During my time, with a combat flight sim group, I learned that communication was the most effective thing that you have in the air. Combat situations call for precise, short, and quick communication. You may only have a matter of seconds before a SAM hits you or an enemy jet fires on you. So what do you do in these situations, you use what the military calls brevity. Brevity is basically a slang term describing a person, place, situation, or thing. So why do you want to learn this? If you ever have a multiplayer game and you get the opportunity to work with any military personnel, then you will understand how many more things you can get done, targets you can identify, and maintain good situational awareness, by using brevity. Here’s an example: let’s say you’re flying at fifteen thousand feet, you have one wing man, and you were approaching your target. All of a sudden, your buddy see’s an enemy jet closing in on your position. Instead of bumbling around and trying to figure out how to tell you that you are about to be blown out of the sky, wasting precious second’s, he gets on the radio and says this instead ” Falcon 51 this is Falcon 52, contact 219, bandit seventeen thousand feet and closing, how copy over.” now there’s a lot here.
Falcon 51 is you and the other guy is identifying himself as Falcon 52. Contact 219 means that he sees something at 219 degrees on his compass. Bandit means it is an enemy jet, it is at 17 thousand feet and closing means it is moving towards you and could be above or below you depending on your altitude. (example would be if you are at 10,000 feet, then he would be above you.) How copy is telling you that he wants to know if you can hear him talking to you and to report back over the radio that you clearly heard his transmission. Over, means this is the end of this part of his communication. So as you can see, there is a lot to this. It’s not something that you learn overnight but if you look below you will see a link to the USAF brevity handbook. This book will list every term you need when doing radio communication’s. Now as far as organizing it, you’ll have to do some searching. A lot of military videos will give you a good idea how to use brevity codes. So break out the handbook and start squawking.
USAF Brevity Handbook
Author: Stalker 3
Stop controlling me!!!
One thing we haven’t talked about yet is controls. The type of flight stick you use and/or throttle can definitely impact you’re experience. Personally, I use a Saitek X45, but there are many other types of sticks that can do the job. Don’t think just because I have an X 45 that you should use that stick. The saying goes poor men have poor ways. If you want some suggestions for different types of stick / throttle setups then I would recommend the Thrustmaster HOTAS warthog , Thrustmaster T-flight HOTAS, Saitek X55 or 65f, and any Logitech stick. Of course the most economical of these will be the Thrustmaster T flight and the Logitech sticks. The Thrustmaster T-flight will probably give you the best experience for the price. Thrustmaster has long been known for its joysticks. This setup will give you a throttle and flight stick for around $50. The stick has over 10 different buttons that you can assign two different things and the throttle and stick can be separated or locked together. There are 2 different rudder controls, a paddle on the throttle and the flight stick will twist. With all these features and the fact it is very it’s smooth to control, I have made it my beginners top choice and a definite top choice for the game War Thunder.
The Thrustmaster HOTAS warthog is probably the most expensive, but it is the Cadillac of flight sticks and my overall top choice. Over 30 programmable buttons, multiple hat switches and the fact it is also an authentic reproduction of a A10 warthog flight stick give this setup it’s top ratings. Now these systems are mainly fighter jet setups, for a Cessna or a 747 type plane you would want a flight yoke from Microsoft or Siatek.
Overall you must review the type of plane you will simulate most and try to find something accommodating. There are many choices, but remember, you will get what you pay for when it comes to flight sticks. Hope this helps. Happy flying.
Saving Face
Well a lot has been going on since my last post. Which is good, because I have some new material. Face Track NOIR!!!! What is it, well say goodbye to Track IR, if you are wondering what Track IR is check my previous post about FreeTrack. Face Track uses your web cam to track your head movements in game! No modifying cameras to pick up led’s and building devices to attach to your head or helment. Just install the software, hook up your webcam, change some settings and your good to go. It supports over 400 game titles, including the ARMA 3, and I think is a great alternative to spending $200 for some fancy device that would do the job just a little better. For all you novices out there, this is the ticket to a whole new world of gaming. Check it out, I highly reccommend it.
Inspiration
I recently went to Colin Furze’s website, he is a plumber from England that is a inventor, and he was talking about how society is becoming a throw away society. We buy, we use, it breaks, we buy another. The cycle repeats over and over again. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but I get his point. There is value in fixing things. Fathers and sons build memories rebuilding cars, fixing furniture, and other things. Me and my wife rebuilt our kitchen together, and grandpa and the kids fix stuff at the farm. Memories are definitely worth more than buying a new widget. When I was a kid I worked on my computer and learned how to fix it. Now I can help others by fixing their computers for them. There is value in fixing things. So where is this inspiration I’m talking about? When we learn these skills we can use them for other things, to be a good citizen, friend or neighbor. To let others see what they are capable of. I told Colin in my letter that most people don’t seem to strive to reach their full potential, but “it’s people like us that know we can do things, maybe not everything, but some things that can inspire others to try great things.” That has been the purpose of this website. God has given everyone talents, are we using them? Are we using them for His glory?
OV-10B
What an amazing aircraft. I didn’t know much about this plane until I stumbled across this photo. To me it’s a cross between a P-38 lightning and a A-10 thunderbolt. It was developed for forward air controllers, as a light attack, troop support aircraft. Originally conceived to have a 20ft. wingspan, so it could be transported by a 6×6 truck, the government got it’s meat hooks into the design and added an extra 20ift. to the wingspan, 7 pylons on the wings and fuesalage for weapons, and so much electronic equipment it had to operate out of a air base or carrier. Even though the design was altered it still did a great job. The plane can pull 8G’s!!!! That’s almost as much as a F-16!!! It cruises just under 300 MPH, which also is the operational speed of a F-16 in a ground attack. So there are a lot of similarities between the two roles of those aircraft. The OV-10B just does it on a smaller scale. Retired in 1995, but it was such a useful aircraft there is now talks of a OV-10X. The past merges with the future once more.
Software choices
The absolute first choice for making a flight simulator is what software platform to use. To make this decision there are many factors you must consider. What are the programs limitations? What are my limitations? What other software will I need? Is that software compatible with the platform I’m using? The whole thing will be planned around what you choose. There are free programs like Flightgear, which are open source and well into development. There are combat sims like DCS. Then there is the old standby Microsoft Flight Simulator. What ever you choose, do your research. This is one reason: to assign controls to a switch, you need a microcontroller. These are expensive when you have to buy 10 or 20 of them. So you want the most bang for your buck. One program uses the same keyboard command to turn on and off a feature, while another uses 2 different key commands to do the same thing. So what’s the big deal? Well to have 2 separate commands routed to one switch, you take up 2 positions on the micro controller. Let’s say there is only 20 slots on the controller, well each slot hold 1 key command so instead of having 20 switches you can only have 10. Not to big a deal, until you build a simulator that needs 300 switches. So its things like that you need to consider.
My personal choice is Falcon BMS. It has a steep learning curve, but if you get on YouTube or look up a gaming clan like the 20th VFW, I’m sure sure you can get the instruction you need. It features air to air refueling, multiplayer combat, coop combat, SAMs, and many other features. Check out the video for a better look at it. I love it. So of course I will recommend it, but DCS is a real contender now. They are doing all kinds of things to that program. Also, it has an expandable set of aircraft you can purchase online. I’ll leave you with this quote: “You must choose, but choose wisely.” (Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade). Good luck.
Good Vibrations
This video will explain the world of bass shakers. What is a bass shaker you ask? Well when you want to add a little more realism to your simulator, a bass shaker will reproduce vibrations from the low spectrum sound of the game your are playing. All planes have some vibrations to them weather it be from turbulence or high speed turns, or just the roar of a massive engine. The devil is in the details. Just another thing that most people don’t think about when building a simpit. You don’t have to have a simpit to use this though. Be creative and find a way to mount it to your computer chair. I would reccomend using a 8 inch woofer for the driver, less weight and also less power to run. As usual this is a intermediate project, but I think the video does a good job of explaining how to do it. Your gonna need some kind of amp to run the subwoofer. I would reccomend also, some kind of crossover so you can narrow the frequencies sent to the sub, but it is one of those things where you kind of play around with it to learn. Good luck!
If you have any questions click on the about page in the upper right corner and email me.
SR-71 Blackbird
What can be said about the SR-71 Blackbird. Well, it’s one of the most famous aircraft ever made. I was infatuated with this jet the moment I saw it. It could fly to over 96,000 ft, at speeds of Mach 3.56 (over 2000 MPH)! There were only 89 pilots who ever took the plane on an actual mission. That mission was surveillance. Yes that’s right. It was never a combat aircraft, although there were versions made up to test as a bomber and other roles, but it was thought that these prototypes would stifle other projects the government wanted such as the xb-70. So they scrapped them. Originally, it was called the A-11. The CIA used it for their purposes till the USAF version was ready. They were retired in 1999 officially.
Recently, I visited the Space Center in Huntsville, AL and there is one on site. It is an original A-11. I also had the privilege of talking with one of the pilots of the aircraft. He didn’t disclose his name, nor will he ever be able to talk about any of his missions, because they have been permanently classified, but he did talk about flying the SR-71. He said the official top speed has never been declassified and said that it took so much to keep the plane going, it probably will never be flyable again. There were so many special industries that was created just for the plane to keep it running. Truly, an amazing feat of engineering. If you would like to plan a visit to the Space Center, go to rocketcenter.com.
Head Tracking
One of the first obstacles I faced in building a simulator was moving around the cockpit. Now if you want to just map the view controls to joystick buttons you can, or you can pay hundreds of dollars for a head tracker such as Track IR. I found a better alternative. For about $30 you can build your own head tracking device using a program called Freetrack. There are instructions on the website and if you take your time, you will have a quality product that will last a long time. I was very impressed with Freetrack. It worked flawlessly with all my games and was easy to setup. Now I would say there is a intermediate skill set in electronics you will need, like knowing how to solder and some knowledge in wiring so don’t try this if you are not confident in your skills, but to find out more go to www.free-track.net and start learning.
Welcome
Welcome to Sonic Boom Simulations!
My goal is to create a unique home flight simulator that will bring an almost true to life experience for the user. I have spent 2 years researching this project and with my 30+ years of computer experience; I hope to soon have an affordable, functional, and well made flight simulator. Until the simulator has been finalized, I will use this website to talk about aviation and computer related topics. Be sure to subscribe to my page, because you won’t want to miss a single post!
Sonic Boom Simulations 