Hello!
A helping hand is allways something I do appreciate, specially if allows me to continue with my project (building a
high fidelity F-16 simulator)
Therefore I wanted to thank the Commanding Officer of the Royal Netherlands Air Forceīs Base in Volkel, Colonel De Rave,
and the Chief of Public Information, Major van der Hoeven for inviting me to visit their base to see their F-16
Simulators (the REAL ones !) and to be instructed by the REAL PROS. (Now that is really something, isnīt it?)
My pal Martin "Pegasus" was also invited, so that both of us were able to learn a lot and get very good ideas for our
own simulators.
After a warm greeting, we were taken to the Simulator Facility and I must admit, I was kind of jeallous, as I saw their
hardware and knowing that they can use it whenever they want. - Of course just around the corner, the real F-16 were taking off
and landing, and all that noise plus the complete atmosphere made me just feel like Alice in wonderland. ;)
After exchanging ideas and showing our new friends what we are building and using in our sims, we started to take a
closer look at some dimensions of their simulator, noticing that we had still many mistakes to correct, if we wanted
to build a high fidelity simulator. Thank you again for allowing us to take these measurements! - Now we can get even
close to the real thing.
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RNAF MLU F-16 Simulator
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Learning from the Pros
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I have been cleared to show this picture, where you can see from left to right Major van der Hoeven and our Instructor
Axel.
Sitting inside the simulator a very happy guy: ME ! :)
After going through the pre-take off checklist (which took about one hour) I was cleared to fly around and get some
feeling for the MLU sim. Fly by wire requires some time to get used to, but as we are also using a stick with force
transducers in our sims by now, (which by the way comes pretty close to the real one) I was able to keep the sim
under control.
I have to admit that I feel very proud not to have crashed the bird ;), of course I had very good instruction during
flight and approach form Longo and Axel. Thanks for being so patient guys!
I could write much more about this experience, but I am sure I would not be able to cover everything. Therefore I
will keep it short.
The Volkel Airbase is having some "open days" on June 18th and 19th, and I am sure it is worth to get over there and
have a look at the real F-16 in flight. Perhaps you will feel as jeallous as I did looking at the pros with their
birds.
Again THANK YOU FOR A GREAT TIME at your Base in Volkel !
