After Hours — Ether Fighter

Threat!

While the Ether Fighter is small, quiet and nearly invisible to radar and infrared sensors, it still emits some energy. The jet leaves a plume which, although well cooled, can still be detected. An early warning aircraft equipped with cryogenic infrared sensors notes a change in the blackness below from the computations of the supercomputer languishing in a bath of liquid helium. An alarm lights on the flight deck and in the main cabin, operators light up a pulsed high power laser that floods the area around the Ether Fighter.

Threat! The Ether Fighter snaps up and back towards the EW aircraft and locks an anti laser missile onto the emissions. Firing a missile alerts the EW bird, and the laser blinks off. Now the decision has to be made – fight or flight. Since the mission has not been completed, the Ether Fighter’s artificial intelligence tactical computer chooses flight, and turns back toward its target and hugs the weeds.

Cap Aircraft Blaze With Energy

The next gate is a set of acoustic sensors on a ridge line, and these give a precise, if momentary, fix as the Ether Fighter crests the end of the valley it has been following.

CAP aircraft blaze with energy, trying desperately to find the intruder. One has a glimmering success, and launches a missile. The launch is detected and the Ether Fighter pops a small decoy that lures the missile away. Five more attempts lose five missiles and account for the last of the decoys.

Four fighters box the Ether Fighter in. Two have a solid contact with a combined radar and infrared tracker. The Ether Fighter calls for help with a transmission bounced off meteorite trails in the ionosphere. Alice hears the klaxon sound and turns to her screen. The combat centre is buried deep in the desert almost three thousand kilometres away, but with transmissions moving at the speed of light, distance is irrelevant. Alice is the “top gun” and in regular simulated shootouts, her sixth sense of what is about to happen has her scoring 30% higher than the next best fighter pilot. Very few pilots actually fly in battle these days — the risk of loss is too high and the politicians don’t like the public reaction after captured and dead aircrew are paraded on CNN.

15 Instantaneous Gs

Her screen is fed by bits of data recovered from the Ether Fighter. The situational awareness display shows the four threatening fighters. Demanding full throttle, she pulls the Ether Fighter into a twisting vertical climb. Since it has no onboard pilot, it can pull 15 instantaneous ‘Gs’, and at this altitude, can sustain 12. Single radar ‘pings’ from the Ether Fighter, coupled with the transmissions from the interceptor aircraft, keep track of the opposition. Sensing an opening, Alice gets a quick shot at one aircraft with a missile, then snaps some bullets into another at an impossibly high angle-off crossing shot. Two fighter symbols disappear from the display, and the other two are outside firing range. Alice pushes the Ether Fighter back to the deck, and hands command back to its battle management computer.

An Unlikely Scenario?

An unlikely scenario? Perhaps, but with the increasing cost of developing fighters and the explosion of computer power, it may be a better future investment to rely on a combination of a semi autonomous flight management system and remote pilotage for those rare emergencies needing a human touch. There is little propaganda value in captured wreckage, while captured pilots parading on CNN are indeed a sorry sight.

Fly8 Simulation

I have a personal interest in the way information is displayed to the pilot and, after spending countless hours in front of a computer screen running simulations, realised that it would be possible to generate all the required cockpit information with a much reduced data rate. I wrote to the group in the UK that I consider write the best simulation software and asked if they would consider developing an “Ether Fighter” concept. “No”, was the reply.

Fate is a strange beast, and within a week of getting this disappointing response, I was contacted through Australian Aviation by Eyal Lebedinski offering to show me some work he had completed on a flight simulation. Since Eyal works for a software company in Canberra, effectively in my own back yard, I accepted with alacrity. When I arrived, Eyal had two copies of his flight simulator, “FLY8”, fighting each other over a network. He uses the programme as a screen blanker. Looking closely, I was astounded at the display and the speed. Each of the simulations, running on a normal ‘486 PC, was operating at about 20 frames per second! The display was “wire-frame”, but gives all the essential information, and runs silky smoothly as a result of the high frame rate.

Requesting A Hornet

He ended the simulation, and I was offered command of the aircraft. “What do you like to fly,” Eyal asked, “F-15, F-16, or a ‘Classic’ aircraft?” If I was astounded before, now I was flabbergasted that one simulation could provide such a choice! I requested a Hornet, and Eyal made a couple of menu selections, and there was an F/A-18 HUD awaiting my direction. The CH Flightstick with an analogue throttle provided the pilot interface, and I opened the tap. The “aircraft” accelerated down the runway and I was quickly airborne. I use circuits to test any simulation, and here my contention that high frame rates are important to the veracity of the simulation showed its value as a predictor of performance.

The simulation is a delight to fly, and you can make those close, curving, 1.5 G fighter style approaches and still maintain precise control until touchdown. There is no noticeable flicker between frames and the impression is one of silky smooth flight. Surprisingly, the “wire frame” presentation seems to have little bearing on the sense of reality of the simulation — I adapted to the presentation style in a couple of seconds.

Three Killer Drones

Next, Eyal launched three killer drones, and I had to twist and fight to avoid being shot down. My reputation as an (ex) fighter pilot was at stake, so I concentrated to the point of getting sweaty palms. These little angels will seek your six and will mercilessly take you out with a stream of bullets unless you are as quick as the devil. I got two before I was a smoking stream plummeting vertically to splat on the earth grid, but it took a lot of concentration and snap shooting to do it.

The potential of this simulation was clear, and I asked Eyal if he would be willing to help me create an experimental “Ether Fighter”. “Sure”, was Eyal’s reply, “but you should know I only do what interests me.” I promised to draft a cockpit layout. I roughed out what I considered to be the essential information a fighter pilot needs to see in the cockpit, and passed it to Eyal. The main screen is a forward-look out of the aircraft, with read-outs of speed, altitude and attitude. Below centre is a horizontal situation display, left is an aircraft logistics and systems display, and on the right a view of what the radar is locked onto and above that an emergency warning panel.

Sun Pointer

Eyal added a “sun pointer” which I found a brilliant way of keeping track of where “up” is. This is a small circle that tracks vertically up. The circle moves around the edge of the display unless “up” is in the field of view when it shows out front. If you are unsure of your attitude, simply roll the “sun” on the border until it is at 12 o’clock, and pull or push to level: A “sun pointer” is a much more intuitive approach than using a ground pointer which tempts you to fly into the ground. This addition is an example of how software such as FLY8 can be effectively and inexpensively used to design cockpits of the future.

Within a few days, Eyal had completed the basic Ether Fighter programming, and I tested it to see how “real” it felt. After a couple of changes to control rates, the prototype Ether Fighter was flying well. We fiddled with it some more, but the main flying cues are as you see in the photographs. There is much more that could be added, but all the essential information is on the screen all the time.

Realism And Detail

The FLY8 simulation is parameter driven, and has a plethora of menus that allow you to change the nature of the display and flight model. I should mention that Eyal has written a full simulation of each of the aircraft’s flight characteristics into the programme, right down to the adverse drag on the ailerons and the location of the centre of gravity in relation to the wheels! As a result, the aircraft responds properly to control inputs. You can even switch off stalls if you like to make life simple.

The detail of simulation is simply amazing. I asked to fly an F-16 and after the simulation “lit up” on the end of the runway, I noticed the HUD drop slightly and oscillate slowly for a couple of cycles. “What’s happening here Eyal?” I asked. “Well,” replied Eyal, “I have to put the aircraft on the threshold to start. For the F-16 I made a small error and put it a meter or so too high. When the aircraft is released, it drops onto the undercarriage, the gear compresses then extends causing the oscillation. I can fix it, but as yet I haven’t bothered.” That folks, is realism and detail.

Fly8.Ini Sets The Parameters

Eyal is almost fanatical about the “reality” of the aircraft he simulates, and uses as many references as he can get his hands on to “get it right”. In the case of undercarriage, the exact location of each wheel is defined in relation to the aircraft’s fuselage. Even aerodynamic features such as the adverse yaw of ailerons is modelled. What is amazing is that the simulation runs as fast as it does, albeit with the caveat that you have to tune the simulation to your particular computer video card.

Operating the simulation on a PC is not simple, and as familiar as I am with computers, I had some puzzles to solve before I could get it to run to my satisfaction. The simulation is a set of computer files. One file, “FLY8.INI” sets the parameters to match the PC platform. This matching is always a challenge to software writers because of the huge range of options available to fit the open architecture of a PC. The main performance factor is the video card. Using a standard VGA driver, the programme is quite slow — just a few frames per second.

However, if you have a card based on the Tseng Labs 4000 chipset, or preferably an accelerator card based on the S3 chip, the programme can use special drivers to achieve the 20 frames per second mentioned above. You need to know what chipset you have, and know how to edit an INI file. Even then, for some reason my early model Diamond Stealth S3 based card would not run the simulation in the 800 x 600 mode, and I had to trick it into running in a 640 x 480 pixel format. My new 486DX2-66 system with a Hercules Dynamite card that looks electronically like the Tseng Labs 4000 chip set requires 54 milliseconds to draw a frame — about 18 frames a second which is fast enough for silky smooth flight presentation.

Tuning The Fly8 Simulation

The actual process of tuning the FLY8 simulation is not too complex — after you understand how the programme runs. The core programme is almost entirely parameter driven, so that changing aircraft, a display, the zoom levels etc is simply a matter of changing the parameters. For example, to set the video card parameters for your computer, you load the FLY8.INI file into any text editor or word processor that can deal with ASCII files. To turn a line off, you make the first character a “#”. To get the simulation programme to read the line, replace the “#” with a space. The FLY8.INI file is well documented internally, so it is a relatively painless matter to make these changes. You can use the FLY8.INI file to define the control input device and all the commonly used joysticks are programmed, including the Thrustmaster and CH Pro series. You need to turn them on using the edit process.

Types Of Favourite Simulations

The programme can also be started with batch files, so that you can set the parameters for your favourite simulations. In doing so, you can “mix-and-match” displays, aircraft, the number of killer drones, ground targets etc (I forgot to mention earlier that the programme also has a simple air to ground mode to drop Mk 82 bomb in a CCIP mode). I have set up some modes such as “ETHER”, “ETHERF16”, “F16”, “F15” etc, and simply by typing the name, I have the simulation structured the way I want. At the moment, my Ether Fighter has an F-16 airframe and has two hostile drones to contend with.

The FLY8 simulation is being steadily developed. Over the several months I have been using this simulation, it has evolved through several versions, as Eyal incorporates new features and suggestions. One interesting feature of the simulation is that it is available through Internet and Eyal has generated worldwide interest and comment from the ‘Net which he incorporates into new versions. Starting with such an elegant, parameter driven simulation, I can see enormous potential for aircraft research in fields such as cockpit ergonomics, aircraft tactical artificial intelligence systems etc.

Autonomous Combat

My own special interest is to see some flight management intelligence built into the programme, so that the Ether Fighter could operate in different modes, say Autonomous Combat, Assisted Combat and Navigation, including an autoland mode that takes full account of normal aircraft operations. Eyal has completed some of these functions — for example the killer drones track and fire on their target, and in autopilot mode, the simulator flies to defeat another aircraft. FLY8 would be an excellent platform to test concepts such as a “layered air combat management” where core programmes such as aviating and navigating would be overlaid with priorities to complete an attack mission, penetrate and avoid defences, and attack targets of opportunity.

Australian Aviation

The policy of Australian Aviation is to review only those products that are available to its readers. Eyal has very generously provided free access to his programmes through Internet. If you have access to the ‘Net, you can obtain a free copy of FLY8 from Eyal’s public access directory. The location of the Internet address where FLY8 is stored is:

CSC.CANBERRA.EDU.AU

and the directory containing the FLY8 files are in: pub/ise/eyal/fly8

After accessing this location, you “ftp” (stands for file transfer protocol) to your directory in your own PC. After unzipping the file, you will find installation instructions. When installed, type “FLY8” from the installation directory and the simulation will run. You will need to tune the simulation to maximise the performance as described above.

Copy Fly8.Doc Lpt1

The programme comes with an extensive documentation file – it takes an evening of concentrated reading to come to grips with it. Eyal has attempted to structure the documentation file to make it look “pretty” on a dumb printer. To get a copy, from your FLY8 directory in DOS, copy the file to your printer by typing:

COPY FLY8.DOC LPT1

Some printers have a problem with this approach, but you can read the file into a word processor, edit as necessary, and print out using the word processor’s print routines. Sit back and have a cup of coffee — there are over 60 pages of documentation!

If you do not have access to Internet and would like a copy, we have arranged for you to obtain a copy on a 3.5″ floppy disk — just send a cheque or money order for $30, plus your name and delivery details, to Mind Matters, PO Box 3405, Manuka ACT 2603. The disk will contain a simple text editor “TED.COM” to allow you to make the necessary changes to the INI file. Source code is also provided if you wish to try your hand at reprogramming the simulation.

Freeware

Please note that this is “freeware”. This means that once you have a copy, it is yours to use and you may provide free copies to others. Sale for profit is NOT permitted. Most importantly, Eyal always retains the copyright to the programmes, so you must be aware of your obligations under the Australian and international copyright arrangements as Australia is a signatory to the 1968 Geneva agreement on copyright.

Please note that neither Eyal nor I can provide technical support as we simply do not have the time. The programme suite runs a documentation file over 60 pages long, and it is a great help in understanding the simulation and getting it to run. I must say that I was very pleased to find a work of this quality being generated in Australia. We have some very clever people in this country and in information technology it is possible to generate world class work without the need for a large capital investment. FLY8 might just be a peek into the future of combat airpower in the 21st century.