FIGHTERTOWN: MY PERSONAL EXERPERIENCE

by Paul Mahler

For the last six months, or so, I have been trying to get to "Fightertown" in Irvine, CA. FighterTown sells time in jet simulators. I finally made it. Here is what I saw and how I feel about it.

As you drive up, you see Fightertown in a large new building in suburban Irvine. When you walk in the lobby, there is a host or hostess dressed in a flight attendant uniform.

FighterTown has seven or eight simulators. Most are static, but two are full motion sitting on hydraulic actuators. Some of the static simulators sit facing a large (very large like eight feet diagonal) projection TV screen. Some of the static simulators have enclosed cockpits with crts inside. Both the full motion simulators have fully enclosed cockpits.

FighterTown bills the simulators as F16, F14 and Stealth Bomber simulators. The whole day I went, the place was jammed all day and I could only get time on a static simulator, an F16.

The initial visit is usually thirty minutes for an orientation followed by a thirty minute checkout ride. I signed up for an hour.

After you sign in, you are issued a coverall and sent to a squad room for the orientation. The orientation is a 15 minute video showing the basics of flying the simulators. the orientation is followed by a question and answer period of a few minutes. Then you are taken to the simulator you have signed up for.

All the simulators sit around the perimiter of a large dark room. The center of the room is occupied by a rasied control tower.

Some of the simulators look a lot the thrustmaster cockpits, in fact the one I was in may even have been a thrustmaster cockpit, although I couldn't tell for sure. The switch panels didn't look like Thrustmaster switch panels, though.

A ground crew member, also dressed in a coveral, starts you off with some cockpit familiarization. Where are the various controls like the landing gear actuator, engine start switch, and flap actuator?

Well, this was the first problem, I was bummed that it was supposed to be an f-16 simulator and here was a toggle switch for flaps, Sigh. Of course my favorite sim, Falcon 3.0, has this same problem.

Anyway, the briefing tape said these were simulators like the ones the military used, but this is really not even close. The cockpits had few working switches and a sinlge glass heads down display for all instrumentation. I said cockpits plural because I was told all the cockpits are the same for all the simulators.

They handed me a helmet, and showed me which switch was push to talk. for the radio. The ground crew lowered the canopy and I was ready to go!

The "tower" is great. It is staffed with operations personnel. They do some of the things real tower people do, like clear you for take off. They also have control over the simulator and can do things like re-set your simulator when you crash and burn--Like real simulators!

I spent the first half-hour getting familiar with the simulator. The controls were HOTAS, but the flight stick was very sloppy with almost a foot of travel. Not like a real (or good computer) stick. I use a thrustmaster FCS Mark I at home and it feels significantly better. If I were running FighterTown I would rush out and get top or the line strain- guage Thrustmaster sticks. The rudders were nice, but they didn't have brakes on the toes, you have to use the speed brake switch on the throttle. (guck.)

I was facing a large, dim, projection TV screen. I was cleared for take off and did so. After I flew around for a while, the tower called and asked if I would like to try a carrier landing. A Carrier landing? In an F16?? Oh well. I said no, let's try a runway.

The simulator software itself was very weak, no comparison to F3 or Tornado, the one's I have. The graphics weren't as nice, I thought, as F3 and the dim screen was a drag.

The plane didn't handle well, even after the tower switched me to "fighter" mode. Pretty sluggish, no real power compared to F3. The roll rate was also much slower thatn an F16. I didn't get a lot of time in, but the flight model seemed very un-realistic.

What was great was having a tower to talk to--as long as they were able to maintain the illusion. The trouble was they weren't really very well trained. A better trained tower crew would have made the trip much more realistic. Hearing them through the helmet was great, really added to the realism. Sort of like the flight helmets they used at SimCon last year.

My overall impression is that I would like to go back once more to try the full motion simulator, just for yucks, but after that it's back to F3. I think F3 is really a lot more fun to fly. I think that this is because it seems to be, in many ways, more realistic. In the long run, F3 is cheaper too. The hour at FighterTown set me back about $50 or $60, I forget exactly what it was.

What was really nice about FighterTown, though was the tower with real people. The separation of the instruments from the terrain display helped add a great deal of realism. It made me fanticize that SpectrunHolobyte might some day create a sim that uses two computers, or at least two processors, one for the cockpit and another for the environment. Sounds like a perfect application for a symetrical multi-processor!

A more likely solution might be for SH to go in cahoots with TM. TM could produce a smarter cockpit with hardware for instrumentation. SH could teach the sims how to talk to the cockpit. The cockpit could have a small computer on board that would drive all the avionics. Then, all that would be remaining would be to put hydraulics on the cockpit so that it moves. Hey, I know it would be expensive, but it's my fantasy, I can dream up anything I want. In fact, while we're at it let's have everyone standardize on a bus.

Actually, my REAL fantasy is to get a real F16 simulator. The Airforce, I think it is, just contracted for a series of low cost F16 simualtors for $1.5M each. While this is more than my wife is going to let me spend, it's a LOT less than the old simulators they already have. In fact, the cost of these things is going down fast as computers get cheaper.

There is a company in Mt.View, CA that is designing and trying to install activated F16 simulators for a deal similar to Fightertown. I hope they make it and that the simulators are more realistic. I also heard that one of the hotels in LasVegas is doing something similar. I would love to be able to go to one of these places if the simulations are realistic. If I do, I'll write another article.

Anyway, as the price for computing comes down, within a few years Falcon 6.0 might be pretty damn exciting. Of course, we might all need security clearances before they would let us buy one.

This article is Copyright (C) 1994 by Paul Mahler for Game Bytes Magazine. All rights reserved.