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[Mongo]

An interesting observation.

If I were to charge you and you alone with the task of going down to the headquarters of a major drug cartel and fight your way through 30 armed thugs (you’d be given equal training to what we estimate they have) with the intent of stealing a case of the leader’s favorite beer…

Well you’d undoubtedly look at as if I had grown another head and wonder what mind-altering chemicals I was on.

Yet in the online gamer community, being asked to single handedly charge into a village of 30 Ogres to steal an item (plant a banner, plant a bomb, kick the leader in the scroglies, etc) is something we are frequently charged with.

But in the gaming world we just shrug, recon the site, formulate a plan and act on it. No hesitation, no worry, just action.

Jane McGonigal in her TED.com lecture looks at online gaming like that and see it as a resource to be tapped. That ability to throw ourselves at a task in the virtual world is something we need to bring into the real world.

So much so that her and the organization she is with have developed games where the players attempt to solve real-world problems as part of an epic and world spanning story. One such game explores a world without oil. Ask people to give up their cars before the oil runs out and we panic. Ask us to give it up in a game and they find out that people take some of the lessons learned in the game and apply it to real life.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/799 is where you can watch her lecture. It’s about 20 minutes and is very fascinating.

Makes one think about gaming and what it can do if given the proper nudge.

[Eternal Seeker]

If you Google "wood gas generator" you'll find cars run quite well on a diet of scrap lumber. But I digress...


peace,
ES

[Crystal Dragon]

  ES, you are too funny.

Mongo, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I've heard somewhere that the FAA actually prefers to recruit young people who play video games for Air Traffic Controllers ... they bring a unique ability to be able to track multiple objects on a screen.

[Fox]

I know just from being a parent how beneficial video games can be to a child's education, given the right games.  Both of my two youngest practically taught themselves how to read by playing various video games or small electronic computer games.  It is easy to see how her program works.

[Mongo]

ES, you are too funny.

Mongo, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I've heard somewhere that the FAA actually prefers to recruit young people who play video games for Air Traffic Controllers ... they bring a unique ability to be able to track multiple objects on a screen.

Not to mention that in the Air Force Academy, they have added gaming rated PC's in the dorms with Microsoft Flight Simulator (customized to include their trainer planes) so the cadets can practice. They have learned that kids who grew up on MFS are hundreds of hours ahead of cadets who haven't played when it comes to simulator time.

And a Gaming Class PC is a hook of a lot cheaper than additional simulators

[Crystal Dragon]

Meh ... not so sure I'd buy into that.  None of the flight simulators I've used (including the MS program) are worth anything as far as actual flight training ... not realistic enough.  But I'll bet they are awesome for the guys who have to fly the UAVs.

[Mongo]

Meh ... not so sure I'd buy into that.  None of the flight simulators I've used (including the MS program) are worth anything as far as actual flight training ... not realistic enough.  But I'll bet they are awesome for the guys who have to fly the UAVs.

Do a google search for "Microsoft Flight Simulator as a training aid" and you'll come across hundreds of hits for how to use it as a training aid.

You might not have gotten much out of it, but did you have a full yoke, throttle, and rudder pedal control kit? Without it you are correct. You're just playing with a watered down and over compensated control set with mouse and keyboard or even a joy stick.

Even a "Flight Stick" controller leave something out if you're not using the foot pedals.

MSFS gives...

With the correct downloaded content, a full representation of the cockpit of an air craft which can teach a pilot in training where to look in a real cockpit for all the instrumentation.

With downloaded context for the correct plane, an experienced pilot can get cockpit familiarization with a new plane control layouts before getting into the real thing. Something that is a big help.

Basically it can give a user a way to get a leg up on someone who has never seen the plane at all.

What it can't do is give a "feel" for the plane. Knowing that a x-degree bank with a x-degree of climb is going to cause a loss of control, isn't going to help you feel what the plane is going to do just before you get to that point.

What the Air Force is doing, is to give a way for the pilot trainees to get more experience without tying up million dollar simulators and blowing more fuel.

Sure, you can't log 3,000 hours in MSFS and expect to get into a plane, but 30 hours can teach you where the Artificial Horizon is the first time you sit in the plane...and that's what the Air Force is betting on. Instead of millions of dollars for more simulators (which they simply cannot buy enough of to service all the pilots for as much experience as they would like) they opt for thousands of dollars to get more than they are getting.

Oh and as for most UAV's? Today many of them can be flown by a mouse and a map. Modern Marvels showcased some of the UAV's and the purely observational ones can be launched by a mouse click, given a set of waypoints by a mouse click on a map and landed by a mouse click. The damn things fly themselves nowadays.

Flying robots as it were.

[Crystal Dragon]

Yep, I have the full kit.  And while it may be beneficial as far as where to look on the instrument panel for a particular item, what you've mentioned about the "feel" is true ... and it's not just the physical feeling, but the ergonomics (or lack thereof) in the cockpit.  It doesn't give a proper feel for how to adjust the throttle or how the engine really sounds if you set it wrong ... granted, I've not flown jets and am not naive enough to think that GA planes are similar, but I can't imagine that FS is of that much benefit.  Then again, I look at my daughter's friends ... 

Interesting on the UAVs.  I've not kept up with what they've been doing there.  I suppose the point and click is easier for most ops, but I'd think they'd still need to have some feature to loiter manually when necessary.

[Mongo]

Manual loitering is handled by point and click. Just select the grip points on the map you want and tell it to circle and report until new commands are needed.

The only real need for a hands on approach is for the UAV's launched at the front lines (controlled mainly using RC technology) and the UAV's that are designed for munitions delivery.

Interestingly enough, they are working on a UAV with 5 years endurance per mission. I'd love to know how they plan on keeping that joker up in the air without fuel (solar perhaps?) and maintenance.

Once they work out how to keep the bugger up there, it's all point and click from there.

[vordan]

The only game I play is Tribal Wars a online which stretches out for days, weeks, months until you are destroyed or give up in disgust. I have observed that like in sports a persons character and judgement are tested when playing a prolonged game with other people. This game is often a primer in bad human behavior teaching brutality, deception and stealing. It does however challenge those playing to rise above those things and form true loyalities and support of fellow tribe members.

[bluefire]

When I was at MS, I wrote the tech support training for Flight Simulator.  When a pilot would contact us about a response being off, those bits of feedback were sent in a prod dev.  The fixes were sometimes added to the next release.  I'm not saying the gaming experience matches reality, but attempts were made to have the planes respond correctly.  It was an interesting gig.