Seaking Flight Simulator

[Spitfire]

I happened upon SMs youtube site and noticed he had a video of the Merlin helicopter flight simulator ..... that got my memory fired up and I remembered my time as a building society manager in Helston which is next to RNAS Culdrose.

I got friendly with several lads off the base and did eventually buddy up with a couple of blokes who worked on 'The Box' as they called it - the Seaking simulator. I finally managed to worm my way on to the base and get 90 minutes on the box at 7.00 am one day in a 'maintenance' mode - i.e. 'we need to test it '
The only trouble is that you need an officer to sit in the other seat and they aint cheap - so it all took a bit of arranging - but I did actually get there.

I can fly model helicopters so I understood collective and cyclic pitch control and what does what to where - but when you are sitting in a vibrating and very noisy (& smelly - yes the smells are real too ) cockpit its very different. The video all around you is unreal - very convincing - but back then just a little angular at times - but you don't really notice that with everything else you have to do

I won 't bore you with the entire experience except to say that at the end of 90 minutes I was sweating buckets and my heart was thumping like a steam hammer - to all intents and purposes it's REAL
We did hovering practice - tried out the Krypton Factor landing on the back of the fleet auxiliary Argus (remember that ) - landing on an oil rig in the North Sea - landing at Los Angeles International at night... flying down the running rabbit lights behind Jumbos - engine off auto rotates (those are VERY hairy in an 11 ton helicopter - simulated engine fire (the cockpit fills with lots of real smelly smoke) - rescue at sea with a winch - flying down a welsh valley, only to see a Nimrod flying straight at me up the same valley......take emergency avoiding action & change underpants (the Navy wallas idea of a joke) .... all very exciting

If ever you get the chance to have a go on a simulator just go for it - its incredible

[Mayfly]

Aha I konw what you mean when you say they feel real. DT took Andy & Barry Masefield into the kingair sim at Cranwell, at the start of the year because it uses the same garmin sat nav that 558 has got. anyway DT left them to it Andy having a clutch & Barry playing with the garmin, after about 30 mins DT knocked on the outside of the windscreen to see if they wanted a cuppa & poor Barry nearly had heart failure, he had totally fogotten he was in a sim.

[Spitfire]

ROFPMSL
If anyone had done that to me when I was head to head with the Nimrod in the welsh valley I think I really would have had a major bowel problem as I was concentrating so hard and it was well over an hour into the 'sortie' - so by that time I was REALLY there
It's not so much what you see outside its what you feel and hear and what you see inside - I mean instruments never lie - do they

[Mayfly]

ROFPMSL
If anyone had done that to me when I was head to head with the Nimrod in the welsh valley I think I really would have had a major bowel problem as I was concentrating so hard and it was well over an hour into the 'sortie' - so by that time I was REALLY there
It's not so much what you see outside its what you feel and hear and what you see inside - I mean instruments never lie - do they

[Stevieboy]

ROFPMSL
If anyone had done that to me when I was head to head with the Nimrod in the welsh valley I think I really would have had a major bowel problem as I was concentrating so hard and it was well over an hour into the 'sortie' - so by that time I was REALLY there
It's not so much what you see outside its what you feel and hear and what you see inside - I mean instruments never lie - do they