FlightDeck F-16 Fighting Falcon Jet Simulator and Lucille's 022109

The crew altogether. We arrive at FlightDeck in Anaheim. Garry and Barry are in the fighter jet equivalent of a Laz-I-Boy recliner. They look 'WAY too comfortable.

Pretty sweet. I can say it was pretty SWEET.
You know, someone asked me, "Don't I do any girly shit?" To which I replied, "Of COURSE I do! I put on makeup and do my hair before doing this stuff!" Got to thinking about it and told them that I have the best of both worlds-I can do girly stuff AND guy-type stuff, and nobody thinks twice. Now if a GUY were to do guy stuff and girly stuff, a lot of people would think he was whipped or something. He'd have to be an extremely secure person in his own right, very sure of himself and comfortable with anything that comes along. Come to think about it, I know a few guys like that, Barry being one. I mean, Barry IS whip....I mean, secure about himself.

Ok, back to the flight simulator.
Here's the website to where we went:
http://www.flightdeck1.com/
I went to their website then of course looked up as MUCH as I could about the F-16, simulators, flight, etc. Learned a bit about pitch, roll, yaw, crap like that. Of COURSE I psyched myself out and got kinda nervous. By the way, Flight Deck got 5 out of 5 recommendations from TripAdvisor. Very very good company. I can attest to that myself now.
There was so much to remember, but then I figured hey, if I can ride a bike without crashing (and I KNOW what you're thinking, Barry, Jessica and Johney, and don't EVEN go there because that's another post), then I could do this simulator thingy.
I wrote a few ideas regarding what I wanted to do, think about and remember of this experience, so I used that paper to write my thoughts for the blog. I always end up forgetting shit.

Hey, Tori, LOOK BEHIND YOU! (Isn't that a COOL picture??!!)
First thing I wanted to do was get there early and take pictures of the place, pictures of people coming, pictures of getting flight suits on, pics of the briefing etc.
Then thoughts of what was going through my mind when we got into the flightsuits, doing the briefing, the simulator, and afterward.
Barry and I, Tori and Gary, and their friend Chuck were the five pilots. We would be involved in a dogfight against each other. Yay. Ok, THIS'll be interesting.
After we paid, we were led into the locker area (yeah, they had lockers for our purses and jackets and stuff). I kept my camera on a long tether around my neck like I usually do whenever we go anywhere. Tori and Bub, below left and Chuck and Gary, below right, suiting up.
Getting into the flight suits was easy for the guys of course, BUT Tori and I were a little hard to fit. The flight suits are usually made for guys with no hips and no ass, whereas Tori and I have 'hips and ass'. We got suits that fit, however. They fit. We couldn't freakin' BREATHE, but they fit.

To the left, Gary and Chuck trying to figure out Chuck's camera. "Hey, I'm law enforcement, not freakin' IT!!"
After we all got into our flight suits, I had us all pose in the 'thumbs up' position (there were some pics on the website so that's where I got the idea). Worked out really well!

Went into the briefing room and had a 15 minute multimedia presentation with our flight instructor Jake. He's 16, will be 17 next month, grew up around Glamis and has been around dirt bikes and dual-sports since he was 6 month old. (Or was it 6 weeks old, Jake?) His call sign that the guys gave him was 'Bobby', like the kid on "King of the Hill" on Fox 11. I called the company back and told them that when Jake turns 18 they should change his call sign. I was kind of disappointed that we weren't given call signs, but that would've taken about another 15 minutes to decide and we were already on minus minutes because of my picture taking.

There was a throttle on the table in the briefing room with buttons on it-the only one we needed to worry about was the mic button. The OTHER control, the stick, however, had 4 buttons+ that we needed to push all sorts of different ways. THAT one was gonna be a little hard to figure out. Below right, Jake explaining the aerodynamics of steering one of these suckers.

Jake also said that the thing to avoid was crashing into the ground on our own. Crashing like that would cause everyone to laugh at that person. (later on, guess who crashed into the ground? I went into too much of a dive and couldn't pull out in time-boy, THAT sounded weird...)
In the briefing room we had an overview of what each control did to make the jet go forward, up, down, curve/turn, and especially shoot. We had 8 rear heat=seeking missles plus 500 rounds ammo. Jake explained how the radar, missle lock and tone worked. He didn't really explain that when we hear a high pitched bunch of beeps, that meant WE WERE LOCKED ONTO BY SOMEONE ELSE and had to get the hell outta Dodge.
Went into the simulator room (left) which was kinda dark but you could make out the simulators which looked like a cross between eggs and a fighter jet cockpit. Mine was #301 and had to climb a ladder to get in. Saw the throttle and the stick and had to put on a mic'd headset. The headset was how we talked to Control and could also talk trash between each other. Quite frankly we were too busy flying the damn things to even talk to each other.

Each instructor fitted us into our sims and fitted our headsets. We were then instructed on how to take off and had 10 minutes to 'fool around' and figure out how to manipulate the controls and the aircraft simulator. I kinda did, but went too slow, kinda curvy, and the instructor said, "Don't go slow, you're not piloting a Cessna or a commercial aircraft, you're piloting a fighter, so mix it up and make some quick moves! otherwise, you will be shot down quicker than anything". Below right, Chuck's sim. Below left, my sim.

Take off was throttle full forward, reach 172 knots then pull back on the stick to pitch the nose up. Taking off was a piece of cake. The Control Instructor said, "301, you are cleared for take off" so I gave it full throttle then eased the stick back to raise my nose. VERY cool. Wish I could just fly around and do stuff, but we were in battle mode so I had to watch my ass. There was a radar screen on the lower left of the head's up view and I could see the others and where they were. Obviously, BEHIND ME was not a good thing, so I had to be-bop around and get behind THEM.

To the left, Joe "I got first place" Gary. Below, Tori exiting her sim.

Gary on the right exiting the cockpit.

I could see the other two sims next to me-Chuck to my immediate left and Barry to my far left. I could also see their screens but really I was trying to pay attention to mine.

I kinda forgot this, but I DIDN'T have to have my throttle at full all the time, so I was going about 650 knots all the time-no wonder I banked really fast and hard, and ended up upside down a lot! Which helped shake people off my tail, but didn't help me find anybody to shoot down.

The simulator itself doesn't move, and I had no feelings of nausea or inner ear imbalance or any of that. If there's no motion, there can't really be any motion sickness, right? RIGHT? Right. At least there wasn't with any of us.

We're about to get our score sheets all printed out. You can see who did what and how well.

Gary came in first place, which was expected considering he used to work on them in the Army.
Chuck and I tied for second place-if I hadn't crashed my jet, I would've been second. Surprisingly, Tori WASN'T last-BARRY WAS.
Go figure. But he DID do the harder landings perfectly-the night landing and carrier landing. None of us landed correctly on all three. I did crash all three.

You know what? It was almost worth the price just to put on the freakin' flight suit and have my pic taken in it!

Now, on to Lucille's for a farewell/we did the Simulator great dinner BBQ. Tori's having some sort of shrimp sandwich and Gary, of course, is contemplating 'Q.

Below that, Chuck and Audrey, Mindy's friend.