"He became known as the "Barefoot Bandit" by reportedly committing some of his crimes barefoot, once leaving behind 39 chalk footprints and the word "c'ya!". Despite the widely reported nickname, officials said that he more often wore shoes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-airpla...
One thing that has surprised me is that airplanes are actually pretty simple machines. They're not hard to fly, either.
The part that is expensive (besides fuel) and time consuming is all the emphasis on safety. You want to be REALLY sure your plane is working and REALLY sure you know how to fly it.
If you just want to hop in a plane and don't care much about survival... you could probably figure it out. Just like a 14 year old could probably figure out how to drive a car or crash it immediately.
And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of ways to kill yourself even in a simple airplane.
For many pilots, a "crash" must be unintentional. Deliberately putting an aircraft down somewhere other than a runway is "ditching" or a forced landing, but never a crash.
For his skill level, walking away is a great result. However, there are Alaskan bush pilots who land some pretty remarkable places. Some of them are not official runways and many of the ones that are official (Alaska has a LOT) won't have ATC support. OFC, Alaskan bush pilots aren't representative of pilots overall, but they still show we should be careful about overgeneralizing.
When my father and his friend tipped their plane forward and bent their prop landing on a gravel bar moose hunting, it wasn't a "good" landing, but neither was it "ditching" or a "forced landing" (they were able to unload the plane and trim the prop enough to fly the plane out so it wasn't that bad of a landing either). From past discussion on here, it is a little complicated if it was legally considered a "crash".
On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will replicate all of it faithfully enough, so the only remaining thing is the “feel” of the plane which you can hopefully experience a bit during flight before landing.
In contrast, a big passenger jet has insane amounts of different systems that need to be configured - not only are those typically not fully replicated in consumer-grade simulators (you probably don’t want to spend 30 minutes configuring your plane for takeoff before being able to start a game) but even a complete simulator such as the one used for pilot training won’t be enough to actually learn all those systems - that’s why it takes years of training.
Simulator-only experience for a big plane? No chance. For a small plane? Yeah if there’s no damage or other edge-cases and the weather is on your side you have good chances of making it especially if you have an instructor on the radio to double-check everything.
Chances are if you're taking over in an emergency, the radios are already tuned to a frequency with other humans on it, and you just need to know how to talk (there's a push-to-talk arrangement) and how to listen to what they say back. If you need to tune the radio that's already bad news, but if you happen to be reading this thread you want 121.5 MHz aka "Guard" and once people realise you're serious you should get help quickly.
The big plane can in principle perform the entire landing and roll out at a suitable runway, it's called a CAT IIIc landing. No hand flying is required, much less knowing the full "from dark & quiet" procedures. But arranging for that to happen is going to need communication with the ground. Most scheduled flights don't actually perform an automated landing of any sort since that would leave pilots rusty, and so your intended destination probably isn't capable or isn't set up to do it - but if a non-pilot is now flying a big plane that's not "most scheduled flights" that's an emergency, and so the fact that the only CAT III runway is currently being used for take-offs, or is closed to repair the markings, or is at a different airport on the far side of the city, does not matter. They will do what it takes to get you down safely.
The reason we don't use CAT IIIc landings ordinarily is that unless there was an emergency they don't solve a problem we really have. The CAT IIIc landing puts the aeroplane safely on the ground (good) but leaves it on the runway, where it's a hazard to everybody else. Under IIIc conditions a human can't see a hand waved in front of their face - which is why the landing was automated - so taxiing is impossible. If you're a non-pilot who just saved 200 people's lives that's not a problem, you're down safe now. If you're a commercial pilot with six more commuter jets stuck behind you on a Monday morning it's terrible so we just close the airport to all traffic in those conditions.
I know people joke around on guard, but, I have to imagine joking about that topic is rather taboo.
responder: "What are you thinking about?"
(But then, I'm a self-designated FlightSim enthusiast with several thousand hours of documented simulated flight time over the last 20 years, so ...)
No, no, I'm not saying one could actually be a fighter pilot just by flying DCS F-18. But I wonder about the realism. It seems every single knob and button and thingy on the cockpit is clickable. Every subsystem is simulated. The manual is reportedly huge (I don't own it, just watched videos on YouTube). With such a realistic flightsim, TrackIR, a HOTAS setup, and all the gadgets, how far is it from the real thing?
I wonder how far you can go on an actual F-18 with just DCS experience. I suppose a huge detail that is missing is the pressurized suit and the enormous G forces.
(I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified, and is instead generally available to the paying public. I suppose the answer is "because as a private individual, you cannot buy an F-18 with weapons").
You will probably be able to turn all the systems on in an aircraft of the right vintage though.
There's a reason you don't need much equipment for a procedural flight simulator, as opposed to one that can replicate actual flight.
Still, DCS offers a tremendous value as a low cost training platform. The DCS A-10C module was built for the US Air National Guard to use as a training simulator platform to train A-10C pilots, and other countries and airforces are increasingly using DCS to train their pilots. A Spanish company built the Aviojet C-101 module for DCS because it is used in the Spanish airforce and they wanted to use DCS as a training platform. A Chinese company built the JF-17 module for DCS. An Italian company is currently building an MB-339 module for DCS.
You can search online and find images of Chinese fighter pilots using DCS for training. There are a ton of things you can train to in DCS very cost effectively - practicing communications, tactical formations, administrative tasks and procedures, weapon switchology, etc. It doesn't completely replace real flight training of course, but it sure can help countries and militiaries with limited budgets stretch their training budgets.
> I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified
All of the "good stuff" is very, very classified. Particularly electronic warfare, radar performance, modern beyond visible range tactics, modern weapons performance porifiles, nuclear weapons delivery profiles.
A lot of the "nuts and bolts stuff" and basic training materials is unclassified and readily available. If you read through and study all of these documents you'll be well on your way to being a fairly competent virtual fighter pilot: https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/pubs-pat-pubs.asp
Most of the topics discussed there are fairly "traditional" fighter pilot stuff that have been discussed by airforces for over a hundred years now, so aren't really secret, even though they're being flown in a modern jet trainer like the T-45.
> Particularly electronic warfare, radar performance, modern beyond visible range tactics, modern weapons performance porifiles
Do you mean in, say, DCS F-18 the ECW systems and things like AIM-120 performance are fake, either because the devs don't have access to the real performance data or because they are under obligation not to make it too realistic? (That is, I would not be able to use the AIM-120 in real life in the same way it's used in DCS, because its performance is not the same?).
Regarding BVR combat, the other day I was watching a video teaching this on DCS F-18. The author explained the radar modes, explained what the radar of the F-18 was capable of and how many contacts were actually sent by data link from a nearby AWACS, also explained the tactics of firing the missile BVR before doing a sharp turn and trying to maintain the maximum angle between the nose cone and the target without breaking radar lock, then deployed countermeasures just in case, etc.
Give or take minor details, in this not the right BVR tactic in real life? If this person (from YouTube) had the required physical stamina, would he be able to shoot down a hostile aircraft by following the exact same steps? Or is there some classified step or tactic which is purposefully not being simulated in DCS?
> Do you mean in, say, DCS F-18 the ECW systems and things like AIM-120 performance are fake, either because the devs don't have access to the real performance data or because they are under obligation not to make it too realistic? (That is, I would not be able to use the AIM-120 in real life in the same way it's used in DCS, because its performance is not the same?).
A bit of everything. First, everything in DCS is of course "fake". It's just a video game, and all physics, CFD, and electromagnetic waves are just simulated, and there is no way that DCS is doing high-resolution CFD and simulation of real radar returns in a real time game engine. Everything in DCS is approximated and faked. Everything. Some aspects better than others. The F18's radar performance uses a simple degredation factor to reduce the detection range when an object is below you, so many miles for so many degrees for example. Both simplistic, and incorrect.
> either because the devs don't have access to the real performance data or because they are under obligation not to make it too realistic?
I can only speculate of course, not being privy to the private deals Eagle Dynamics and subsidiary/parent companies may or may not have made with militaries. But both: real missile performance, especially for the modern AIM-120D is classified. There is absolutely zero chance that Raytheon/Lockheed/Hughes is going to give classified missile performance to Eagle Dynamics for a publicly consumed video game on the promise that they won't make it "too realistic". Second, even if there is a military grade classified version of the simulation somewhere, at least from the US perspective, they wouldn't be too worried about modelling the exact performance of the latest AIM-120D, for the simple reason that the AIM-120D is not a missile that the US navy or US airforce expects that they will have to defend against in a shooting war. It's their missile!
They would be more worried about modelling their latest estimates of the Russian and Chinese air-to-air missile performance. And, when it comes down to actually developing tactics to counter these threats, you don't necessarily need to do it in a real-time game engine. You can look at energy performance, range, etc, and determine ranges and work out a BVR timeline to defend against that threat.
Then, when you say, "AIM-120", do you mean the AIM-120 A,B,C, or D, or any subvariant, or export variants? For AMRAAMs, the F-18 in DCS has the AIM-120-B and the AIM-120-C-5 (along with the AIM-7M (and AIM-7MH) Sparrow, and AIM-9L/M/X). Whos to say if they're modelling all of these missiles correctly, as you'll be hard pressed to find an unclassified source of all the missiles characteristics and seeker/sensor performance.
As for the BVR timeline tactics, there is a lot of info out there. If you do a google search for various combinations of the terms like: BVR, Commit, Meld, Skate, Bonsai, Crank, Notch, F-pole, Short Skate, you will turn up various resources developed by both the flight sim community, and retired fighter pilots. These tactics were real BVR tactics at one point, but whos to say if what's trickled out to the flight sim community is accurate, and keep in mind a lot of these come from the F-14, or F-15 communities which were more focused on pure air-to-air.
Additionally, a lot of the material out there now is developed by flight simmers who are tailoring the tactics/timelines to do well in DCS! Not against real threats!
What the exact tactics are today for F-22s, F-35s and F-18E's going against Su-27s and Su-57s in a modern high threat environment? I have no idea.
> sent by data link from a nearby AWACS,
A big thing that DCS does not simulate at all is working in a modern high-threat ECM environment, particular detection and jamming. A radar pulse transmitted can be detected at much further ranges than it can get useful information from the return. Turning your radar on, or your datalink on to both tx and rx, is a huge liability in the modern battlefield - you tell your enemy exactly where you are. Jamming is another aspect - how well does datalink work in a modern environment against a peer threat when they can jam you? What if the AWACS aircraft gets taken out, what if the AWACS has to go EMCOM to protect itself? None of these are simulated at all in DCS (aside from the AWACS being shot down of course).
Anyway, I could go on, obviously I have a lot to say.
If you made it this far, here is a youtube video of a BVR engagement against AI aircraft in the F-18 with our virtual squadron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqypIQ8qiw
We had the support of a human Airborne Intercept Controller (AIC) using the LotATC software, and were doing a BARCAP (barrier combat air patrol), to protect an airspace so that other members of our group could attack ground targets. We had just had two previous BVR engagements, and were low on gas and trying to get to a tanker, when the AIC notified us of a new threat.
In the video we are following a BVR timeline to try to meld/sort at ~40NM, shoot at 30-35NM, and skate at 23NM, against AI Mig-29s with the russian equivalent to the AIM7M.
Anyway, just my ramblings on DCS, etc. Cheers.
Maybe things have changed since the days of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000.
One of the bad habits is looking at instruments all the time, while you should be looking out the windows. VR on the other hand encourages you to look out (because it's fun, and it feels like you are really looking out). Head tracking is a very distant cousin, but may help a little.
The rest, I don't think you can avoid. No force feedback, no chair pressure (even if you have pedals you may not know you are uncoordinated), you can't feel the aircraft, and so on.
But bad habits are just that. In a life and death situation like this pilot incapacitation story, I'd rather have some bad habits but understand what's happening and what should be done, versus not even knowing which button to push to talk to ATC, and how to keep the plane flying.
Pilot here, the simulator is absolutely good enough. It's not uncommon for the first time landing a real jet after sim training to be on a normal passenger flight, just with a training captain next to you.
Learning systems takes about two weeks and is done in a classroom + computer based training (usually an ipad app).
What takes "years" in the US is the requirement to first fly 1500 hours in a small single engine plane before you get to the airlines. This requirement does not exist in Europe, here you can go to that simulator + classroom training right after getting your commercial license.
All by a guy with zero flight experience but also credited playing video games
>About 1 hour and 15 minutes after takeoff, Russell died by intentionally crashing the aircraft on lightly populated Ketron Island in Puget Sound.
I suppose it may not count if it was an intentional crash, but who knows if he would've landed it safely if he didn't want to crash it.
Pretty interesting that he managed to pull off maneuvers like that without having any experience flying:
>Near the end of the flight, the aircraft was seen performing a barrel roll over Puget Sound, recovering a mere ten feet (three meters) over the water. A veteran pilot said the maneuver "seemed pretty well executed, without either stalling or pulling the wings off."
>[Horizon Air CEO Gary Beck] said the aerial maneuvers were "incredible" and that he "did not know how [Russell] achieved the experience that he did." During his conversation with air traffic control, Russell said he "[knew] what [he was] doing a little bit" because he had experience playing video games.
edit: lmao you're the CTO. cool site bro
Another way to say: don't let me into any airplane's cockpit - not just because I'll crash it, but because I'll manage to break it on the ground before it even has a chance of flying.
Always have an "out": appropriate stopping distance, or a clear lane next to you (you have to make sure your mirrors are set-up properly so you don't have a blindspot, and you have to maintain situational awareness).
Too many people fixate on the car in front of them, and don't look at the traffic down the road. Too many people have their side-view mirrors set-up, creating blindspots.
I'm constantly baffled that these pileups happen, since it's obvious these people were driving much, much faster than is justifiable under the conditions. They should all lose their licenses.
* In order to avoid last minute moves and spot possible traffic hazards, you should always look down the road ahead of your vehicle.
* Your attention should be focused on the road ahead, following your intended path of travel. It would be best if you allowed a visual lead-time of at least 20-30 seconds.
* Scanning the road ahead while you’re driving is one of the best safety tips you can employ when you’re behind the wheel! Generally speaking, you should look ahead 15 to 20 seconds or an eighth of a mile when driving in the city and 20 to 30 seconds or about a quarter of a mile on the highway.
etc, etc.
When a person first gets their licence they may google the content you describe. Then they drive to work and home - down the freeway - every day for years.
They quickly learn that leaving too much space in front means people keep jamming in front of them. And the vehicle in front is the one you react most to - when it slows down or speeds up a little. So they pay attention to the car in front rather than down the road. Why look down the road? It hasn't been relevant for XYZ hours of driving so far...
Eventually they confirm to the norms of traffic. And why not? They haven't seen an accident in ages and if they have, they likely drove past it after the fact without knowing how the accident happened and believing it to be a "freak thing". Thus the deviation from what they should do is rationalised and then normalised through daily use.
Then an accident happens and a multi-vehicle pile up occurs because the "norms of traffic" are NOT what people should be doing.
Sadly most people do that. While continuing to believe that their initial conscientiousness (first impressions!) - since slackened/eroded - means they are an above average driver.
And I too am subject to this human behaviour as much as I try to be conscientious about it. I know I will have some bad habits learned in similar fashion. But I don't know what they are because I have rationalised all my actions to myself. I should go do some training again...
I very much prefer to be 3 SECONDS behind the person in front of me. It's a nice metric that works at basically all speeds above 30.
following distance Watch when the rear of the vehi- cle ahead passes a sign, pole, or any other fixed point. Count the seconds it takes you to reach the same point (one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two.) You are following too close if you pass that point before counting two seconds. Slow down and check your new following interval. Repeat until you are following no closer than two seconds. Always increase your following distance on slick roads, when following large vehicles, motorcycles, or vehicles pulling a trailer, at night, in fog, in bad weather and when following vehicles that stop at railroad crossings (transit buses, school buses or vehicles carrying dangerous mate- rial.)
[0] https://dld.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2022/01/Dri...
The most common guideline I've heard is the two-second (or sometimes, three-second) rule; that's roughly 54m at 60mph, assuming two seconds.
Uh, no. Usual safety guidelines are to stay a speed-dependent distance behind whomever you're following. The one I've heard most often quoted is one car length per ten miles per hour, so at 70mph you should be a minimum of seven car lengths behind.
Three lengths is comically short for those kinds of speeds.
No, safety guidelines are to follow 3 SECONDS behind the car in front, which is about 100m at 70mph.
I try to keep a healthy distance, but I've never been able to reserve enough distance to account the car in front of me hitting a brick wall.
For legal liability, that might be true. In reality, if you've left yourself a safe amount of distance, you have more opportunity to react to events in front of you in such a way that you minimize damage and loss of life (thus mattering).
[0] https://copradar.com/chapts/references/acceleration.html
Sounds a lot like 'climate change is your fault', because there is nothong I can personally do, you are just shifting the blame
It's not at all unrealistic - it's safe.
> Allow at least two seconds' following distance behind other vehicles in good weather and road conditions (three seconds on a highway).
> Slow down for poor weather conditions or uneven roads and increase your following distance to at least four seconds. Remember that the distance required to stop increases in wet or slippery conditions.
Here:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34/other-other-topics/pro...
And outcome:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=35915547&p...
The difficult part is being absolutely certain you're trained well enough to not crash the thing.
The pilot was astounded that a novice flyer would perform the maneuver so well and asked if my pal had any simulator time. His response: "I played F/A-18 Hornet on my Mac a lot."
What was the maneuver?
Obviously this isn't a replacement for real training and experience. But someone with sim experience who knows how to read the instruments and control the yoke, rudder, and throttle would likely have a much better chance surviving than one who would freak out just trying to comprehend the instrument panel. They would probably be under much less stress as well during the event.
Based on how common it has become for people to tailgate and then twitchily bail out of their lane at the last second before they rear end the person in front of them, I'm very 50-50 on how well video games prepare our reflexes for the real world.
Sauce after quick googling: https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/video-gamers-new-rac...
WEC has made some amount of noise about hiring sim drivers (including a tie-up at some point with Nissan and Gran Turismo), but the same applies for the drivers in their top two classes.
Even your source doesn't care to mention any drivers who have gone from sim racing success to what anyone paying attention to motorsport would call "huge success" in top-level racing (two of the GT Academy drivers did have a successful one-off drive in LMP2, with a factory team and a much better-established teammate).
I have a VR headset, and have played through Half-Life Alyx and a bit of zombie mode in Pavlov VR. My first headcrab in Half-life Alyx was horrible. I panicked, forgot which button to press to release the magazine, fumbled the insertion, forgot to load the gun after having inserted the magazine… but by the end of the game, those head crab didn’t trigger any fear, only a reflex of pulling out the gun, pointing, shooting, and reloading quickly became a reflex. Oh, and I became much better at quick aiming. I’m no speed shooter, but I do land a couple shots per second.
Then I tried Pavlov VR. First the shooting range to get used to the slightly different mechanics. And then the zombie mode. This time the zombies were fast. And what do you know, I panicked again. Though I didn’t fumble with the reload this time (I had no spare magazine), and my aiming was okay, I massively overshot.
That’s when I thought that people who unload their entire charger really aren’t necessarily vengeance driven bloodthirsty warmongers. They may just lack training. Anyway, I trained a couple times more with the zombies, and it got better.
Here’s the thing though: I now have trained VR games to shoot at moving humanoid targets, some of which shoot back, some of which just try to close in to melee range. So now I wonder: if all goes to shit and I’m handed a loaded gun, and suddenly 3 angry people with knives close in on me with visible killing intent, what are the chances that my VR training may cause me to shoot them in the heart by reflex, instead of panicking, running, or negotiating?
How far pure video game training can go?
My joke was going to be "Half the lurkers on r/flightsim enter the chat...". I lurk on that sub, and I feel like half the people fantasize of being able to "save the day!" when something goes wrong on the plane. Not fanticizing that something goes wrong... but if it did... the flight would be fortunate enough to have them there to save the day.
Though, thinking of having the tower talk someone down always reminds me of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" ~ "What could possible happen to an Old Fashioned?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWoCLqMq8qM
[Edit] Formatting.
I feel kinda stupid. I played a lot of video games growing up, including a binge on MS Flightsim 4 (I think). When I took flying lessons as an adult, the hardest thing for me was mastering landing. Something about it just wouldn't click for many hours. OTOH I never really mastered landing in the sim either - I didn't really care about that back then and didn't have any instruction at all.
OTOH I helped out for years at Young Eagles events and some kids fly for the first time quite naturally, and when asked they tend to say "Yeah, I leaned on the computer".
There's probably a big component of natural ability here. Some people are just better at certain things. If you're not one of them, you may be able to train yourself to a competent level of performance, but you'll never be as good as a "natural." It's somthing that takes a bit of self-awareness and humility to admit, and some people never do.
That was a major plot point in the movie, Snakes on a Plane.
You hit ice, you're a passenger until you're no longer on ice. The car is mostly a 2D projectile unless you're on studded tires. You were lucky, that's it.
And, I might add: you lost control of the car. There's a whole chain of failures that led up to that point: not being aware of forecast weather, not being aware of changing conditions, and so on. Folks experienced in driving in winter weather know how to watch the road for signs of icing, how to test for traction that's getting worse, how to be smooth with controls, and how to recognize that a control input is starting to cause the car to lose traction. You fully lost control.
It is a common joke among instructors teaching car handling skills that the worst students are the ones who have played driving video games. They're overconfident. They don't actually know much at all about car handling techniques. They have no motor skills that good, fast driving requires. No "butt sense" - reading how the car feels, sounds, and acts as it approaches or exceeds the limits of traction.
"I safely handled losing control of my car in icy weather because I played Super Mario Brothers decades ago" is almost but not quite the best example of Dunning-Kruger effect I've seen in an HN comment in quite some time.
Even then I've come close to crashing three times (would have been a small crash though) twice due to slopes that weren't safe to descend given the conditions and once because a family of deer crossed the road in front of me, i was not able to correct course to avoid them or use the brakes - doing either would have led to me losing control - luckily i was doing < 15 mph and the deer stepped out of the way at the last second.
Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road.
But learning how to focus in the midst of chaos, instead of panicking, is a technique I specifically had to learn in childhood to beat challenging levels of Super Mario Brothers.
Thanks, video games.