Cockpit bars

[Andy Bush]

AmOn

Let's substitute the word 'aware" for "see".

When you drive your car and you are looking down the road, you are not "aware" of your instrument panel...even though it may be in your peripheral vision. Instead, you focus mentally and physically on what is happening ahead of you. ("mentally" - what your attention is actually on..."physically" - what your eyes are actually focused on).

Same thing happens in a plane.

The current F1 view in most sims shows something like the first figure in my post. 50% of the view is instrument panel. If the sim pilot is using this view to pursue a bandit, half of his view is unusable for that purpose. To better replicate what the RL pilot would be "aware" of in this situation, I suggest removing the bottom half of the view and expanding the upper (as in the second figure). Such a modification would be far more like what I see when I fly in the real world.

To sum it up...I'm not talking about head position or peripheral vision boundaries. I'm talking about what the pilot is centering his attention on at a particular time. If that object is outside the cockpit, then anything in view inside the cockpit is disregarded.

Andy

[Andy Bush]

Here's a RL example of what I'm trying to say.

I'm on the boom doing air to air refueling. The boomer says I've got my off-load and I want to check my cockpit fuel gauge just to make sure before I disconnect.

But that's going to require a definite eye shift down and to the side as well as a significant refocusing. During the time it takes me to look down, refocus, and read the gauge, I'm still hanging on the boom.

Get the picture!!

Checking cockpit gauges is not the same as it is in our sims. In RL, it takes longer and while the pilot is doing it, his attention is off the task at hand...be that a maneuvering bandit or a tanker sitting right over your head.

The view that we use should reflect the task at hand...not an "all in one" view of the total picture.

Andy

[K West]

I understand what you are saying about the refocusing, more head movement and taking eyes off the outside world more in that scenario (refueling) but in general I don't understand how a trained pilot, like an auto driver familiar with the dash layout of thier vehicle, needs that much time to refocus, needs to have more neck/head moevemnt to view them nor needing to take thier eyes off of the outside world so long when, from what I can tell, most of the important guages are forward and close to the pilots forward line of sight anyway, not down by the knees.

 I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it nor defensive of AH (or any other sim/game) it's just I cannot honestly visualise what you are describing that we should see. Most everything I've experienced in life, be it driving an auto,  a boat, a motorcycle, as a passenger in a small plane and checking out a few WWII fighters cockpits from the drivers seat, gives me a different impression.

 I do not take my head off the road but I will quickly glance at guages whose location I am familiar with and whose readings I can tell just from the pointer position in them. Digital guages are even easier and take less attention and effort.  However to tune a radio or check a map are a couple of thigns that would require more attention from me and it is the one thing from RL that would warrant a seperate view to replicated complete head and eye movement along with refocusing.

 Granted I guess what we have now and a seperate "guage" view are not very realistic at all.  But given that we have to view the world via small, flat monitors the method we use now is the more realistic of the two imo.
 
  Westy

[Toad]

I agree with Andy and Westy.  

Contact flying is looking outside. Checking the guages requires a momentary glance inside.

The problem in PC simming is the amount of time it takes for that quick glance. That glance at the fuel guage to check offload is just that.. a glance to see that the main indicator (fat needle or big number) is about where you expect it to be. It's not reading the gauge to the fifth decimal place.

I'd love to be able to be almost totally "outside" in a PC game... and still have that momentary glance capability to check airspeed. Haven't found a PC game yet that lets you do that. But.. AH has a great compromise solution.