Sunday, May 11, 2008
The newest flight simulation video games are so realistic that a terrorist can learn how to fly a jumbo jet without ever leaving his laptop.
Jul 23, 2003 | It's another sparkling sunset in the airspace over Las Vegas. The earthen wedges of the Spring Mountains are throwing long shadows across the desert tableau, and the casinos along the strip are twinkling like a necklace of huge faux gemstones.
I gaze down at these majesties from the cockpit of American Pacific Airlines flight 485, a puddle jump from Los Angeles that my first officer and I fly on Fridays and Saturdays during the summer travel season.
Tonight's flight, like so many others, has been pure routine. We were wheels-up right on time out of LAX, air traffic control hasn't delayed us in holding patterns or vectored us to Hoboken and back, and the 320 Airbus we're driving is a snappy bird that more or less flies by itself -- pilots call it the "bionic budgie." The Flight Management and Guidance Computer, programmed with the same route American Pacific always uses for this haul, has handled all the navigation, and I haven't touched the stick since 10 seconds after takeoff.
As we descend through 6,000 feet, a zephyr jostles the wings. My first officer and I run the landing checklist, verifying electronic displays and working the controls as needed. Approach frequency and courses: set. Altimeter: set. Radio altimeter: set. Autobrakes: armed. Engine mode selector: ignition. Go-around procedure: reviewed.
Amid the din of chatter on the radio, the next transmission is for us. "American Pacific four eighty-one, turn left heading two eight zero, descend and maintain four thousand two hundred," the female approach controller says in a clipped, bureaucratic monotone like an old counter waitress repeating a breakfast order. "Cleared for the ILS approach runway two five left, maintain four thousand two hundred until established on the localizer." Again, routine.
Except that a few things are very wrong. First, my gin and tonic is tinkling softly on the center console. Second, my copilot is an orange-and-white tabby. Third, a car alarm keeps going off nearby. Fourth, I don't have a pilot's license. Fifth, I'm not wearing pants.
This isn't an actual flight -- it's "Microsoft Flight Simulator," a bestselling video game. Though the airplane isn't real, the procedures I've described certainly are, and the make-believe flight deck on my computer screen is a perfect virtual-reality replica of an actual A320 cockpit. Knobs, buttons, switches, throttles, electronic displays -- everything remotely important is there, situated correctly and functioning accurately. If you can work the autopilot or the flight computer in this simulation, some airline pilots say, you can work their real-life counterparts.
Like the A320 I fly from L.A. to Vegas, some of the third-party add-on aircraft available for "Flight Simulator" and competing programs have become so authentic in recent years, in fact, that they are turning into useful tools for aspiring terrorist hijackers.
Such software may have been exploited by the Sept. 11 pilots to help rehearse their missions, although the time they spent in flight schools received more media attention. Since Sept. 11, home computer aircraft simulations have grown in sophistication -- and they will continue to do so, mimicking real planes with mounting precision until the only limitation is the size of your monitor. This raises a pressing question: The aviation technology reproduced in flight-simulation software isn't classified, but should anyone who doesn't fly commercial jets for a living know precisely how to operate one?
So far, The FBI doesn't seem concerned about the threat posed by flight-simulation games, but that may be because they've been focusing their attention elsewhere. The bureau's Civil Aviation Unit doesn't actively patrol the industry, relying instead on tips from concerned citizens. When I called the public relations office to ask them about the realism of my A320 simulation experience, an agent fielded the inquiry with a slightly patronizing tone until I directed her to a Web site featuring several screen shots of the virtual A320 flight deck.
There was a long pause. Then, with a nervous laugh, she said, "I've never seen this before."
Get Salon in your mailbox!