Pilots of the A-10 Warthog use a virtual reality game called Digital Combat Simulator to train.
Some of the U.S. Air Force's A-10 Warthog pilots are now training, in part, using a literal computer game, albeit a highly sophisticated and realistic one, known as Digital Combat Simulator World, more commonly referred to simply as DCS. The 355th Training Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona is using DCS together with commercially available virtual reality headsets and other gaming peripherals to provide a low-cost way of augmenting more traditional training regimens on the ground and in the air. This underscores the growing and at times controversial interest within the Air Force, as well as elsewhere across the U.S. military, in using VR to help expand training capacity and do so on the cheap.
The 355th Training Squadron's A-10 Simulator Laboratory has been using a staple of the flight simulator gaming world, including DCS, as well as Oculus Quest VR headsets, Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog joysticks and throttles, and Thrustmaster TPR pendular rudder pedals. The computer workstations in the lab, from Volair Sim, are specifically designed for use together with flight simulator games and their associated peripherals.
A pilot wearing an Oculus Quest VR headset "flies" an A-10 in the Digital Combat Simulator World game in the simulator lab at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
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