The New York State Fair opens today and, besides fried food on a stick, visitors will get the chance to take a turn at drone warfare. The fairgrounds in Syracuse are only a few miles away from the Hancock Field National Guard base, where the New York Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing controls drone missions in Afghanistan. Dvids writes:
The interactive cockpit will allow fair viewers to get some idea of what it is like to be a pilot providing air support to American and allied troops on the ground halfway around the world.
The wing will also display a 1/6th size scale model of the MQ-9 Reaper aircraft the unit flies, as well as models of the bombs carried by the aircraft.
Although important, the drone simulator will likely be no match for the NASCAR simulator, also run by the National Guard (go #88 – Dale Earnhardt Jr!).
Other less popular simulators I’d like to see:
1. Sleeping in a dark hole mole simulator
2. “I Love Lucy” simulator (complete with bon bon assembly line and that guy that says “yyyyyyeeees”
3. Snagglepuss simulator, which is kind of lame – it’s a door set off to the left of a stage that you just exit through.
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