Idea for flight
simulator takes off

The F/A-18E Super Hornet cockpit simulator is at Gulf View Square. The man who built it hoped to market it as a game; the Navy is using it for recruiting.

By MATTHEW WAITE

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 9, 2000

PORT RICHEY -- Before the Navy puts a pilot behind the stick of a $57-million F/A-18E Super Hornet, that pilot has four years of training under his belt.

I got six minutes.

Moments later, there I am, stick in hand, nudging the nose of my fighter jet slightly left to line up in my gun sights that fat, slow bomber begging to be blown out of the sky.

Too far left, too far right, nose up, nose up, fire!

Miss.

More turning.

By the time my bullets slam into the helpless bomber, I'm so close that the smoke from the dying bird clouds my vision, obscuring my next victim for a moment.

Learning the physics of the turn -- rolling the plane on its side, returning the stick to center, then pulling back to start the turn -- is a lot harder than it sounds. Less is more, you learn quickly, yet you never seem to quite get it right. But with all my ammo, a wave of missiles makes up for an inability to turn.

[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]

David Smith Sr., right, instructs Daniel Taylor, 14, as he experiences the F/A-18E Super Hornet simulator Thursday outside Gulf View Square Mall. Smith created the simulators as a game, but now may sell them to the Navy.

For weighing 58,000 pounds, the Super Hornet is a touchy bird. Even in a simulator.

Realism is the goal of the Navy's F-18 recruiting simulator, open at Gulf View Square mall Thursday and today. The cockpit has every switch, button and dial the real F-18 has, although most of them are turned off. Not much need for a wing de-icer or an ejection handle in a simulator that won't let you crash.

The video training you get cuts right to the point. Here's how to steer, here's how to go fast or slow, and "It's time to try to shoot at something," the instructor gleefully says.

That's it. Time to fly.

After blasting some slow bombers out of the sky in one of the easiest scenarios, I felt pretty good, if a little nauseous, about my flight abilities. Then Times photographer Carrie Pratt hopped in and picked the hardest scenario: the carrier landing.

On her second try, she set the plane down on the deck like she had a commission in the Navy. Not wanting to be outdone, I jumped back in for a try at landing a top-line fighter plane on a floating city.

I made a $57-million boat anchor. Twice.

So much for Top Gun.

"It's tricky," Paul Tomasetti, 28, of New Port Richey said. "It doesn't move the way I want it to."

Tomasetti, despite his flight experience, is who the Navy is looking to snag with the simulator. He's thinking about joining the Navy and came out to Gulf View Square to check out the simulator Thursday morning.

Originally conceived as a business by a man interested in Navy aircraft, the simulator has become a strong recruiting tool and future trainer for pilots.

The simulator -- an exact replica of the Hornet's cockpit teamed with a large screen, some high-speed computers and computer software -- has been traveling the country recruiting for the Navy.

A steady flow of folks, from retired military people who always wondered what it was like to the young men and women the Navy wanted to chat with, came to give their Top Gun fantasies a run.

Herb Williams of Bayonet Point had always wanted to see what it was like to be one of those Navy pilots who used to buzz his guard shack during his days in the Marines. The thought of those jets flying over his head still makes the hair over the USMC tattoo on his forearm stand up.

"They made it look so easy," he said. "It's not at all."

Retired now, Williams said his youngest son is in the Marines and may become a military pilot. The simulator was a chance for him to see what it would be like for his son.

David Smith, the designer of the simulator and president of Microsimulators Inc., said it was his dream as a young man to fly Navy planes. As a business venture, he helped build the simulator over the past two years with the idea of selling tickets and making money.

During his research into building an exact replica of the cockpit, the Navy asked him what he was doing and if he wouldn't mind showing them some pictures. Smith sent them, and a few weeks later he got a call.

"They thought it was going to be a big Atari game," Smith said. When they saw it -- and its price tag -- the Navy found much more.

So after 18 years of Navy aviation as a hobby, Smith, a Casselberry resident, now is helping it recruit and may be selling the Navy simulators for $40,000 a pop -- about $1.96-million cheaper than what the current simulators cost.

"This is the most realistic thing you can get in the public domain," Smith said. "Anything more realistic is classified."

Matthew Waite can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6247 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6247. His e-mail address is waite@sptimes.com.

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