Real combat simulators
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You can’t see dead six in a Viper anyway…but being able to look up through your lift vector is a strong requirement. 270 degrees is about how far you can turn your neck in the seat, let alone see out from under the edge roll of a helmet. I don’t want to be able to do anything in/with my pit that I can’t do in a real airplane, and part of that is more mindset, really. Like I mentioned - when you have mirrors on a canopy bow and actually start using them…that’s when the “game” ends and the “flying” starts. I consider myself “fair” at BFM…I hope to get better - if you’re not dying, you’re not learning…that’s why there are trainers in the first place.
To really see how much muscle memory can goon you up you need to jump into multiple situations and sims…with variations in HOTAS…and/or control pressures - or stick arrangement. Believe it or not, one of the trickiest trainers I’ve ever been in was the T-45A…partly because of where the stick is hinged at, and partly because the ailerons are very effective until you’re almost at a dead stop. Dunno if the Hawk is like that - the two wings are very different - but you can flip a T-45 over forward if you feed in aileron during the rollout - and we even lost a jet that way, early on. Crew was ok.
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You can see further than 135 from dead center though, so 270 is not enough. There is description in where to position the helmet to see back close to dead six in the BEM, and given the shape of the canopy and cockpit, you have a pretty good rearwards view compared to say a MiG-23.
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I’m also factoring in how fast you can/will bring your nose around…so 270 will likely be sufficient. We hobbyist have a marked tendency to over-do things, I’m finding. I’m trying not to over-do where I can stand it so that I can do more where I want it…four projectors vise three?..not so sure it’s bang for the $$$. But if I did use four, I’d do my best to have it cover me overhead and not to my six.
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Well, if you have multiple projectors, is BMS even capable of displaying forwards and rearwards without moving the projectors, like FSX? FSX uses multiple views to achieve that, but BMS to my knowledge is not capable of that.
Given how important the out the window view is to the sim, Id say if there is one area you want to err on the side of caution for, it is that. Same goes for the HOTAS, mebbe the ICP. If you have a cheap Oxygen panel… well it doesnt get used as often, does it?
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This is why I’m more concerned about what’s happening above me…and why I’m going to use ED Tracker to compensate my vertical FOR. I very rarely want/need to see my dead six directly…but I do very often want to look straight overhead, or as far into a turn as I can - through my lift line.
One other thing I want is air bladders in my seat…I flew a trainer that had that once (the same one that had the head-tracking color spot) and that made a big addition. Just the seat, not the back…though with the laid-back seat in the Viper that could add more, now that I think about that. As far as all of the cockpit controls go, I’ve already got that covered - in fact, I have more real F-16 hardware than I set out to grab…especially when it comes to my ADIs - standby and primary. If you’ve seen RedDog’s pit…that’s exactly where I’m heading. Plus a working HUD. I have Mike’s panel set and ICP kit, all but about four of the toggle switches I need, starting to collect rotary switches, etc. And I have Kiln’s tub plans. I’m in neck-deep…
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I confess I thought killn’s plans were not available anymore. Is he back, then? I have been making plans for building my pit for some time myself… collecting still needs to wait for funds though. So I plan, and plan some more.
I think the best solution for vision, hardware wise, is multiple projectors in all directions that you can see over the side of your pit. The problem is I dont think BMS can support that. Hence the research into other solutions like CastAR or the Rift, which might be compatible.
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Yes - Kiln popped back up on VP a few months ago, but I do have to confess that I probably was very lucky and grabbed what appear to be the last set of plans/prints he issued into the wild when I first started down this road about three years ago. There were a few things I realized were very hard to get, and I set about getting those first…now I’m waiting on Mike to pop up again so I can grab one or two last items from him.
This is why I want my projection screens to run from floor to ceiling…and I only want to use three projectors. I’ll let BMS/ED Tracker do the work of collectively shifting that up and down, but I don’t want anything more than that. And I certainly do not want anything occluding my natural vision…they ought to call it “Occludulus”. Kukki’s 120 degree visual surround was mighty fine, and I’m sure his 270 degree one will be even better - his 120 degree one just wasn’t tall enough for my specs. May turn out to be more a limitation of the room size and focals, and not BMS…or it could come down to BMS actually supporting what I want to do - time will tell.
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You mean, you dont want the occulus to occlude your normal FoR. You are of course happy to limit it with a different setup, like projectors not being able to display it entirely - just so long as you can see the indicators work in the pit.
Well, I guess that is your prerogative. shrugs does this mean seeing as Killn is back, that the community-lead plans are on hold/cancelled?
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I hope regarding Occulus rift,
it would be possible or to have a tiny wide view camera (doesn’t need high resolution) on the rift itself, or a webcam fixed somewhere else - so that you can have a transparent overlayer of the camera, to see a little bit your finger and the keyboard.
The Overlayer could be turned on/off by voice command or some hotas button. -
Another one of the things we miss in desk flying is just how much physical effort it takes to fly and/or fight with an airplane
I have OR DK2 and i only tried it with DCS. After having one dogfight i was breathing like if i was running for that time. I was moving around like crazy, twisting my entire torso in all directions to keep the visual at all times. Sometimes i would turn so much that i can barely (tips of my fingers) hold my hands on stick and throttle. I gave up flying with DK2 because frequent fps dipping under 75 gives me nausea that i can not shake off for hours after that.
As far as not seeing the keyboard and stuff… when i mount OR on my head, there is a little hole around my nose that i look through and see everything. For flight sims where you have many buttons to press in your real (home) simulator, they are coming out with some hand sensors and other additional stuff you can buy. I guess people will be able to see virtual hands and you will not need to see mouse or keyboard any more. -
You can’t see dead six in a Viper anyway…but being able to look up through your lift vector is a strong requirement. 270 degrees is about how far you can turn your neck in the seat, let alone see out from under the edge roll of a helmet.
Bill Dryden once wrote
_Once I started flying the F- 16, I noticed right away that I had a whole new set of muscles in the front of my neck and upper chest. In thinking about this a little further, it should be obvious that the difference in the seat-back angle requires you to exert some physical effort to keep your head from being forced backward under elevated g loads.
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One often-heard item concerning this new seat-back angle is that some people feel they can’t look toward six o’clock as easily as with their previous airplanes. Once again, pay some attention to the fact that this is a different airplane. With a conventional cockpit, you’re sitting erect or leaning slightly forward in the seat. The human makeup is such that the head rotates fairly well about the vertical axis. Therefore, it’s fairly easy to rotate the head and eyes far enough left or right to see over your shoulder. You get comfortable with such a motion because you’re familiar with it. These very same people who are complaining seem to forget that they’re usually doing nothing but looking at aircraft structure once they get cranked around. Looking at six o’clock in the F-16 requires a little different technique. Instead of simply turning your head, try this (don’t even think about leaning forward): use the “towel racks” to push or puff yourself left or right as far as you can go. (Both directions will work, and, with a little practice, you’ll quickly learn which direction is better at that particular moment.) Now, lean your head toward your shoulder in the same direction you’re leaning your body. With a little practice, you can get to where you can support your head with your shoulder while you’re pulling g. Now rotate your head about the now-leaning vertical axis and you’ll be able to look nearly right down the back of the airplane. And better yet, those clever devils have not put any aircraft structure in your way. The only possible interference now is from the top of the seat. Amazing._
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You mean, you dont want the occulus to occlude your normal FoR. You are of course happy to limit it with a different setup, like projectors not being able to display it entirely - just so long as you can see the indicators work in the pit.
Well, I guess that is your prerogative. shrugs does this mean seeing as Killn is back, that the community-lead plans are on hold/cancelled?
Again, my desires are based on my experience with real trainers, and what I consider to be best about all of them. I may end up altering my geometry, but as it stands now I have a pretty solid plan in mind.
No - Kiln’s return has not halted any efforts on the VP community plan set; that effort is still progressing nicely on sever fronts, by several individuals. I have Kiln’s plans, so I intend to use them…I also have a complete set of structure from Pegasus, so we’ll see eventually how the two fit together and what if any alterations I need make.
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I hope regarding Occulus rift,
it would be possible or to have a tiny wide view camera (doesn’t need high resolution) on the rift itself, or a webcam fixed somewhere else - so that you can have a transparent overlayer of the camera, to see a little bit your finger and the keyboard.
The Overlayer could be turned on/off by voice command or some hotas button.I could see inducing vertigo that way…for some people. This sort of covers the kick I have against 3D…eyestrain and effort in re-focusing. You have to go one way or the other, IMO. And how comfortable one is will vary from individual to individual.
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I have OR DK2 and i only tried it with DCS. After having one dogfight i was breathing like if i was running for that time. I was moving around like crazy, twisting my entire torso in all directions to keep the visual at all times. Sometimes i would turn so much that i can barely (tips of my fingers) hold my hands on stick and throttle. I gave up flying with DK2 because frequent fps dipping under 75 gives me nausea that i can not shake off for hours after that.
As far as not seeing the keyboard and stuff… when i mount OR on my head, there is a little hole around my nose that i look through and see everything. For flight sims where you have many buttons to press in your real (home) simulator, they are coming out with some hand sensors and other additional stuff you can buy. I guess people will be able to see virtual hands and you will not need to see mouse or keyboard any more.Nice…! Sounds like this new “virtual hand” thing will also require some training of it’s own - unless you can map your cockpit to actual physical position in the virtual pit…so we’re sort of back to my argument about natural movement. Again, I think you’re either all in or all out when it comes to using VR goggles. Any VR goggles…they could be great by themselves, but confusing and unnatural in combination with real world hardware.
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Bill Dryden once wrote
_Once I started flying the F- 16, I noticed right away that I had a whole new set of muscles in the front of my neck and upper chest. In thinking about this a little further, it should be obvious that the difference in the seat-back angle requires you to exert some physical effort to keep your head from being forced backward under elevated g loads.
……
One often-heard item concerning this new seat-back angle is that some people feel they can’t look toward six o’clock as easily as with their previous airplanes. Once again, pay some attention to the fact that this is a different airplane. With a conventional cockpit, you’re sitting erect or leaning slightly forward in the seat. The human makeup is such that the head rotates fairly well about the vertical axis. Therefore, it’s fairly easy to rotate the head and eyes far enough left or right to see over your shoulder. You get comfortable with such a motion because you’re familiar with it. These very same people who are complaining seem to forget that they’re usually doing nothing but looking at aircraft structure once they get cranked around. Looking at six o’clock in the F-16 requires a little different technique. Instead of simply turning your head, try this (don’t even think about leaning forward): use the “towel racks” to push or puff yourself left or right as far as you can go. (Both directions will work, and, with a little practice, you’ll quickly learn which direction is better at that particular moment.) Now, lean your head toward your shoulder in the same direction you’re leaning your body. With a little practice, you can get to where you can support your head with your shoulder while you’re pulling g. Now rotate your head about the now-leaning vertical axis and you’ll be able to look nearly right down the back of the airplane. And better yet, those clever devils have not put any aircraft structure in your way. The only possible interference now is from the top of the seat. Amazing._
This is a really good write up - thanks, Migbuster!
What flying FAF/BMS has taught me is the advantage gained through roll rate - every pilot has his own technique, and minus the actual forces of G on my body desk or sim flying I’ve learned to use roll to re-position my head/eyes during a fight. This is why being able to look up is more important to me than looking to my dead-six. And this write up also point out something I look forward to experiencing in my own pit - the lay-back geometry of the Viper seat…I’m sure I’m going to think different once I actually get into my seat, because as pointed out I also am used to trainers with upright seating - and rear view mirrors! Really great points.
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Focaldesign and Blu3wolf and Stevie thanks for the info!
It is fairly understandable that the simulation graphics might not be as good as in BMS but then again they have a cockpit replica in front of them. (not always thought). The rift might come in handy to solve the Track-IR problems;
Though a trainer simulator will have everything implemented on the software; Things that currently are not in BMS for the f16. I wonder if there are leaked softwares that one can try compare and see the difference. But then again wont paly in windows -
Well you can have a cockpit replica in front of you with BMS? Too.
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Stevie,
If you ever travel to Sweden, you should stop at Novelair (www.novelair.com), a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from Stockholm. The owner Johan has three functional cockpits, based on FSX (an airliner, a SAAB Draken and a SAAB Viggen). The Viggen cockpit has what he calls a g-force simulator. You get the full harness and trousers on and when pulling g’s the g-pants inflate like the real thing. It also has an inflatable cushion so you experience both positive and negative g’s when flying. It adds a lot to the flying experience when you’re happy to unload g’s after a tight turn.
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I have been through Stockholm once…wish I’d known that then!
Yes - I’ve flown a domed trainer (Harrier) that had strap tighteners and seat pan pneumatics before, and it was far and away one of the most immersive ones I’ve flown; I made the mistake of rolling/pulling into a turn and dumping the nozzles in that thing and it REALLY gave me some feedback - I think I managed to spike on 7+ G and nearly departed the jet at about 200 feet AGL…wing rock, buffet, seat deflated…very violent, but I did manage to relax, rollout, and recover to fly away…then I never touched the nozzle lever again.
I really want to include seat dynamics in my own pit build - as well as the seat shakers that I encountered in the T-45A trainer I experienced - that one had a really violent shaker in it as well…I got to sort of watch as that buffet model evolved over the course of a year. By the end it could really knock you around if you got the airplane in the right…er…wrong…condition. As I have a set of real cushions for my ACES build, I have a fair idea of how to put a pneumatic bladder in the seat pan cushion, but the back pad will prove more difficult - I may have to sew one up custom for the task. I imagine that the seat geometry in the Viper will make the back pad more of a contributor for such a setup.
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@Stevie:What I don’t like about Occulus Rift is that it doesn’t allow you to see the real world - i.e.; the switches in your pit…I’m at work at building a full Block 50/52 cockpit similar to RedDog (I have a build thread over on Viperpits), so Occulus is right out because it disconnects me from the real world where I need to be able to see and reach for switches, displays, controls, etc. in the pit around me.
FWIW, at least the final version of the OR is suppose to have several distances from your face as well. As Gunja described, there may end up and be enough room to use your cockpit switches like what I understand happens sometimes with NVGs, you actually look under them to flip switches and other things.
I have been through Stockholm once…wish I’d known that then!
Yes - I’ve flown a domed trainer (Harrier) that had strap tighteners and seat pan pneumatics before, and it was far and away one of the most immersive ones I’ve flown; I made the mistake of rolling/pulling into a turn and dumping the nozzles in that thing and it REALLY gave me some feedback - I think I managed to spike on 7+ G and nearly departed the jet at about 200 feet AGL…wing rock, buffet, seat deflated…very violent, but I did manage to relax, rollout, and recover to fly away…then I never touched the nozzle lever again.
I really want to include seat dynamics in my own pit build - as well as the seat shakers that I encountered in the T-45A trainer I experienced - that one had a really violent shaker in it as well…I got to sort of watch as that buffet model evolved over the course of a year. By the end it could really knock you around if you got the airplane in the right…er…wrong…condition. As I have a set of real cushions for my ACES build, I have a fair idea of how to put a pneumatic bladder in the seat pan cushion, but the back pad will prove more difficult - I may have to sew one up custom for the task. I imagine that the seat geometry in the Viper will make the back pad more of a contributor for such a setup.
Agreed for fighters a G Seat is the way to go, I along time ago tried to get a G Suit system for G level feedback, but honestly feel like for me BMS now gives with the pilot grunt and HMCS G meter about what just a plain G Suit would do. Now for somebody that has muscle memory tied to G-Suit inflation, that may be a differnet story, but for the rest of us But let me tell you, pneumatics weren’t fun to play with, but maybe today I could pull it off with my more experience, but I don’t think you need pneumatics for the seat, just the suit…
I want to build this for BMS instead of DCS, but my money, time, and getting the software to read Falcon shared memory hasn’t came together yet:
http://bergison.simpit.info
https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?19086-The-Bergison-G-seatIt has the whole positive G harder seat, negative G shoulder harness tightening, plus heave, surge, and sway motion. Simple design, much easier than making a bunch of valves for quick inflation deflation. In the big scheme of things not that expensive of project.