Local Story: Flight Sim Ed

[=VG= BLuDKLoT]

HEMET: Students take flight in Hemet

By KEVIN PEARSON
The Press-Enterprise

Two times on Thursday, Patrick Bucud drove his F-18 Hornet into the ground at a high rate of speed. Finally, on his third try and after a route that was anything but direct, he put it down gently on the runway.

For the aspiring Navy pilot, it was a moment he was proud of.

Bucud, a 17-year old senior at Alessando High School in Hemet, is one of about a dozen students in the school's Aviation Club, an after-school activity that uses flight simulators similar to those used by the military to teach students how to fly aircraft from the comfort of a classroom.



"It's really cool," said Bucud, who has dreamed of being a Navy pilot since growing up in the Philippines. "I'm having fun and learning a lot. This is my dream right now and has been since I was a little kid."

And helping him fulfill that dream is the direct mission of the program, says its instructor.

John Mastrioanni, who has taught at the school for three decades, is a former Navy pilot and instructor who is heading up the program. It was formerly a credit class, but after changes in curriculum eliminated it from the schedule, he has brought the lessons back in an after-school club that meets once a week at the 11th- and 12th-grade continuation high school in the Hemet Unified School District.

In teaching the students about flight, Mastrioanni uses the same language that the military would use and instructs the students about how air flaps and speed brakes can change the speed of a plane and about how to use GPS and other in-flight instruments during the course of a mission.



Last week, as he broke in a new simulator that the students had yet to use, he had them flying into a Naval base in Hawaii at dusk, allowing them to use runway lights to help them guide in the aircraft. The simulator lets the user pick a wide variety of aircraft and bases from all over the world. There is even an option to land on aircraft carriers, something that is a much more complicated maneuver than placing the twin-engine jet down on a landlocked runway.

Students keep a log of their flights and several said they one day hope for careers at the helm of an aircraft.

"I'd do anything to be in any fighter plane," said senior Yordan Uriarte, as he inspected the flight helmet and oxygen mask that Mastrioanni used during his naval days.

As the students tackled the simulator, using a military-style joystick, some crashed -- but the burn feature was turned off -- and others found their way to the runway. But what Mastrioanni hopes is that they managed to find something else from the program.

"I hope they understand how aircraft fly and that doing something technically difficult can be achieved," Mastrioanni said. "It's about building their own self-confidence. Eventually, they will learn they can achieve anything they want if they try."

Reach Kevin Pearson at 951-763-3466 or kpearson@pe.com

[Mikede]

i wish we had this at my school

[=VG= poffadder (Inactive Duty)]

Heh FS 2000. I think i still have the massive manual for this somewhere.

[=VG= SemlerPDX]

Cool! Wish I had that one back in HS, too...
But thanks to Odell Lake and Oregon Trail I learned....uh...wait, what did I learn?
That the life of a rainbow trout is perilous, and wagon are not good ATV's?

Oh yeah, & that I love computer games! !gamer