It's What You Make It

By Robin Johnston

One of the greatest days of my life was when I discovered flight simulators for home computers. I went from F/A-18 Hornet for the Mac to most of the ones available for the PC, including all of the hardware necessary for as real an experience as possible, including joysticks, yokes, throttles, rudder pedals, multiple monitors, etc. I have logged thousands of hours of military and civilian fixed-wing time, with emphasis on instrument flying, and many more in civilian and military helicopter simulations.

The reason I'm writing this is to share a couple of experiences I've had in applying the simulation time to real world experience. The continuous debate about the "reality" of flightsims that goes on, I think, is a matter of how much you apply yourself to the process of simming. I have always taken my simulations very seriously and tried to be the best pilot I could be.

For my 50th birthday my wife gave me a one hour lesson in a Bell Jet Ranger (not cheap!). The instructor and I did the preflight and he started it up (too bad MFS doesn't put the effort into realism in the cockpit like Fly! does) and he lifted it up into a hover and said "OK, you have the pedals, keep it pointed at that red truck!" I did, and then he said, "OK you have it!" He never touched the controls again. We did some hovering and pedal turns, and then took off from Van Nuys airport and flew west over the San Fernando Valley. I made an approach, hover, set-down, pick-up, and sideways movements in an open field, then took off again and flew back to the airport where he had me land in front of a tarmac where my wife had my surprise birthday party waiting.

I know that the only reason I could do that was the sim time I spent just hovering and learning to control the aircraft with the settings on Hard and the realism up all the way. Three years later I'm still buzzed about it and when I watch the video of my approach, hover and landing at the party, I know that if life had been different, I could have done that for real.

The other experience happened right before Christmas of this year. My 10 year old son and I went to Camarillo Airport just to look around and as we were leaving I said, "Hey, why don't we go flying?" So we found a flight school, an available instructor (furloughed airline captain) and a Cessna 172. I told him about my 50 hours so he just coached me as we did the preflight, start-up, taxi, etc. I told him I wanted some real instrument time so after we took off and I got my sky legs back, I went under the hood and we did an ILS approach into Oxnard airport, him handling the radios while I flew the needles down to minimums. At one point I was a little off the glide slope and said that I wasn't doing very well, and he said that he had instrument pilots that couldn't do as well as I was doing. Mark one down for simming!

We shot two touch-and-go's and then went back to Camarillo and finished, and the only time he touched the controls was when I asked him to so that I could call my wife on the cell phone and tell her where we were and that this was her Christmas present to me. We landed and taxied back to the sound of my son's chattering excited voice. He wants to be a pilot someday and he has the eyes of an eagle!

So now I sit here at my computer, like so many other desktop pilots, that maybe for some small reason or another we could never fulfill our dream. If life had dealt me a different hand, I know now that I could have done it. But the beauty and the joy of our simulators brings flying into our lives in a way that we can for a time make ourselves into anything we want, and to really appreciate those who have passed the test and do it for real every day. Simming is what you make it.

Robin Johnston
robindi@pacbell.net

My comment to an F-15 pilot at an air show; "When you get up and go to work every day, it can't suck!" And he smiled to himself and said quietly, "No, it doesn't."

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