From: bash@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (thomas.w.basham)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military
Subject: Sky Warriors Air Combat School Experience
Keywords: Great Time, Lots of Fun, Lots of $$
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:48:33 GMT
Organization: AT&T

I'm not exactly where such a topic belongs, but this newsgroup seemed
like a good place to start. I just spent a week in Atlanta, GA
at Sky Warriors. I went with a group of friends and had a great time.

For those unfamiliar, Sky Warriors is run by ex-military pilots
who flew everything from F-100s through F-15s, including an A-10
driver who flew in the Gulf. They have 3 T-34s with 300+ hp engines,
equipped with lots of cameras, projection gunsights, and a laser
tracking system. You pay your $$ and get to fly against your buddies.
You don't have to have a pilot's license, in fact of the group of
8 I went with, only 1 was a licensed pilot (an ex-A-10 pilot).

SW is run like a school, using "Phases", where each phase introduces
some new maneuvering. YOu have detailed briefing discussing the
various tactics they want to introduce, then the IP does the takeoff,
gives the stick to you, you and your friend (enemy?) take some
practice shots to warm up, then you do three to four head-to-head
merges and have at it. Regardless of what "phase" you're at, the
IPs let you pull any maneuver you want as long as there are no
safetly concerns. I personally stalled and dropped into a spin, but
my IP let me do the recovery. Afterwards, the IP lands, and you
have a thorough debrief where you review the gun and tail cameras of
the opponents in sync.

For the non-military pilot, this is probably the best ACM training
you can get. The people that run the outfit are unbelievably skilled
and cool, several are up around the 18,000+ flight hour mark. There
is a similar outfit called Air Combat USA, but they are about $200
per flight more expensive and do not have such a complex tracking
system to record hits. Nothing against ACUSA, but all SW IPs were
top of the line, and would be hard to beat.

Anyway, I don't want this to sound like a commercial, 'cause it's not.
I just wanted to lay some background info down first. Anyway, the
group I went with are all heavy into PC flight sims, specifically,
Falcon 3, AOTP, and Red Baron. So heavy, in fact, that most of
us are beta testers for the respective companies, and I have two
books due out in the coming weeks on those simulators. Expectedly,
the SW IPs looked at us kind of funny when we tried to explain that
we all had copies of Shaw's ACM book and understood the concepts 
involved. ALl the IPs believed the sims to be only toys.

By the end of the week, they changed their tunes. We had at least three
of the IPs hooked on AOTP and F3. We also were deluged with compliments
on are flying skills. Most of us had never touched the stick of a 
real aircraft for more than a few minutes, but we were flying tight
wingtip formations, lots of 4g-5g turns, and using the vertical 
like you wouldn't believe. Cockpit comms are recorded along with
the camera footage on VHS tapes, and I have all of my IPs not only
complimenting my fighting, but remarking how much fun it is to fly
with us since we did fight so aggressively.

So, you're probably asking, "what's the point of this posting?" It
is twofold. First, I had such an incredible time flying that I wanted
to talk about it. If anyone else has heard of SW and had any doubts
about it being worth the cost, believe me... it is! Second, there
is always such a debate about how simulators perform. While the
sims do have incredible limitations, especially with respect to out-of-
cockpit views, the most recent sims model 3d maneuvering and energy
management well enough that sim pilots can really gain useful 
experience! As it turns out, SW IP's have found that most general
aviation pilots don't do well at SW because they are concerned with
the position of their aircraft relative to the ground. Military 
pilots (and we sim pilots) focus on pointing our lift vector correctly,
and don't worry about the ground as long as it stays a sufficient distance
away.

The most G I pulled was a little over 4.5, and that was enough. There
is absolutely no experience like pulling Gs. Nothing in any sim will
prepare you for the stress on your neck. At least a couple of times,
me (and others) got our heads pushed back against the IP's instrument 
panel, and had to use our hands to pull our head upright again. Also,
don't even think of doing this without getting some transderm-scope
patches for motion sickness from your Doctor. Those who went up without
patches (none of whom were use to aerobatics) got sick, and several
tossed breakfast. Those of us with the patches suffered *absolutely NO*
discomfort. The only effort was trying to squeeze the blood back itno
our heads during tight turns. At 4.5g I suffered some tunnel vision,
but never lost complete vision. The staff didn't like it when one guy
pulled 6g, and 7g was over-g for the aircraft.

The T-34 is a remarkable little plane, operating from about 80 to
160kts. This allowed for some use of the vertical, including loops
and barrel rolls, but required good management of energy to do so.
Besides 1v1 fights, we also performed perches, where one opponet was
forced to fight with limited throttle, requiring him to better manage
his energy. The SW staff was really amazed at how well the sim-jocks
could manage energy.

The SW staff also have wonderful stories due to their immense amount
of flying time. It was almost worht the trip just to hear them talk.
Gen Yeager visited SW some time back, and there is a great pix of
him and the owners standing in front of the hangar.

Merges started at around 6500'msl, with a 2500'msl harddeck (about
1500' agl, roughly). Usually, closure rates were around 280-300kts.
as soon as the two a/c were sideby side (about 1000' range), one IP
would call "fights on" and we'd have at it until someone scored,
someone went below the harddeck, or someone lost lunch and called 
"knock it off".

I personally used a lot of high yo-yo maneuvers. With the plane loaded,
the rudders really snap the nose around in the T-34. On merges, just
after fight's on, I liked to pitch up about 10deg, then roll toward the
other plane (who was usually breaking back into me), then (while
maintaining back pressure on the stick), stomp the bottom rudder to the
floor and whip the nose around in and instant.

Well, I guess I've went on long enough, so I'll close this. If anybody
is interested, I'd be glad to tell more about the trip. Please let me
know if a different newsgroup would be more appropriate for this
topic.


-- 
Tom "KC" Basham    AT&T Bell Laboratories:  bash@ihlpb.ATT.COM
                   CompuServe:              73760.1251@CompuServe.COM