Want to get behind the stick of the world’s most advanced aircraft? Well, the Air Force now has a traveling Oculus Rift experience that will let you do just that.
It’s part of the Air Force Performance Lab, a tool the Air Force Recruiting Service is using to highlight career opportunities. Players put on the Oculus Rift headset, go through a short tutorial, and then pilot the F-35A through a canyon at night.
The simulation doesn’t include the fact the F-35’s radar doesn’t work properly, high-tech helmet glitches keep pilots from looking in certain directions (a big problem in a dogfight or during a bombing run), and the full weapons suite won’t be available until 2020 or so. (The F-35 did have a test flight recently where the test pilot successfully fired hundreds of rounds without incident, which at least gives the airplane the capability of a World War I-era biplane.)
The simulation does allow “pilots” to fly through diamonds floating in the sky, which DoD apparently believes is an important capability in future conflicts.
Check out the simulation in the YouTube video below:
(h/t Engadget.com)