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So, at this point I was asking, "What have we got so far?" The cockpit
wasn't true to life - so this isn't a procedures trainer. The visuals are
dated, to say the least, so we're not aiming at a mission trainer. I
decided to test out the flight model.
From my relatively moderate experience in flight sims (harkening back to the
early MS Flight Simulator days in high school), I attacked the high-G and
low-airspeed realms. Immediately, I was struck with a distinct sense of how
heavy the controls were. I couldn't just crank the bird over, I had to push
hard on the stick to effect a roll, consciously exert to get G and leveling
out wasn't as simple as at home on the trusty (but aging) P200MMX. In fact,
it required two-hands to get the stick all the way back for full elevator
deflection! Interesting...
To explore the high-G arena I climbed to about 6k ft, rolled inverted to
about 40-deg nose down, rolled upright, selected full burner, built up as
much speed as the altitude would allow, leveled out at ~1000-ft and
commenced a level, max-burner turn. I can't quite remember the airspeed I
entered the turn at (I was still getting used to the "feel" and just basic
control was an issue and thus had more of my attention). But I do remember
checking sustaining 5.8-g and about 380kts. Seems pretty good.
Then came the low-airspeed regime. Popping boards, pulling throttles to
idle and the stick full aft, I assaulted the low-speed envelope. I have
read about the Hornet's legendary low-speed handling characteristics and
decided to see for myself how much the "Echo" inherited from the "Charlie."
With the attitude exceeding 60-deg nose up and airspeed falling through
280kts and below, aileron authority was *severely* reduced. Full lateral
stick deflection yielded a torturously slow roll rate.
On the way to
rolling inverted the nose started to yaw sickly toward the Earth, beginning
a lateral back and forth see-saw effect before I could get pointed down.
Airspeed was taking a long time to build up, even at max burner, and it
didn't appear I had control. If I did have control, it wasn't much. I
began fearing another "penetration," but was able to manage a pull-out.
Now to play with the rudder! A level acceleration and another pull towards
the blue with min throttle selected and full aft stick to keep the nose up.
This time with airspeed dropping through 250kts roll was initiated with
pro-rudder with outstanding results. I was rewarded with a near
instantaneous flip of the attitude ladder and began a controlled pitch
toward the negative vertical direction. LOT'S of rudder authority at
high-alpha, low-airspeed. Amazing.
Click to continue
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Leveled out below 500ft, gained airspeed to ~350kts, pulled up again and
reduced power, this time we'd try opposite rudder at high-alpha,
low-airspeed. And, as in the previous experiment, it wasn't hard to get
pointed downward. Again, plenty of rudder authority. The aircraft rolled
heartily in the direction of the rudder displacement.
With those very interesting results I moved on to weapons modeling.
Couldn't exactly get the hang of the HOTAS concept right off the bat, but I
knew weps were on the thumb switch on the joystick. Confirming in the HUD
that I had an AMRAAM called up, I hosed one off. Hmmm. Pretty poor. It
wasn't exactly eye watering, guys. Definietely no alpha blending or other
modern techniques for making sims beilievable. Commercial sims passed this
stage a long time ago.
Calling up the AIM-9 and letting go resulted in the exact same graphics!
Disappointing. But frankly, at this stage, I wasn't expecting much
graphically.
No one was pounding on the wall, but I'd taken up a good 20 mins at the end
of the crew's day so I decided to call it quits right about there. So, in
the end - I wasn't too impressed. The visuals were horrid, no WEAX,
multi-play was limited to 4, the cockpit was "simulated" to say the least,
HOTAS was dead-on, that's for sure, weapons were generic and the 40-deg
field-of-view was un-natural and limiting yet I was able to acclimate myself
to it.
The flight model - I have a feeling this is where this simulator
shines. Never having actually flown an -18E, though, could leave the FM as
an unknown. But it seemed good enough to me and taught me something more
about the low-airspeed/high-alpha handling characteristics of the bird.
Go to Part III
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