Superhornet Review - By William "BBall" Ball Page 2 of 3
How about the cockpit? This
could easily be one of Super Hornet's strong suits. Are you a button
pushing, knob-turning geek like me? Then you're gonna love this cockpit.
Why do you think I became a pilot, if it wasn't for all that button pushing,
knob-turning glory? Well, maybe there was more to it than that (yeah,
those 70's chicks loved that uniform). Anyway, the cockpit is VERY realistic.
You want to start the engines? Not until you start that APU mister! You
want that Radar on while taxiing out? Ain't gonna happen, the radar is
wired through the landing gear "squat switch", and it won't activate
until the weight is off the wheels (no sense making those boys around
the CAT sterile). It also takes a 30 second warm up delay before you
see it working.
The auto-pilot alone (accessed through the UFCD or Up
Front Control Display), can hold an attitude, an altitude (baro or radar),
hold a heading, fly a selected heading (either by typing the heading
into the UFCD or activating the HSEL switch) or fly in a coupled state.
It can be coupled to fly to a waypoint, a TACAN station or to an ACL
(Auto Carrier Landing). This cockpit looks and operates very well. The
Virtual Cockpit is done quite well also. One interesting feature is that
when you're in the Virtual Cockpit and mouse around and "look" directly
at a particular instrument, a DDI, the UFCD or the MPCD (lower middle
screen with map/nav displays), you can click a mouse button, the instrument
now fills the monitor screen and that instrument is now clickable just
as in the 2D cockpit. Quite cool.
The wingman AI takes a bit of getting used to. They do take a small effort
to master. First, they seem to take-off before you as the flight lead…..a
bit rude in my opinion. When airborne, they go about their flight plan
not waiting for you. One workaround is to place an extra waypoint for
them to fly to, then when you're airborne, give them the "follow me"
command. All wingman commands are accessed through the UFCD with a series
of menus from the "DDI" button. From the Maneuvers Page they include:
Follow Me, Resume Mission and Return to Base. From the Combat Page: Attack
My Target, and Break High/Low/Left/Right Attack to set up a bracket or
a pince, etc. You can set up the formation from the Close Combat Formations
Page be it Spread, Close Combat, Box or Ladder. You can also determine
their status from the Status Page, which will tell you their number,
task being accomplished and range. From what experience I've had with
them, the wingmen do what you ask, when you ask. Good help is hard to
find.
O.K., how about the all-important padlock system? First of all, let's
get the terminology correct. It's not a padlock, it's a "headlock" (now,
wait a minute, that's what my illustrious Governor Jesse Ventura is known
for). So to find ourselves in the headlock view, the target must be within
3 miles of your aircraft, and you simply press the F4 key. At that moment
your head turns to the target (your head "gimble" limits are apx. 90
degrees up, 30 degrees down, and 135 degrees left and right). When the
target is out of the view of the HUD picture, the reticle that superimposed
itself over the target is now augmented by two boxes. The larger of the
two is the "Range of movement" and it represents the limits of the physical
sphere of view around your aircraft. The smaller box (within the large
box) is the "Field of view" and represents your current field of view
within the available range of movement. Also in and around the larger
box, you have displayed a horizon reference line, your airspeed and altitude,
the current pitch of your aircraft and the identity of the target you
are "headlocked" on. You can be "headlocked" on a target other than the
target your weapons system is locked onto. You can cycle through targets
by pressing CTRL and F4. All in all, I found it to be a system that is
easy to learn and become very comfortable with quickly.
When you do find yourself in the CAP, or over the target, what is available
to do the deed? As in any depiction of a combat aircraft belonging to
Uncle Sam, one has a multitude of radar modes and/or weapons to match
the answer to the problem. The APG-73 radar in the Air to Air mode, give
us all the usual suspects. Range While Search (RWS), Track While Scan
(TWS) (both of these have Auto Acquisition sub-mode available [AACQ]),
Velocity Search (VS), Wide Acquisition Air Combat Maneuvering (WACQ),
Vertical Acquisition Air Combat Maneuvering (VACQ) and Boresight. Also
a nice job with the Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR) mode is
used. These will be enforced with the M61A1 Vulcan cannon, the AIM-9M
Sidewinder and the AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.
As far as mud-moving? The ground radar modes available are MAP (default
mode), GMT, and SEA. In addition we have the AAS-38A NITE HAWK (Navigation
and Infrared Targeting Equipment) FLIR pod to use with the "laser guided"
munitions. Those munitions read like a "who's who" in the U.S. arsenal
of doom. Here they are: both types of AGM-65 Mavericks (laser and IR),
AGM-84D Harpoon, AGM-84E SLAM, AGM-88A HARM, AGM-154 A/B JSOW, BLU-107
Durandal, CBU-87B CEM, CBU-89B Mine dispenser, CBU-97B Wide-area anti-armor,
LAU-61A Rocket Pod, MK-82/83/84, MK-82R/83R Retarded, MK-82LG/83LG/84LG
General purpose laser-guided, and the GBU-29/30/31/32 JDAM. That's enough
to satisfy the hunger of pretty much your everyday mud-mover. Sadly no
Virginia, there is no napalm….that would be too close to heaven. The
interface makes it easy to customize your fuel, and weapons…a big plus
in my book (I hate "locked-in" loadouts).
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