By this time I had upgraded to Microsoft Flight Simulator 95. However, these types of drills that really require practice doing mental math while staring at aircraft instruments are perfectly suited for a home flight simulator. Doing this type of mental math for the first time in the actual simulator (for a grade) is fairly stressful. For example, a sample evolution might be to conduct a starboard 360 degree standard rate turn with a 1000 foot climb followed by a port half-standard rate turn with a 2000 foot decent. Many of the drills consisted of performing timed precision evolutions. An instructor monitors and records the flight at an adjacent console and can provide critique during and after the flight.Įach flight is described in a student basic instruments syllabus, which details the maneuvers to be flown and the grading criteria for that flight. Otherwise, the simulator is fairly realistic with appropriate force feedback in the controls, and an accurate flight model. The student closes a frosted canopy, eliminating all visual cues. The cockpit is a fully functioning replica of the actual aircraft cockpit but without motion. It was during BIs that I made the official “leap” from flying a home simulator for fun to flying a home simulator for real-world training.īasic instruments consists of a simulator phase and a phase in the aircraft. During BIs, the student is introduced to the fundamentals of instrument flight, maintaining heading, altitude, airspeed, and attitude through various drills, and progresses through conducting instrument flight during simulated emergencies. After about six or seven FAMs the student progresses to basic instruments (BIs) before returning to the concluding seven more FAM flights. The first portion of flight school consists of familiarization flights (FAMs). At that time basic flight school was taught in the T-34C Mentor, a 550hp single-engine turboprop aircraft.
Navy and reported to basic flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 1996 I was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Even with this early technology it was possible to experience a degree of “realism” in flight simulation. My dad brought home some extra approach plates and, although I didn’t really understand them, they could be used to fly actual approaches using real-world procedures on the home computer.
On a visit to grandmom’s house I went to the adjacent mall and on the shelf of Babbages saw the game program that would change my life: Sublogic Flight Simulator II. I was the lucky owner of an Atari 1200XL. Note padded covering on the interior of both canopies. Of course, the interior of the cockpit was completely true to the actual Phantom, so that was ultimately very cool, but the capability of the pilot to conduct visual training was clearly limited.Ī former F-4 simulator used for air shows. Think something like Sublogic’s 1985 Jet and you have a fair idea of the graphical capabilities of the simulator. By craning my neck very carefully (don’t push any of the buttons, son…) I could just see past the radar and avionics panel that obstructs most of the RIOs forward view and could discern a featureless monotone colored water and sky, and the gray monotone deck of CV-59 in front of the jet. The entire canopy, both pilot and RIO was covered in dark padding with the only visible computer projection available through the very front of the pilot’s cockpit. Considering that this experience was 32 years ago, I still remember quite a bit about it. One day he had the opportunity to take me to work with him and let me ride in the RIO seat of the F-4 simulator while his student did “traps” on the aircraft carrier.
Marine F-4 Phantom Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) stationed at MCAS Yuma, Arizona as an instructor for VMFAT-101. Sometime around 1980 I had my first flight simulator experience, one that introduced me to a lifelong passion for flight simulation and cemented my determination to become a pilot. At some point the inevitable question surfaces- how realistic are home flight simulators, anyway? This article seeks to address this question from an aviator’s perspective. The enthusiast flies his first simulator, buys more and more hardware, controllers, accessories, and more computer power to run ever more complex software. However, we have the opportunity through computer flight simulation to understand a bit of what goes on in that cockpit, flying 600 knots and pulling 6 Gs. Rare would be the man who, as a child, saw a fighter jet fly overhead and didn’t think to himself, “I want to do that when I grow up!” Unfortunately, most of us don’t become fighter pilots.