Day Fifty-two: late evening of September 23rd 2009

As I was channel checking during the day I notice one of the program was entitled Gun Camera. It was on Military.com. I started watching as the host and guest commentator, a retired WWII fighter pilot, elaborated upon the air combat depicted in the film. I was fascinated at how close the pilots were to each other. Usually, I try to get a lead angle and have the opponent fly into my shells, if I detect a hit or two, I’ll try to close in on the tail of my opponent to finish off the contest. But in watching the films, I’m going to have to close quickly, gaining altitude as I do, and hope this maneuver , will not be noticed by the enemy flight.

I’ve found that, although the computer supports the use of trial and error for problem solving, it isn’t the only approach to success in simulations. Tapping external resources can prove to be valuable asset for problem solving. In this case, I now know what the opponent’s plane should look like in the gun sight, and I’m going to adjust my strategy to achieve this look, and hopefully I'll be successful.

This isn’t the only time this has happens. Five or six years ago I was playing Hellcats over the Pacific, and a few of the scenarios required that I land Hellcat on an aircraft carrier. I tried over and over and was not that consistent, so I went and purchase a paperback by a former dive bomber pilot describing how he handled take-offs and landings. I followed the procedure and ‘voila’ I was consistently landing the plane. It was so successful that I was able to completed the kamikaze scenario. In this scenario I had to prevent three separate flights of fighters from crashing into my carrier. That meant that I had to land on the carrier twice to refuel, rearm. take off, and intercept the incoming planes. The land base airfields were to far away for me to use. I had to land on that carrier. It was tense. I was very happy when that last Zero crashed and I got my battle ribbon for that scenario. I don’t know how long it would have taken if I had stuck to trial and error. I’m sure that I would have ultimately mastered it.

This would indicates to me that the video game can be used as a learning tool, above and beyond the patient mentor role that some see it. Recognizing that using resources outside the parameters of the simulation can benefit the player’s game is also transferable skill applicable to any kind of problem solving.