Oh my god!
Oh my God!
Hey I'm MatPat and I run one of the largest gaming channels on YouTube.
Where we use science, math, and history to analyze video games.
But one of the things I've always wondered, is what happens when you take gamers off the comfort of their
couch and put them into the real life scenarios they game through every day,
like say for instance, doing a barrel roll, like you do in the Star Fox game.
That's what we're off to do today.
We're about to give Star Fox, our own, Reality Check
We're here in Fullerton California at Air Combat USA the first and largest air combat school in the world.
To learn aerial dog-fitting moves from the experts.
My challenge, learn what it takes to become an aerial dog fighter, then put those newfound piloting
skills to the test by recreating Nintendo's iconic moves.
Did I really just say that?
Put my newfound piloting skills to the test?
Today is going to be a wild day.
But before we get in there, let's take a minute to catch you up on everything you need to know about Star Fox.
Star Fox is one of gaming's iconic franchises debuting in 1993 and published by Nintendo
the games have you stepping into the shoes of Fox McCloud, aerial fighting ace sent to take down the mad scientist Andros.
Although some levels feature you driving around a tank or a sub, it's best known for it's dog fitting
in space. Where your required to pilot your plane the Arwing to take down fleets of enemies.
Since analyzing this is our goal today, it's important to note that the Arwing's are specially designed to
for aerial combat in space. A quick look what the game calls "A G-diffuser system".
This anti-gravity device allows the pilot to accelerate or decelerate instantaneously,
while also allowing pilots to perform three essential combat maneuvers.
Where the plane spins around it's longitudinal access.
Where the plane changes direction by flipping upside down.
Which is, you know, a loop, so pretty self-explanatory.
So that's our focus for today, analyzing the real life science behind fictional space dog fighting
and that's why I'm here with Tom Smith, ex-Navy fighter pilot.
Hi. Thanks for keeping me safe out there today.
I have to admit I am a little nervous.
Oh, you'll be fine.
So can you tell us a little bit about your experience?
After college, I went to the navy, was 20 years a Navy fighter pilot, 10 years on active duty
10 years in the reserves.
Ok. And this isn't the type of flying your going to experience in your commercial jetliner.
No you're gonna be completely in a different element today when you step into that airplane.
And I guess the most important question of all is, have you ever played Star Fox?
Uh, I don't even know what it is.
I haven't heard of it no.
Ok, have you ever played a video game?
No I haven't.
Oh, Tom, we have a lot to teach each other.
You're gonna be flying with me today and aircraft 203 and Travis is gonna be flying with Baron.
Great. How do you feel about that buddy?
So can you tell me a little bit about how you transform people like me, with no flying or
flight experience, to dog fighters?
When we get into the air, we're going to start transferring the control of the plane to you
as the guest pilot.
I will be flying a plane today. Sure.
And we're gonna be coaching you the whole time.
Good please.
So in the game, it's this classic phrase, "Do a barrel roll".
Do a barrel roll, and it's an anthropomorphic bunny rabbit that tells you to do this.
Really. Videogames, weird right?
Very strange.
But, basically, you're flying forward, and you're doing a turn just like that.
Yeah, that's not a barrel roll. Not in our terms.
Okay, does it have a name? That's more of an aileron roll.
A big altitude change as well.
So instead of the aileron roll, or barrel roll in Star Fox, where you're staying in the same plane of motion,
yeah, the barrel roll in real life, you're moving across multiple planes of motion
so you're not just moving forward and rotating but you're also changing heading.
Can you take me through the loop and the immelman?
This one is the Immelman, at the top here, at the apex, your climbing and just rolling and now
you're very very slow, but you're at a much higher altitude.
and you have effectively turned 180 degrees?
Yes.
The Immelman, is that ever referenced as the U-Turn in any of your 20 years of experience?
No I've never heard that term.
No the loop, from an aerobatic standpoint, your same heading all the way through.
and is the loop a good dog fighting maneuver?
Oh yeah, you want to stay in the vertical as much as possible in a dog fight.
If you have two similar performing airplanes, the guy that uses the vertical the best is usually gonna win.
Really?
I know, from my reading before coming here, there's a tactical egg.
If this guy goes into the vertical, and takes this air in the energy egg, he's gonna have that rapid turn rate,
and that tiny turn radius, which is gonna allow us to get up and roll back around and start getting behind him.
Basically what you're staying is your kind of using gravity to help you with the fight.
Yeah.
So this is real life. This egg formation. It's interesting because in Star Fox, when you do a U-Turn
it always ends up being a perfect circle.
Yeah, no. Just kind like that.
Yeah that would be true if you could keep your airspeed the same speed all the way around.
but you can't do that.
If gravity weren't a factor though, would I be able to do this.
Now we're getting hypothetical.
Yeah, you're getting hypothetical, yeah..
One might say theoretical.
If you were in space, where they is no gravity, or less gravity, yeah that would work.
Uh, highly recommend you get out of your levi's and that jacket. It's gets hot in there when your heart starts beating.
Ok.
Well I was gonna say I didn't bring a change of pants, but I guess I'm wearing a suit.
You're wearing a flight suit, yeah. Alright.
All I got under here is my shorts and my tee-shirt.
No, need to show us, I trust you.
But, um, I guess that means, it's time to probably suit up?
Time to suit up, yeah.
There are so many things I want to say to the camera right now
I love you
I'll miss you
Pray for me.
In the name of science! Yee-haw!
So if I'm worried about turbulence, on a commercial airline, I have no idea what to expect here.
I'm the type of person whose constantly checking the turbulence reports
here in a two-seater, anything can happen.
Do you actually check the turbulence reports before you get on an airliner?
I do sometimes yes. Really?
Yeah.
Wow that's impressive.
Is it that impressive. Yeah. Does that show how much of a pansy I am?
Ah, I'm not gonna comment on that!
It's just I never heard of anybody ever doing that.
Go ahead Matt, you can take control of the airplane.
Put your hand on the stick there?
Wait, I'm actually going to be flying right now?
Yep, it's your airplane right now. Okay
You just let me know if I'm doing anything wrong.
Yeah, I'm right here with ya, and we're going to do it together.
Thank you Tom.
Okay, so, I am currently flying my first airplane.
Yeah something I didn't think I'd ever see in my life.
So that's pretty incredible that I just move the stick forward and all of a sudden I feel it going down.
Like I'm doing right now.
It's pretty wild.
First manuever we're gonna do Matt, we're gonna pick up a little speed and we'll do that aileron roll.
Okay so we are going into the aileron roll, not to be confused with the barrel roll,
thank you very much Star Fox for confusing a generation of kids.
Okay, here we go, we're gonna pick up a little speed.
Nose down,
Now we'll pull the nose up a little bit, equalize and we'll start to roll.
Okay, roll it.
That was unbelievable.
So the aileron roll, isn't a good move because you're staying in the same plane of motion.
Uh yea, you're not changing your vector at all.
Okay, going down, starting to pick up a little speed, pulling up, you really start to feel the G forces right at the moment
And now we're going to flip over.
And the world just rotates around you.
Oh my god it's unbelievable.
Tom, thank you for sharing this experience with me.
Oh good, I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Okay we're gonna loop.
You can see everything
Oh, there's our tail!
And right back into it!
Oh my god!
Phenomenal.
Before our second pass I will say, what you described about the energy egg, or tatical egg,
you can really feel that as we're going through at the top, you really kinda feel you're starting to crest that hill
and those extreme g-forces at the bottom, you also feel how much wider that is, versus what you're feeling at the top.
And I can definitely see how that would provide a very tactical advantage.
Absolutely yeah, very advantageous to use the vertical.
But that being said, in Star Fox's defense, if we are indeed able to diffuse gravity,
then loops like that, ignoring the tactical egg, make perfect sense.
So good on you Nintendo developers for figuring out a loophole to figure out how we do dog fights
in outer space.
Bought to do another one.
Okay.
Start to pull up. Little more Matt. Keep going, look out the side.
Over the top. There we go. Wow.
There a little negative G
Now you're just showing off for me Tom.
This is without exaggeration a life-changing experience.
Okay, we're gonna do the immelmann, nose down.
We're gonna pick up our air 99 knots,
and roll out on the top.
Okay, start to pull Matt.
Pull Matt
Look out the side and when you're completely upside down we'll roll it.
Keep turning, perfect.
And there we are with a,
bought 500 feet altitude change and opposite direction.
So we're really using that vertical to our advantage.
Yeah we are.
Even though we're losing speed in the process.
Yes, you got a lot of potential energy up there.
It's mind blowing how close we're able to get.
That's basically everything.
Okay, we'll head home then.
Okay, landing check's complete, we're clear to land.
Yes!
That was literally a life-changing event.
I will never look at flying the same way again.
Tom, thank you so much for keeping me safe.
Oh you did a great job. It was amazing.
Come back. Will do.
So the final results on Star Fox, I'd say, over all, doing a pretty good job, surprisingly.
Let's take it point by point.
First the aileron roll, otherwise known in the game as the barrel roll.
Yes they get the name wrong, but the actual execution of the move, they entirely nail.
Yes you're traveling forward and yes it takes you along the longitudinal access.
It may not be the best dogfighting maneuver, but as far as recreating it in the game, does a pretty darn good job.
So the loop, granted as we learned in our training session, you're not going to be doing a perfect circle
in real life, when you're flying you're really feel that tactial egg as gravity pulls you down,
you really sacrifice that tactical energy, to get potential energy at the top.
That being said, Star Fox came up with the bright idea for the G-diffuser, which completely negates
the force of gravity, a huge hypothetical sure, but it does a great job of explaining away
the bizarre physics that this ship is having in space.
So overall, check point there.
And then finally the Immelman turn, or the U-Turn that Star Fox calls it.
Sure, again, a bit of a misnomer, but it's doing the right thing.
You're tranistioning that kinetic energy low, into potential energy high in a backwards direction.
and when it comes to recreating that move, in the game, Star Fox got it entirely right.
So overall, what I would say it this
For a game that features anthropomorphic foxes and hairs flying ships through outerspace
to take down an evil space monkey, suprisingly,
Star Fox's reality, really does check out.