Adding Realism to a Simulation

In the late 1980’s, and early 1990’s, I was assigned to an Airborne Warning and Control Squadron (AWACS) at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. My duty title was “Air Weapons Controller” but it was more commonly known as a “Scope Dope.” That’s because I sat behind a radar scope and told the good guys where the bad guys were. I did this with abut 6 other scope dopes in the back of the E-3 AWACS Radar Plane.

We worked a lot with the F-15 fighter planes also based at Kadena. Often we’d go over to their unit to plan exercises or debrief missions. During a visit, one of the pilots mentioned they had to run over to the flight simulator for a training mission. I didn’t realize there was a simulator on base, and being curious, I asked if I could go along. The pilot said sure.

The simulator was a gamer’s dream. The pilot would step into a large enclosed fuselage mounted on hydraulic lifts. The fuselage had projected screens around the pilot to simulate the sky, as well as friendly and enemy planes. The hydraulics moved the fuselage in response to the pilot’s control. It was leaps and bounds ahead of the Nintendo game systems that were just making there way to the market. The simulation was controlled by a driver who set up training scenarios and put the pilots through their paces. They could do anything from practicing mechanical failures to full on dogfights with an enemy. The first day I was there, they were dog fighting.

My job, as a scope dope, in a dog fight was to call out the enemy to help the pilot’s situational awareness. There’s a protocol to it…defined structures on wording and when to make calls. But there’s also a bit of an art to it…you can’t overload the pilot with too much information, so you have to know when to shorten calls. And there’s certain enemy activity that pilots should know about right away…and you have to make those calls right away. This knowledge comes from experience.

The sim driver, in addition to setting all parameters for the fake F-15, was also creating and driving all the friendly and enemy fighters. On top of that, he was playing the role of my job, Air Weapons Controller. He’d “radio” the pilot various warnings and calls. But he didn’t have the experience of being a Controller, nor even the knowledge.

There was an extra console for another sim driver, and I asked if I could use it an play the part of the controller. The sim screen gave a picture very similar to that of a radar scope, so it was quite easy for me to do my part. I provided the calls and control, and the sim driver drove the simulator. It was a blast! We had fun. The sim driver, relieved of the extra burden of playing controller was able to provide more focus on the sim, making it easier for him, and more challenging for the pilot. The pilot, as he told us on debrief, loved the added realism. We felt we were onto something.

The sim driver and I met later that week to chat about it. And we came up with an idea. The AWACS did not fly every day, and we had multiple crews. We often had Weapon Controllers that had free time on their hands. They could come over and participate in the sims. We worked up a little guide for controllers; what to expect, what the screen and controls would look like, and anything else they would need to know. It was all of 8 pages long…it was very simple and straightforward. We then set up a sign up process. Weekly our Ops departments would touch base to see when the sim would be running. Controllers could then sign up for slots. Word got out, and soon a ground radar unit that had Weapons Controllers was interested in participating. So they began taking slots too.

There are no metrics or outcome analysis that showed any type of improvement from this informal program. The simulated missions did not count toward any official training requirements for the Weapon Controllers. But it improved the training the F-15 pilots received. It made the sim drivers’ job easier. And it gave controllers something more meaningful than shuffling papers when we were not on missions. Plus it provided additional bonding opportunities for controllers from two different units and F-15 pilots. Lastly, it was fun. Altogether it was a great little guerilla improvement program.

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