What is "realistic?"

Discussion related to development of realistic carrier-based combat missions.
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Hedgehog
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What is "realistic?"

Post by Hedgehog » Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:20 pm

We keep throwing the word "realistic" around, but what does it mean?

re·al·is·tic

1. having or showing a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected.
Our missions need to be tempered by what can practically be expected from part-time pilots who all have real jobs and real lives that limit the amount of time that we can devote to being a sim pilot. We will continue to expect each pilot to always strive to improve his skill and ability in the cockpit, but acknowledge that we can not reasonably expect to ever be as competent as real-world pilots.

Missions also need to be designed with objectives that can reasonably be expected to be accomplished by one flight of ~8 aircraft. In the real world, one flight would not be tasked with heavy CAP, SEAD, and STRIKE roles all in one mission. If the mission requires all of those objectives, it might need to be 3 different missions.

Threats, as well, need to be tempered for our sim environment. While a real-world enemy might protect a target with a dozen SAM launchers and several flights of enemy fighters, a single flight of sim aircraft cannot address all of those threats and service a target in the sim environment.

2. representing things in a way that is accurate or true to life.
We need to continue to seek to approximate the experience of real-world carrier-based combat missions. We will use the simulation platform toward that goal, rather than to create a video game realm.
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