Last night I was testing out a TE I made and was flying as number four. Flying as a non-lead in the flight helps to sharpen the wingman skills for me a bit, so I do it probably more times than I fly as lead. Anyone who is familiar with Falcon BMS knows it is deep and wide with regards to learning how to fly and fight in the Viper “in a simulator at least anyway”. This is also true of the code behind the miracle that is Falcon BMS.
Like I said, I was flying as number four. We were an OCA Strike flight slated to hit an enemy airbase inside of North Korea. Since I was doing some testing there wasn’t any real enemy to fight back so it was a pretty uneventful flight for the most part. We performed two passes and dropped our ordinance when I heard #1 (the AI lead) call out “We are heading home, I’m a dot”
I thought to myself, what did he just say? I’ve heard my younger son use the term “dot” before when throwing a ball, but I have never heard it in this simulator before. At least not until yesterday’s flight. It wasn’t until I did some googling to find out if that was some kind of BREVITY I hadn’t heard before. I stumbled upon this page https://www.aetc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2670829/speaking-air-forcefully-im-a-dot/. How some of these terms are developed over time and used is just amazing to me and what is even more amazing this simple phrase is buried in some code within BMS that someone thought to put in. I searched the Falcon BMS directory for some reference to the term “I’m a dot” and I ran into a file called {FalconBMSInstallDir}/Data/Sounds/F4Talk.csv. Within that file are tons of sayings that I’ve never heard before, or maybe I was just too focused on the action to really listen. Well, I can tell you I am listening now. The more years I spend learning this sim (cuz your just never really done) the more I find things that are just so cool. I am listening now BMS, I’m listening now …