Q. Who did the fantastic paint jobs on the C-130 and Hornets?
A. That would be Kato in the mighty #3 Jet. He is the magic behind the scenes of the Virtual Blue Angels. He creates all the skins and does all of the high quality movies. The level of talent he has is unsurpassed. Kato has also given the team invaluable insight from the time he spent flying jets in the Marine Corps.
We all chip in with various non flying duties… By default, Lock-On doesn’t allow you to fly the F-18. It’s an AI aircraft only. Alias was the first to put the flyable F/A-18A geometry over the F-15C flight model that we use, so we decided to combine our efforts using Alias’ “Flyable” F-18 Mod with Kato’s skins. Alias also creates the missions that include the static aircraft and markers we use for timing etc.
Hollywood has done an excellent job with the web site and Virtual Blue Angels Forum. Recently, Dango has proved his talent with various graphic enhancements such as our forum signatures, banners, and wallpaper, to name a couple of examples. It’s really a team effort both in the air and back on terra firma.
Q. You guys are clearly fantastic and talented LOMAC pilots; do you also fly LOMAC regularly for combat missions?
A. Thank you for such kind words, but we are just your good old fashioned flight sim pilots trying to keep our head above water and do it better than the next guy. Some of us still fly LOMAC in combat missions from time to time, but 90% of our flight time is spent in the Blue Jets. I can’t stress enough the level of dedication and practice this takes. It’s a wonder our families haven’t packed up and moved away on us.
