You Want Me To Fly A Russian What? - By William "BBall" Ball
So you've just gotten your
grubby little hands on the latest "study" flight simulation (or if you
prefer hardcore). You dashed home, ripped through the box, pitched the
manual out of the way, loaded her up, popped a cold one, and got ready
to rock. The opening sequence starts to get your heart beating a bit
faster, you figure out the GUI in a New York second, and hit whatever
button will get you "into the fray" as soon as possible. WOW, look at
all those funny clocks! What's that beeping sound? Was that a bogie flashing
by? How the hell do you padlock this thing anyway? WHO'S THE BOOB THAT
PITCHED THAT MANUAL? Raise your hand if this can describe you and your
latest software wonder? (Can you see my hand in the air?) Ok, so we're
all guilty of the fighter pilot "I can fly a man-hole cover with enough
practice" mentality, but as we grow longer in the tooth, the flight sims
are getting more and more complex.....and I for one, believe THIS IS
A GOOD THING. Which means for us to be able to peg the fun meter in our
new jet, we are forced to do what the genre calls for......study.
In the airline nether world, studying aircraft manuals is a way of life.
We sign ourselves up to fly a new aircraft for whatever reason (more
pay, better flying, better jet, etc), and at that moment we are committed
to what usually turns out to be several weeks of intensive study. We
call them "training cycles", or in the slang of the line pilot: hell
school, the six-week enema, the brain drain, etc. and we start the journey
from idiot to expert with one thing....attitude. After the shock of what
you've done to yourself and your family settles in, you acquire your
manuals, your syllabus, any training aids (now on CD-ROM by the way),
and settle in for the long haul. You know that it all seems to be too
much, but you've done it before, and if you don't panic, you'll come
through it with some of your sanity intact again.
In our avocation of flight sims, we are seeing the leading edge of something
incredible. In the "study" sim environment, we now are able to replicate
a great deal of the things that all real-life pilots experience. At the
airline training academy, I refer to our simulators as just that, they
simulate ALL SORTS of things; tension, frustration, fear (of failure
mostly), apprehension, not to mention just simulating the aircraft, airports,
fog, crosswinds etc. The flight sims are now stepping into that realm.
Not only are we experiencing all the things we have for years, we now
find ourselves battling not only the bad guys with the missiles, but
a different kind of killer, i.e. a blinding "pea soup"of a fog, loss
of a hydraulic system which may mean a no flap/no slat landing, no HUD
to easily show us all the info those funny clocks do, a 90 degree max
crosswind for the only runway available etc, and all this AFTER we've
accomplished the mission. I guess my point is.....the sims are getting
better at showing us ALL the things in the real-world of combat aviation,
so we have no choice but to develop good "study skills" to get up to
speed, and just as importantly, stay up to speed. Let me explain how
I tackle this.
Let me be the first to admit that in my 15000 hrs of flying all sorts
of aircraft, I've never fired a shot in anger. I was raised in a military
aviation family, but other than sitting in a zillion U.S. Army cockpits
throwing every switch, twirling every knob, and moving every control
(the next cockpit pre-flight must've been a nightmare), I've never flown
anything that Uncle Sam bought and paid for. Although, just once I'd
like to answer LAX Approach Control with a, "roger, have the Delta bogey
in sight, understand follow the MD-80, cleared for the visual approach
runway 25L..........and, by the way, we're in too tight for missiles,
switching to guns!" Probably be my last flight. Anyway, I'm no expert
on all the assorted nuances of the "break turn", the "high yo-yo", etc,
and I can scrape my way through the merge, but I do know one thing.......how
to study airplanes.
I start with two realizations. First, that all airplanes are essentially
the same....pull back, houses get smaller,.......push forward, houses
get bigger. And just as importantly, in this world of study sims, you
have to learn to FLY the jet, then learn to FIGHT the jet. In that order.
Here are exerts from the lesson plan for the Full Flight Simulator Lesson
#1, Boeing 757.. "Start-normal, Take-off VFR, Steep Turns, ILS Autoland-VFR,
Landings 10-15 Kt Crosswind, Taxi-in & Shutdown, APU Fire". As you can
see, it's all pretty mundane stuff, and the only real abnormal was the
last item. Now, let's look at the examples from FFS Lessons 7 & 8 (the
two simulator rides immediately before your FAA checkride..."Cockpit
Preflight-Abnormal, Start-Abnormal, Taxi (Low Visibility 600RVR), Take-off
IFR, Trailing Edge Flap Asymmetry, NDB Approach and Landing, Take-off
IFR Engine Failure at Rotation, Single Engine ILS to Ceiling 100' Visibility
1/2 mile, Missed Approach Single Engine, Category II/ Category III Approaches,
Flaps/Slats Abnormal Landing, Taxi-in and Shutdown". You don't get to
this part in the program by just jumping in and "yanking and banking",
it takes TIME, and it takes EFFORT. By now, you've made the metamorphosis
from 757 FNG, to 757 "ace of the base"....and the progression wasn't
by accident. You have deliberately gone from one hurdle to the next,
building on your knowledge, proficiency and confidence.
So we're gonna learn to FLY the jet first you say? OK, jump in, light
the fires, and away we go! Maybe not so fast. As any of you that have
spent more than a few minutes time in Flanker 2.0 will attest, that just
won't work. As a matter of fact BEFORE we ever hit the "full flight"
simulator, the instructors have us in what's known as a CPT (Cockpit
Procedures Trainer) for twelve (yeah, I said twelve) lessons just to
learn the cockpit layout, switchology, flow patterns,etc. The CPT is
the exact duplicate of the aircraft's cockpit and the full flight simulator,
except there are no motion or visuals available. All the controls, switches,
gauges, buttons, etc all work just as in the cockpit. So time spent in
the seat BEFORE lighting the fires, is time well spent. As a matter of
fact, one of the best training aids we use are nothing more than paper
panels of the cockpit that most of us pin up somewhere in our study "cubby
hole" We then spend hours reading about "XYZ", and then looking at said
thing (I also write notes on the panel to myself.....this light activates
at this temp, this switch closes this valve, etc). Someday I'd like to
use my scanner to create panels such as these for the virtual cockpits
we find ourselves in, and thus have a study aid that I know works wonders.
Ok, now we are starting to walk before we run. We've gotten to the point
where maybe not ALL of the gauges, switches, etc., are second nature
to us, but we are comfortable in the cockpit. After all, if we can't
find ourselves feeling kinda "warm and fuzzy" in the cockpit (especially
when things are routine), then we should maybe start thinking seriously
about taking up something other than FLIGHT SIMULATION as a hobby (I
understand Barbie's Riding Club in multi-player is a Hoot). So we are
still "feeling our way around" in this new study simulation. For the
first several flights, I tend to just fly around checking out the flight
modeling, the weather modeling, how the different views look, etc. I'm
nowhere near ready to fly 1V1 just yet, much less a force on force encounter.
On every jet check-out I have experienced from either one of the pilot's
seats, the first few minutes in the "Full Flight Simulator" are spent
doing just that. Flying around, yanking and banking and getting the "feel"
of the machine (of course, once this little gift is over, there are precious
few moments in the training that are as enjoyable......it's back to work).
I have found one of the ways to increase my knowledge of this type of
sim BEFORE the actual combat begins, is using the MISSION EDITOR. I make
some rather vanilla type flights. In Flanker 2.0, I have found a tremendous
ability to increase my proficiency in just flying the jet, by building
simple missions with the idea of just flying in the crosswinds, the fog,
the turbulence, etc. By the way, this is the first sim I've seen whereby
when one flies an approach and landing with a STIFF crosswind, you actually
have to use a crab to maintain the runway centerline, and as you flare,
you drop the up-wind wing and hold opposite rudder (called a slip) to
touch down just as in real life......quite a feat using the keyboard
in lieu of rudder pedals. Very impressive to say the least. So by now
we are starting to feel like we are flying the jet, not the jet flying
us. We're getting there.
Bring on the bad guys. As Duke Nukem would say: "It's time to kick ass,
and chew bubble gum.....and I'm all outta gum!" Let's load up whatever
gunzo, 1V1 they got and show these AI boys a thing or two, right? Again,
let's take this one step at a time. Without question, in my opinion one
of the huge things that can make or break a combat flight simulation
these days is the padlock system. I want to be able to be in padlock
and not feel like I'm on a bad LSD trip. Where am I? Where's the world?
What's my speed? Where's the bad guy? You get the picture. Again I either
build some simple missions, or use the training missions provided and
get up to speed on the padlock early in the game. After all, not all
of your kills are gonna be BVR, are they? In fact, we all know that a
guns kill is better than bad sex (if such a thing exists) right? So spend
some time reading and PRACTICING using the padlock, then take on the
F15, or Mig 29 or whatever you wanna turn into a smoking hole in the
ground.
Let's take stock of where we are in our progression to the "ace of the
base" status. Feel comfortable in the cockpit....yep. Can fly the jet,
not only navigate there and back, but can do it in the weather with some
of the systems out.....no prob. (I can guarantee that if you fly one
of the combat missions I create, you WILL find yourself short on certain
systems, whether the bad guys take it from you or not.) Got the padlock
thing figured out...piece of cake. Let's jump on a multi-player ladder
and make a name for ourselves.......Wrong. Again, one of the beautiful
things about these "hardcore" sims, is that they are complicated to the
nth degree. You wanna press one key to lock up a baddie, press one to
launch a missile for a sure kill.....well, wipe this off the 'ol HD,
and look for a sim made by a nameless company (OK, their name starts
with Nova and ends with logic). We still have to learn the radar system
installed in this modern marvel, and just as importantly the munitions
to get the job done. Anyone feel as I did the first time I cycled through
the weapons in Flanker 2.0? I was left with the look on my face that
I had my "virgin" trip on the 747, when I stepped off the crew-bus in
Tokyo....instantly illiterate. What the hell is an R-73, an OFAB-250,
a ZAB-500 (isn't that what Boris Yeltsin drives?)...you have to find
a way to organize all this.
Almost every airline pilot I've met in the last twenty years uses one
tried and true study method to learn.....index cards. We are responsible,
and are made to regurgitate during our checkrides various speeds, weights,
parameters, limits, etc. about our chosen steed, and a great way to learn
them is using the kindergarten method of "flash cards" per se. Not that
we will have to know the difference between a Kh-25 and an AIM-120 from
memory, but I use the cards to organize my knowledge of the various types
of weapons that I'm sure I'll be using during my "career" in this particular
jet. The manuals these days are great at providing the info, but I hate
thumbing through it trying to find out if I need the AGM-65D or -65G
for this mission, 'cause I can NEVER find it when I need to. The cards
work great.....and no, I don't color code my soup cans at home.
So maybe by now we are somewhere between FNG, and ace. It hasn't been
easy, we've actually had to READ THE MANUAL. Kinda like being back in
high school, and wishing you could just get the Cliff Notes instead of
actually reading War and Peace, right? Well, if I know sim pilots like
I know airline pilots, we hate homework, we love the easy way out, and
"who needs to know all this stuff, anyway"? Well, I'm afraid to learn
these incredible new study sims, we have to do the work, there ain't
no easy way out, and you reap what you sow. I would guess, if someone
actually published a syllabus for a study sim, like the ones we use to
get us through checking out on a new 200,000 pound airplane, it would
have at least ten or fifteen hours spent in the cockpit learning ALL
the nuances of this new aircraft, not to mention the time we should spend
learning about our adversaries (both in the air and on the ground). As
the technology of combat flight simulations becomes more and more advanced,
we are going to have to put in that much more effort to keep up our skills
for surviving in the hostile virtual skies. Again, I use the two thought
method when it comes to learning this breed of "harder" flight simulations:
First, all airplanes are bounded by the same laws of physics, so take
what you already know and expound upon it with your new machine, and
second, learn to Fly the jet before you learn to Fight the jet.
By now I've had the ultimate good fortune to call the front office of
Mr. Boeing's wonderful 757 my workplace for roughly three years. Yes,
it does have the "fits like an old shoe" feeling by now, but it has taken
time, patience and continued work (read study) to get to that point.
The First Officer and I conducted an approach and landing in Seattle
recently to Category III minimums (zero ceiling and 300 ft. forward visibility)
in the midst of a typical late fall "fog storm". Was it interesting?
Of course. Did it get your attention? You bet. WAS IT HARD TO DO? Not
at all. Good training, great equipment, and a commitment to continue
learning the machine and the world it survives in, will always be a recipe
for success. Where do I stand in my "hardcore training" for Flanker 2.0?
Well, I've logged several hours in the sim, have had some fun in the
weather, had system failures, did the gunzo thing with the F-16 and F-15,
and am just starting to get comfortable with all the different weapons.
Do I feel ready to start a campaign...no way. Would any of the world's
air arms send their pilots into combat at my point in the training? Of
course not. It'll take some more effort and time, but I'll be ready soon.
Good luck with your TRAINING, and don't be afraid to spend some time
learning how to (as General George S. Patton said) "make the other guy
die for his country."
