Briefing: In FAM HOP ONE (your first flight - aka Familiarization "Hop" Number One) your briefing will teach you how to fly an F/A-18 Hornet. It consists of a 20-minute video-tape that covers basic flight controls, weapons selection, and understanding the instruments. An A.C.E.S. flight instructor will follow up the video to answer your questions about flying the jet and ask you what you'd like to during your flight.

On future flights at ACES, we offer advance flight instruction. Here's a list of some of the areas to explore when you return for a flight:

1. Art of Dogfighting – Learn how to shoot down your opponent. There's nothing like putting the cross hairs on your buddy's jet and sending him down in flames.
2. Ground Attack – The F/A-18 is a multi-role jet, and carries a wide variety of weapons to attack ground targets.
3. Carrier Operations – Learn from Blue Angels Pilot Rick Adams how to fly the pattern around an aircraft carrier. Landing your jet on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is a real thrill.
4. Radar Operation – Radar allows pilots to "see" targets many miles away. Learning to operate this vital tool allows you to "see first, shoot first, kill first". All modes in both air-to-air and air-to-ground are covered.
5. Navigation – Learn how to use your INS Navigation System so you know where you are at all times during your flight.

Suit-Up: "Better to die than look bad" - Fighter Pilot Axiom

• Wear the authentic flight gear...identical as that used by current fighter pilots.
• "Bone Dome" - Flight Helmet. HGU-55 (Current Issue) with comms (microphone, earphone)
• "Bag" - Flight Suit. CWU-27/P NOMEX fire resistant
• "Vest" - Survival Vest. Loaded with what you need when you're alone behind enemy lines.
• Parachute Harness - Comes in handy if you have to eject.

Flight (Mission): Each flight is custom-tailored to each pilot. An A.C.E.S. Flight Instructor will be with you on the radio during your Flight. YOU tell us what you'd like to tray while you're at A.C.E.S. Not sure what to do? We've found a good typical first flight might involve:

1. Take Off
2. Getting the feel of the jet - By Flying Acrobatics:
   • Loop
   • Rolls: "snap" & "barrel"
   • Immelman
   • Split "S"
   • Turns: 90° bank, minimum radius
3. ACM (Dogfight) with other simulator's or computer-controlled adversaries (if flying solo)
4. Touch and gos at airfield
5. Landings - land Based, aircraft carrier - day or night

Your time goes by very fast in the cockpit.

Debrief: Here's where you tell us about your flight. This gives us the feedback necessary to continue to offer you the best simulation experience possible.

Here is a little bit about Mike Pohl and the idea behind A.C.E.S.

AVSIM: Mike can you tell me a little about yourself?

Mike Pohl: Basically, I am a flight sim enthusiast who took a hobby and made a vocation of it. I began flying sims back in 1987 with the original Falcon F-16 program for the PC. That was on a 4.77 MHz laptop with a gray/blue LCD screen. It was pretty cool at the time. When Falcon 3.0 came out, I spent many winter evenings flying with a good friend over our modems... this was long before the Internet. In 1992 I flew in an F-16 simulator at an Air Force Base. I was stunned to see that the radar was exactly like the one in Falcon 3.0. I flew it for about 30 minutes and it all matched what I had learned to do on my PC. I landed it successfully, and as dumb as it might sound, I was really fired up about being able to do that in a "real" simulator.

AVSIM: What was your inspiration to start A.C.E.S.?

Mike Pohl: I always wanted to own my own business, but could never find anything worth getting excited about. Driving home afterwards, I had fleeting thoughts that perhaps a store with flight simulators, bringing that same feeling of excitement and accomplishment to others, would be a business I could get excited about. The dream gradually gathered momentum to the point that I began do research during my travels across the country as an insurance executive. Eventually, I wrote a business plan. That's when things really took off.

We opened our doors in March of 1996 with two simulators. We used a fixed based cockpit with a large flat screen projection system and a motion based cockpit with a 20-inch monitor. Since we couldn't afford to buy "real" military simulators (a "cheap" one is $1 million), we built our own so we could keep costs in line. Taking a page from the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, we've been updating and improving the simulators and our business ever since.

AVSIM: What do you offer the public?

Mike Pohl: Today, we offer the AeroDome, which is our own invention (patent pending) and provides a 180-degree projection onto a five-foot diameter dome in the front of the cockpit. It really changes the nature of the flight simulation experience. Most telling is that now we get lots of people who say, "I don't like simulators because of the limited view, but this I really like this". We've always had a lot of pilots fly here, but now we have even more because of the large field of view. No question, the future of our hobby will be in this direction. It's funny, because by trying to make the sim more realistic (more "hardcore"), it has ended up appealing to a much wider group.

Mike can be reached by e-mail at ACES.