Have Blue wrote:
Noah, once you have your article complete, I'd be interested in printing it in our CAF wing newsletter.
I know it has been a while since I posted to this thread and I must apologize for not continuing the discussion further or finishing my article. However, I do have a few thoughts that I jotted down a while ago and meant to post, but never did. They are somewhat disjointed and a bit off the original thrust of this thread, but still seem sufficiently relevant to include. The first set concerns reimagining of real world concepts in the context of the game's environment:
Noha307 wrote:
One of the interesting things about military flight simulators is the way that they mimic real life aspects of aviation with gameplay mechanics. A few examples:
- Ace Combat features a type of missile, patterned after actual semi-active homing missiles, that require the player to keep the target inside a circle on the HUD until impact. Interestingly, for the sake of gameplay balancing, the disadvantage of the "fire-and-monitor" nature of these missiles is offset by the fact that they have a better chance of hitting their targets than active homing missiles.
- War Thunder takes War Emergency Power and, in the less realistic game modes, implements it as an "arcade-style" boost. In other words, it simply makes the aircraft fly faster with no long term detrimental effect on the engine. (As an aside, there is a whole separate discussion here about how the concept of "boost" in popular culture (see "NOS" in the Fast and Furious automobile franchise) seems to have been arisen from the use of WEP and turbochargers during the war.)
- For inexperienced players, multiple games offer "novice" controls, which allow the airplane to be steered like a car with coupled roll and yaw. The intent is strikingly similar to the original design philosophy behind the Erco Ercoupe.
The other regards the impact that real life storytelling - particularly oral histories - had on video games:
Noha307 wrote:
Even though it is set in a fictional world and featured modern aircraft, Ace Combat Zero offers interesting evidence of the influence that real world historiography has on video games. This is because the story is told through oral history interviews with other pilots. Oral histories of World War II, which became popular following Studs Terkel's "The Good War" are now a staple of American military history - with efforts like the
Veterans History Project seeking to interview as many former servicemembers as possible. Interestingly, Ace Combat Zero was released in 2006 - the same year that the television show Dogfights premiered on the History Channel. The two share a striking similarity in that they both use a virtual environment to either create or recreate the stories the veterans are relating.
Zero was not the only military video game to latch onto the oral history format.
Trailers for the video game Halo 3 featured "veterans" acting in the exact same role: framing the narrative by describing their interaction with the main character. In one regard, the advertising campaign goes even further than Zero, as it set the interviews in a military museum.
A bit more on the topic in the original post, the summer edition of NASM's Air and Space Quarterly featured an article about the future of plastic model making. At the end, one of the individuals profiled in the article offers an opinion that is exactly what is needed:
Preston Lerner wrote:
At the moment, baby boomers are the primary market for both vintage kits and the hobby at large. But despite fears that model building will go the way of felt hat-making, the craft continues to survive. Yes, the numbers are paltry compared to what the market was 50 years ago, but there’s been an uptick in activity since the pandemic began, and newbies continue to discover the hobby all the time.
“I had a kid, about three or four months ago, who brought in a Panzer IV [German tank] model,” says Pentifallo. “He’d painted it purple and I complimented him on it. We’ve got to encourage these kids because they’re going to be our next generation of modelers.”
It’s hard to imagine modelers-to-be feeling the emotional attachment and wellspring of nostalgia that draws boomers back to the vintage kits of the 1950s and ’60s, but maybe next-gen modelers will create a golden age of their own. That’s one of the most appealing virtues of modeling: One size needn’t fit all. A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 can be built as one of a dozen variants and finished in countless liveries, depending on when and where it fought. It can even be painted purple.
For what it's worth, I'm guessing there's a good chance that that kid chose to paint it purple because of a
certain anime franchise.
On that note, there's an interesting parallel here as well. Whereas older generations grew up on shows like the Final Countdown, there's an manga/anime called
Zipang that could conceivably fill a similar role for current generations. What makes the comparison so useful is that the latter uses the essentially the exact same premise as the former - sending a modern warship back in time to the war in the Pacific, but from the opposite point of view. (The juxtaposition is fascinating for another reason as well: much like the difference between how Godzilla is viewed in Japan and the United States, the Japanese series deals with much more serious moral issues - namely the struggles of the pacifist crew to deal with an imperial Japan - whereas the American production is a simple escapist fantasy blockbuster. However, if you just want to see a modern guided missile destroyer obliterate some SBDs and TBFs, it's good for that too.) To bring things full circle, multiple Ace Combat games include a "
named ace" that is a direct reference to the series.
avenger2504 wrote:
Last weekend, near Christchurch in New Zealand I and a few other aircraft enthusiasts visited a chap building a full scale replica of a Fb6 Mosquito cockpit. This is to be a full motion simulator. Basically it will be complete from the nose to about the mid point of the wing and the wings to about the centerline of each engine. He has used some real mosquito cockpits parts and also 3D printing for parts hard to find. He is also working with the lads restoring an ex-RNZAF Fb6 Mosquito at the Ferrymead Aeronautical Society(a couple of them were along too. It will be complete with everything a Fb6 had at least the visual look. What I saw he had all hooked up in the hal fusleage he is fitting out (yes even building it like the factory did, in two halves!
Once finished it will be used for Sim missions. I've already put my hand up for a fly or at least be the Navigator!
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
announced a few months ago that they've put together a very authentic Spitfire simulator - complete with virtual reality headset. However, what's particularly relevant for the discussion here is that they imply it could be used as a training aid for pilots of
actual Spitfires. Apparently, they feel that the level of realism has reached a point where it could be considered at least a partial alternative to a flyable airplane.
Finally, one might argue that, sure, kids enjoy playing games about warbirds, but they don't actually want to get involved in the real thing. However, I've found the
Warbirds of Glory Museum and the
20 Under 40 honorees to be good counterpoints. Particularly the fact that the former not only involves a younger generation, but was founded and is actually run by them.
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