Originally Posted by
Easy Street
Modelling of inertia, control force and control response (including throttle) would need to be absolutely perfect throughout the flight envelope for formation to be ‘trainable’ in the sim. The later generation of Tornado GR sim offered formation flying and it was OK for procedural aspects, and to an extent for tactical formations, but it was completely hopeless for close manoeuvring despite the flight model being fairly good in all other circumstances. In fact it was so bad that it would have been negative training to do it in the sim before doing it live, so we didn’t. I’d be interested to know whether the same applies to Typhoon and F35 sims as it seems unlikely that things would be any better in ‘heavy’ sims.
One would posit that the more modern sims are a cut above. Both C17 and C130J heavily rely upon synthetics for their tanking qualifications. They extensively model tanking including bow pressure waves, tanking Flight Control Computer laws and the J sim even funkily simulates the static discharge between probe and drogue. Individual models are included for differing tanker types and the particular properties associated with each. Not sure about A400M, but when the capability comes, again synthetics will provide much of the required training, having experienced the fidelity of the sim.
Bearing in mind there are no twin stick F35, how are crews planning to train for AAR if not synthetically?