much before it collapses. The operator was kind enough to put me back at the start of finals again, and this time I was much more prepared for the speed and sink rates at different power settings, and actually managed to land it quite well!

One nice bonus of the Hornet's HUD over that of EF2000 is that it has a true nose direction caret (for nose up angle) as well as the flightpath caret, with a descent rate display above the altimeter on the HUD, meaning that you can calculate in your head the likely time to landing. It might sound complicated but in practice it works almost intuitively and definitely helped me get down in one piece, especially in the simulator environment where visual cues are not so accurate.

There is also a glidescope indicator on the HUD as well as a power setting bar which helps you apply the correct amount of power for a smooth descent. The Hornet's carrier landing design certainly shone through, and with practice I am sure I could have gotten much better and precise than I did in the limited time available to me.

A feature of the simulator that really heightened the realism was the simulated motion. I say simulated because the simulator is actually on a fixed base, but the seat has had air bladders inserted in the cushions which pump up or deflate to simulate forces on the body. This system may sound low tech, but in practice it worked very well and I can see it becoming part of the Force Feedback concept on PC's in the next five years or so.

By varying the bladders, roll sensations and G's can be simulated with some accuracy, although it obviously won't match a moving base simulator which can provide much stronger motions. However, in tandem with the graphics it provided a very immersive experience and I certainly felt it work on my first landing!

Overall the experience left me amazed at just how real PC simulators have become. It also allowed me to appreciate the advance of technology in cockpit management. The Hornet was the first glass cockpit fighter, even though it consisted of just three CRTs and a bunch of backup dials, switches and warning lights.

Contrast this with the EF2000 displays (they are quite accurate, I have seen the real thing at an airshow) and then another generation again, the F-22, and you realise that pilots are getting ever better feedback with less confusion and more situational awareness. With the next generation of PC simulators modelling hundreds of individual systems, accurate damage, real time weather, true dynamic campaigns and ultra-realistic graphics, I have to say that we are entering a time when the line between PC and real life is becoming very blurry indeed, just going on what I have seen of current technology.

I am sure that future pilots will use PC simulation to supplement their flying hours in the real thing, enabling instrument practice and many other facets of real flying in the comfort of their own home. Many of the rudimentary tactics now available in PC simulators are true to life, and will get increasingly complex and more realistic in the next generation of sims such as F22:ADFand Falcon 4.0. It's not everyday you get the chance to sit in on a real life 2 v 2 ACM brief as I did and understand exactly what is going on! This is testament to the accuracy of some of the sims out there today.

The ACMI display from F22: ADF..

Incorporate force feedback devices and better VR technology and you are looking at such a suspension of disbelief that you will truly feel like you are in the cockpit of a real jet fighter. The good simulations will become increasingly complex, however to those of you who wish to become pilots in real life Air Forces around the world, I can say that you will stand yourself in good stead if you buy the realistic ones and master them. I did, and it has paid off with my acceptance into the RAAF to fly the real thing.

If only some company would now work on a simulation of the aircraft used in military flying schools around the world (PC-9/A anyone?), with proper instrumentation and instructor voices to guide you (hint hint games companies! Janes Longbow is the only one doing this so far).....