Reading Material

[Taco 0]

Well folks, this may seem like an odd request at first. Actually, forget 'seem', I think this is simply an odd request.

 

Here's the background. If you're lazy or don't care, skip down to the bold part.

I'm 19 years old, just finished my first year of college. I've never really flown a "real" flight sim before, mostly stuff that's way more "arcade" style (think Crimson Skies. That probably makes you die-hard simmers cringe), and of course my beloved space flight "sim" games. I put sim in quotes because those games are inherently unrealistic. Anyway, being that I wasn't a serious flight sim kind of guy in the past, I just had a cheapo sidewinder joystick, the cheapest they made. In the waning months of my freshman campaign at college, I managed to critically damage the thing by running over the USB connector with my chair (yeah, so my room was messy).

 

Well, now that summer's here I found myself with a backlog of of space sims I wanted to try out or play again, so obviously I needed to purchase a new joystick. Just as I came to this realization, a friend of mine (who plays the same sort of games) was telling me how he caved in to his inner nerd and bought a Saitek X45. He fully admitted that it was way more joystick than he'd ever need, but he just couldn't help himself. Anyway, he showed me some pictures of it and I was, of course, impressed. Then he took a picture of his own X45 in the dark. When I noticed it had gratuitous LEDs on it, I kind of blacked out for a while. When I came-to, I realized I had ordered one for myself. "What the heck," I said. I was working a summer job now and could afford to splurge on a toy. Plus I needed something to keep me entertained for the summer.

 

With this powerful joystick on its way, I redoubled my search for neat games to play with it. See where this is going? Of course I stumbled upon LO:MAC. The screenshots and videos on the site took my breath away. The most important factor? THE A-10 BABY. I've always loved the A-10, it's just so ugly that it's pretty, know what I mean? And one of the earlier games I played as a youngster was a game some of you old folks may recognize - A-10 Tank Killer. Anyway, as I read more about LO:MAC I realized that it was nothing like anything I had ever tried to tackle before.

 

At this point I decided that LO:MAC was going to be a summer project of sorts, a goal to accomplish. I figure it will be a good thing to break up the monotony of my aformentioned summer job, which of course keeps me from going on any sort of fabulous vacation. So LO:MAC it is. So before I even bought it (It's on the way here now) I started reading up. Being a goofy college kid with zero realistic flight sim experience to speak of, let alone real military experience like some of you have, I realized I had a long road ahead of me if I was going to learn how to play this game. For starters I downloaded that huge 140 page pdf manual on this site and browsed through that, but really I think I need something more. Here is a short list of things I know about jets:

 

1) They're awesome

2) I know a fair to middling amount about the planes themselves, but nothing about flying them

3) Top Gun, regardless of techincal accuracy, is one of the best movies ever.

4) The New York Jets are my favorite football team (one of these days ... one of these days)

 

As you can see, I am ill prepared on even a fundamental level to begin an undertaking like LO:MAC. Concepts like "Angle of Attack" and "bleeding energy" are at best hazy in my mind, barely out of reach of my comprehension. This isn't (I hope) because I'm dumb, but simply because I have so little expereince with them. I'm assuming this sort of knowledge will come with experience, but I'm trying to give myself a leg-up. So after all this, I'm going to finally get to the point:

 

---Note to lazy people: the point starts here--

I'm looking for any reccomendations you guys can make on a book that I can find at a library or something that will give me a decent intro to the basics of modern combat flight. I'm not looking for some huge 800 page manual, just something that will introduce me to the basic concepts and give me a little leg-up on my conquest of LO:MAC and realistic flying sims. Like I said, I know this is an oddball request and maybe a bit of a longshot, but I hope maybe somene here can reccomend something. Any web sites you could direct me to would be welcome as well.

 

 

 

Epilogue:

Despite the overall tone of this post, I am not a complete nerd. I realize reading an actual book to prepare me to play a video game may seem like overdoing it, but I'm quite determined to learn how to do this. Like I said, it's sort of a personal goal for the summer. Plus, I don't want to be that guy who fires up the game, takes off, crashes and then says "this is too hard" and never plays again.

[GhostDog 0]

Hi Taco and welcome to Biohaz!

 

i havent gone as far as actually bying books on the subject ( i do know how to read though) but for starters you might want to take a look at some of the exellent articles.

There are several Lomac specific and also lots of genereal articles on different aspects of mud-movin' and air2air. You might also want to ask this question in our "general flight sim discussion" or just "the pub" as some of our members might know some good titles but don't neccesarily check our Lo:mac forums.

 

Good luck with the hunt and with Lo:Mac

[GhostDog 0]

Just a thought:

 

if you are looking for something specific to figher sims you might want to check out Dan "Crash" Crenshaw's "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky". You cab find an extract here. The whole deal is available from flightsimcentral.com among others

[Bard 0]

the falcon4 manual has a lot of good stuff, as does the flanker 2.5 manual.

[SlickWili 0]

Taco,

 

Welcome to BioHaz and thanks for stopping by. :)

 

I second Bard's reference above wholeheartedly. Although I have yet to get my hands on the nice binder edition of Falcon4, I read the full 2.0 Falcon manual when it first came out many, many years ago and was blown away by the detail therein. The authors' determination to educate the game owner is excellent. Although it's main focus is the F-16, I found that I learned a lot about jet flight in general.

[NefariousKoel 0]

I have to agree - the Binder version of Falcon 4 is amazingly in-depth. I have no idea where you could get it these days, I think there's been a high demand for them for some time now (and I'm not parting with mine.. sorry bro).

 

Now that I think of it, I'm not really sure where I picked up on some of the "lingo" over the years. *shrug* Must be from doing it off and on since the 80s and my penchant for reading manuals multiple times apiece. Good luck and hopefully someone will be a bit more helpful than I have.

[Taco 0]

Thanks for the kind words everyone, and GhostDog, that's a great site, it's pretty much exactly along the lines of what I was looking for, I learned a lot.

 

I have a friend who I think may have a Falcon 4 manual. I'll see if I can beg it off him. Again, thanks.

[NefariousKoel 0]

I'm not sure what the regular Falcon 4 manual looked like. There was a huge Binder edition that was pretty nice and I was of the understanding that it was more intuitive than the normal one. Hopefully he has the big one. ;)

[bflagg 0]

Just a thought:

 

if you are looking for something specific to figher sims you might want to check out Dan "Crash" Crenshaw's "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky". You cab find an extract here. The whole deal is available from flightsimcentral.com among others

 

.. abit bit off topic....

I have a copy of that on my site as well.

The link Dan Crenshaw email is invalid and Deltahawks.org is now defunct.

 

I tried to email him and ask permission to put this on my site

(basically for my own use and some friends), but all emails came back

undeliverable... It' appears the web site is old..(98).

 

I did copy it with a disclaimer stating it's not my work but Dan Crenshaws and

all credit goes to him.

 

Brett

My Webpage

Edited June 3, 2004 by bflagg

[GhostDog 0]

Hey Bflagg

 

Dan "Crash" Crenshaw is a member of "Buddy Boys".

 

There is a email addy to him on their website Buddy Boys

 

GD