In article ,
Howard Berkowitz writes:
In article , (Peter
Stickney) wrote:

In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
Seriously, would anyone care to speculate that if aircraft gunner was
still a tactically useful skill, how much virtual reality simulator
time
(e.g., in at least a 3-axis-of-motion device) would a gunner get
before
going to a combat unit? Aggressor simulators only, or perhaps a few
pilots that have flown the aggressor ship manipulating the target?

I suspect temperature, noise, fumes, etc. would all be part of the
simulator.

Heck, they used "simulators" of a sort like that during WWII. My dad,
who
was a gunner on a B-29, remembers standing in the back of a truck that
drove
along while the trainee took shots at model aircraft.

Somebody from the Film Industry (Might have been Disney) developed a
prejection system using a hemispherical dome with a turret inside.
They had some sort of system to measure tracking errors.

And then, there was Operation Pinball, the ultimate simulator. Real
bombers with real turrets, but the .50 cals have been replaced with
.30 cals firing frangible (break up on impact) bullets. The targets
are specially armored P-63s that make passes on the student gunner's
airplane. There are acoustic sensors in the P-63s that can hear the
impact of the bullets on the skin for measuring the number of hits.


That is _very_ realistic. I think, all in all, we could do it more
cheaply with virtual reality. Operation Pinball could do G-forces
better, although a simulation platform with multiple degree of freedom
movement can get awfully close.

For a bomber-type platform, G forces probably weren't all that
relavant. Not only were the G limits fairly low, but G onset was low
as well. What would be more important would be simulating the
environment of the guys firing manually operated guns, such as the
Waist and Radio Compartment guns on a B-17. There you've got a bunch
of factors that change - the force of teh windblast on the gun barrel,
the narrow field of view, the wind blast, and the intense cold of
standing at an open window in -50 degree air while a 140 mph wind
(EAS) blows past. (What they ended up doing was designing enclosed
gun positions, with power boosted gun mounts. Of course, the
computerized Fire COntrol Systems of the B-29 and later airplanes took
all of that away, with the gunner's skills changing more to mastering
the switchology of the system, and learning how to track smoothly in
Az?El and range. (Which is a lot like patting your head while rubbing
your stomach). When the radar systems came out, in the B-36 and later
bombers, gunnery was even more detached. The gunner detected teh
target on radar, locked the radar on, and followed up the automatic
tracking. That became something that could be done easily on the
ground, or practiced while in the air (Injecting synthetic targets
into the radar system using a signal generator) on regular flights.

Pinball actually stuck around for quite a while. The last SAC gunnery
class to use the RP-63s and frangible bullets was in 1948.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster