Welcome to my flight simulation world.
The F-16 is the main axis of my dedication to flight simulation.
I flew Falcon 4.0 for more than 20 years. It is a combat flight simulator featuring the F-16 and initially created in 1998 by Microprose. Since then it has been updated by many different group and the latest public updates are from Benchmark Simulations (BMS).
Nowadays, the DCS F-16 slowly evolve to be a great contender to Falcon (but we’re not there yet) In the meantime I get acquainted with the DCS way of doing things flying the FA-18 and carrier ops.
I have been involved with the navigation and documentation aspects since the beginning of Falcon 4.0 combat flight simulation back in 1998. Until recently I led BMS Manual initiative and wrote most of the BMS documents as well as maintaining navigation data, charts, map and F-16 checklists.
The hardware side of things is equally important if you want a realistic environment and building a F-16 cockpit to sustain my passion was the only viable option. This adventure was started in 2004 and although the cockpit has been flyable since 2006, It is not completely finished to this day and still undergo updates according to new features implemented in the supported simulators.
Being a VFR pilot looking forward to an instrument rating in the (not too distant) future I also maintain a smaller G1000 generic cockpit to train real life IFR procedures with X-plane. This is a rather new project but is luckily much simpler to implement.
I had the software and the hardware, I needed social sharing with a bunch of dedicated people with whom to enjoy cooperation flying, I created the ViperDrivers with a few friends in 2011: A virtual flying squadron dedicated to flying the F-16 in a realistic environment.