by Paul "Grypen" Leeming

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.

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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.

A screen shot from F/A18 Korea...

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.

Go to Part II