Ask HN: Would elite video gamers, given training, be the best military pilots? - hoodoof
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kichik
I've been through military pilot qualification process and while I feel like
my gaming experience helped me with some of the tests, it definitely didn't
matter for the vast majority of them. A big chunk of the tests were physical
fitness tests like eye exam, hearing test and heart and lung performance test.
Fighter pilots have to be always prepared to fly, withstand high G's, be able
to fight through injuries and survive in captivity. You can exercise during
your training, but you can't train away a congenital heart disease, bad eye-
sight, hearing loss, asthma or allergies.

Another big set of tests, as others have mentioned here, was personality
related. You have to be able to follow orders and work in a team. You can't be
an introvert and you definitely can't crumble under pressure/physical danger.
I went through many written and face-to-face tests that seemed to be related
to this point.

Finally there were 3D and movement perception tests which one could argue are
easier for gamers, intelligence tests, mechanical proficiency tests, and many
more I forgot by now. All of these skills can't be easily improved by training
and are therefore tested early.

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thejteam
Mining for gold and items in WoW might be the best training. Being a pilot is
being bored for hours on end while still maintaining high levels of alertness.

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uola
While being good at video games could indicate that you have qualifications
for becoming a good pilot, the boring answer is that the overlap is small
enough that it will be overshadow by all the other things that goes into
becoming a good pilot.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Spacial awareness and dexterity seem like they'd be important for fighter
jets, but I imagine the top 10% of the population would be plenty good enough
to do fine with the right training. My armchair analysis is that the biggest
and most important aspect of being a military pilot is the patience and
intelligence to follow a checklist correctly every single time, and to do it
well even in extremely tense situations.

Additionally, there's probably some sense of piloting being harder than it
really is. It seems hard because the roles are so few and high in demand that
such a low number of people actually get to fill those spots, making it look
very elite. I've flown a single engine aircraft a bit and it's really not that
difficult. In some ways, the larger planes are even easier (according to my
instructor).

~~~
atmosx
> It seems hard because the roles are so few and high in demand that such a
> low number of people actually get to fill those spots, making it look very
> elite.

How many people will endure this kind of training[1] and face the dangers this
profession has? It's very demanding. I don't think more than 10% of the
population can keep up.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK8U8RZyzsM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK8U8RZyzsM)

~~~
whamlastxmas
I would say the top athletic 10% of the population is capable of working to
endure that sort of training just fine. It requires a lot of specific muscle
strengths but nothing super-human.

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fshean
Assuming they met all the other conditions of becoming a pilot.

[http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforcejoin/ss/afpilot.htm#s...](http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforcejoin/ss/afpilot.htm#step1)

~~~
tzs
> To qualify as an air force pilot, you will need at least a bachelor’s
> degree, earned at either a civilian college or university, or at the Air
> Force Academy, located outside Colorado Springs, Colo.

As written, that excludes bachelor's degrees from the non-air force service
academies. I wonder if the wording was just a little sloppy, or those degrees
really do not qualify?

> You also need to be between the ages of 18 and 28.

I wonder how many are able to actually do it at 18? Most people won't meet the
bachelor's degree requirement until they are 21 or 22.

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FVIIIvWF
In the future, "pilots" may be those who controls drones in a remote
underground military base, rather than sitting in an airplane manipulating
controllers. If this is the case, elite video gamers may have an edge.

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kfullert
Related, but Nissan have been running the GT Academy which takes online racers
and turns them into real ones
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT_Academy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT_Academy)
\- the first winner of GT Academy in 2008 competed in the 2011 LeMans 24 in
the LMP2 class, and finished 2nd in class

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afarrell
"I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young
people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing
these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots
should they fly our jets."

RONALD REAGAN, speech, Aug. 8, 1983

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grx
Guess so. Given that an enormous amount of work is already in the hands of the
on board computers, the only difference I would see are the physical
limitations of the pilot's body.

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tzs
Well, it worked to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada...
[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter)

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hanniabu
A better question would if they would make the best drone/remote pilots.

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fleb
This question sort of pops up in Ender's Game, doesn't it?

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poof131
A little yes, but mostly no. I flew F/A-18s for the Navy for a decade
including working as an instructor. There are probably 3 key areas you need to
succeed as a military pilot (especially in fighters): stick and rudder skills,
multi-tasking, and fear control.

1\. Stick and rudder skills. You need to be able to make the plane do what you
want, whether it’s landing on a carrier, dog fighting, flying formation,
dropping dumb bombs, air-to-air tanking, or any number of other things. This
is more like race car driving than video games, with a significantly higher
level of hand eye coordination and spacial awareness.

2\. Multi-tasking. Modern aviation, especially military platforms, have a ton
of things going on. You need to fly the plane (stick and rudder), talk on the
radios, operate weapon systems, and do a ton of other stuff. In the F/A-18 you
had essentially 4 displays that could all contain information.[1] You could
perform hundreds of different tasks without ever taking your hands of the
controls (stick and throttle). Here are some good graphics on the controls.
[2, 3] You even have a screen selector and mouse cursor so essential you are
operating multiple computers without text input. You need to keep a constant
scan going, inside and out, while processing information on all the different
displays and the radios.

3\. Fear control. Operating a fighter jet is like doing something at 50% brain
capacity. Something easy on the ground becomes tough in-flight. When you are
junior or new to the task or stressed because of a mistake, 50% can quickly
drop to 10%. This is often called a “helmet fire”. Sometimes people just
freeze and can’t function.

Being an elite video gamer would only really help with number 2: multi-
tasking. Stick and rudder skills and fear control are more important in the
beginning. You can make it a long way in training on these, but eventually
multi-tasking becomes a key component. We would see kids who aced flight
school with great stick and rudder skills but then would run into a ton of
problems when learning the F/A-18 due to insufficient multi-tasking skills
required in advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground scenarios. If you can nail
all three of these things, you will likely be a good military pilot.

Physical is also a factor, but not that big of a deal. If you are in decent
shape you can handle it. The primary limiting physical factor will be stress.
Initially, the stress will be draining where a single flight can wreck you for
the day. But as you become more comfortable, this becomes less of a factor so
I didn’t include it as one of the 3 main requirements. I knew plenty of
overweight pilots in average shape. But if you can’t handle the 3 main
requirements, you won’t be successful no matter how good an athlete you are.

Should probably also mention work ethic and study skills since these play a
huge roll. The training is long and intense and never really stops. Earning
your wings is just the start. You constantly need to learn new missions and
new systems. Got your wings, nice, but what about section lead, division lead,
strike lead. How do you run a strike group (a dozen plus planes of different
types) off a carrier into a foreign country in the first days of a war?
Although this is more of pilot leadership than just being a pilot, it is
related, since the less you understand what is happening, the less effective
you will be even if just a wingman. I imagine elite video gamers are probably
pretty strong here though.

[1] [http://www.mudspike.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/2015-10-3...](http://www.mudspike.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/2015-10-30_140605.jpg)

[2]
[http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm137/Lightndattic/F-18th...](http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm137/Lightndattic/F-18throttle.jpg)

[3] [http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/xu-
an/control_f-14d_f...](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/xu-
an/control_f-14d_f-16a_f-18e.jpg)

