Reality Vs. Simulation : Only Thing Missing in Flight Game Is Nausea

“Sign here,” said Mark Hession, a pilot and veteran of 32 combat missions during Desert Storm. “It says I get your car stereo if something happens to you.”

I signed, releasing Air Combat USA from any liability if I crashed in combat.

In a marketing ploy of some genius, a group of journalists were going to fly real airplanes, then compare the experience to playing Sega of America’s newest computer game, “Tomcat Alley.” I was the lucky pilot from my newspaper to face “the enemy.”

Sega, inspired by the Tom Cruise film “Top Gun,” sank $1 million into the game, which includes live-action film footage of F-14 fighter jets. Forget cute computer animation, the company says. This is the real thing, an interactive, movie-like gaming experience.

The purpose of the day’s mission, sponsored by Sega at the Fullerton Airport, was to encourage the media to write about the Sega CD game, which became available in stores last week for $59.95.

Granted, the single-engine, propeller-driven SIAI Marchetti fighter-trainers we were to use were not Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. But my chest cavity probably wouldn’t have survived a true comparison. I’ve logged hundreds of hours in video arcades and played flying games on my home computer, but a pilot I am not.

Hession told us how to fly in formation, track the enemy with the gun sight, do maneuvers known as “yo-yos”--and how to use a parachute. (“If this D-ring doesn’t work, bring it back, and we’ll give you a new one.”)

“It’s not who’s more studly,” he said. “It’s more like a chess match. Or a tennis game, where you hit back and forth and wait for someone to make a mistake.”

I asked the logical question: “So how do we avoid crashing into each other?”

Hession covered his eyes with his hands.

Then he said, “Fun is the No. 1 thing.”

“No, let me take that back,” he said. “Safety. Safety is the No. 1 thing.”

*

Pilots would sit next to us with override controls just like those in driver education cars. They wouldn’t let us fly within 500 feet of each other, and they wouldn’t allow us to shoot while flying straight at each other--which would be like playing chicken at 300 miles an hour.

We could shoot each other using buttons on our joysticks, which were wired to sensors on the other plane. Whether we hit the target was determined electronically. If we succeeded, the sensors would activate a trail of smoke to make the experience look realistic.

I donned a flight suit and found a helmet that fit my head. This was serious stuff.

My co-pilot was Stephen (Skids) Donnelly, a Navy Tomcat pilot who had flown missions over Iraq. He took the plane up and then, with amazing calm, watched as I flew on my own into the clouds and above the hills of Palos Verdes and Catalina Island.

My enemy was Ben Kelly, a disc jockey for KKBT radio, 92.3 FM: “The Beat.”

Donnelly encouraged me to exhibit pilot bravado. He told me not to worry if I pulled so hard on the stick that the plane began to shake and buffet. (As Hession had said earlier, “If we call you Jimmy Buffett up there, it’s not because we like your singing.”)

Donnelly was a wise guy, too. He kept offering to read me the tips I had written down in my notebook. But I had no problem smoking the enemy when he flew into my cross hairs. Pow! Send in the next victim.

Smoke trailed from Kelly’s plane, and Donnelly gave me a “high five.” I toasted Ben twice, and he got me once.

“Awesome!” Donnelly shouted.

“Hey, are you guys really trying over there?” I yelled into the radio. The response was inaudible.

In the next dogfight, Kelly came up behind me, and I couldn’t keep his plane in view. As he passed me by, I glanced back but then focused my eyes forward as if I were driving a car. I broke the cardinal rule: Never lose sight of the enemy.

“They’re on our 6 o’clock,” Donnelly said. “Uh-oh. That’s not good, Dean.”

Getting shot down was a humbling experience.

We did a couple of “roll” maneuvers, and I started getting a sinking feeling in my stomach. We quit the combat just in time. I spent the last moments of the flight concentrating on not throwing up.

Donnelly knew what was going on when I got quiet. He lifted my visor and opened the cockpit canopy. “Try to breathe deeply,” he said.

Back on the ground, I felt wobbly. My forehead was dripping sweat, and my face felt sunburned. We were only up for an hour. Kelly said it felt like three days.

I felt elated, though.

“That was some good flying,” Hession said.

“You picked it up fast,” Donnelly said.

I beamed. All those hours with the computer joystick paid off. The whole mission was recorded on videotape, which was part of the deal. (For $695, you too can fly for an hour through Air Combat USA, based in Fullerton.)

My mission, however, was only half over. I was greeted by a throng of Sega people wearing blue Tomcat Alley baseball caps. Now I had to play the computer game so I could compare the experiences.

I got sweaty palms shooting down the enemy on the computer, but I didn’t get a queasy stomach. Chris Bankston, producer of the game, assured me that he does not want people to get nauseated playing Tomcat Alley. “It’s like an arcade game with a story line that gives you a rush of adrenaline,” he said.

The film footage of the game merges seamlessly with animations and special effects. The speed of the video is about half that of ordinary television, which makes the scenes spotty and fuzzy, like a poorly colorized classic movie.

The game gives a flight officer’s view from the cockpit. Peter Loeb, product marketing manager, says the game rewards players for thinking quickly--hitting a button that drops a flare within seconds of being hit by an incoming missile, for example. You have to react fast with the right maneuver, or your plane goes up in smoke. More embarrassing, your wingman or pilot can abort the mission because of your inexperience, and then belittle you.

It took me about 10 attempts to knock out all the MIG fighters in the first mission of the game. I never made it to the end of the game, where I was supposed to blow up renegade Soviet Col. Alexi Povich’s hide-out.

I didn’t feel bad, though. Bankston said there are 60 hours of playing time in the seven missions, with a million scenarios possible.

In the end, I had to agree with Danny (Dooley) Jackson, a 54-year-old Air Combat USA pilot.

“I’m too old for this,” he said of the computer game. “This is for youngsters.”

Like Jackson, I’ll take the real plane any day.