I was driving by the airport near St. Charles, Mo. yesterday and saw a for real TBM Avenger (same as TBF more or less) on the ramp and stopped to take a look. Asked as many questions about it as I could think of. This particular plane was made in May 1945 and flown a small amount in the US afterward but put in deep storage for decades, the result being that now it has but 1900 total hours on it and except for the paint is all original!

I always wondered about the speed/altitude for launching a torpedo and asked about that too. It has to go at 100' altitude and just 115 knots airspeed, quite confining. Also, the real plane has no airbrakes and is strictly a level bomber. And the third crewman was a radar operator (but the mechanic didn't know the abilities of the radar, which was removed on this plane).

When I got home I fired up my CSF2 TBF and stuck it on the carrier deck first try and decided to quit while I was ahead.

(They also have there a B25H and both planes fly regularly.)

Jimski

No telling how the sim compares since I did not fly in the real thing, just looked at it. Actually the sim model I flew, which is one of the latest in the simviation csf2 list, was I thought quite good. It's main flaw was that in virtual cockpit the view position is a few feet too low - you can't see out! I think there is an easy fix for that but can't remember where it is.

The topic of "how real" a sim flies is one that is hard to discuss. I used to fly real planes in the 70's including some big multi prop jobs (I'm old). When I started flying sims about five years ago I found it difficult mostly because you can't use side vision. I think it would take three monitors, one front window and two side windows, to get something realistic. In that respect a real airplane is a lot easier to fly than the sim. I have heard of using multiple monitors but I don't know how to do it. The hat switch is nice for a quick view to the side but in reality you have near 180 degree vision all the time and use it while flying. I suppose the one monitor sim has about 20 degrees of vision.

But sims are quite excellent at training for flying on instruments. Better than the big simulators we used way back in the air force.

Jimski