Following posts last week on this forum and comments by Wissam24, Agg and The Doctor, I decided to get an Oculus Rift for use with CAD and DCS. This is my initial (rose tinted glasses) experience which may help others decide to buy now or hold for the next generation.
I decided to buy now because having looked online, the prevailing view is that there'll not be a significant upgrade this year (2018) and I wanted to use the technology for productivity (CAD) and entertainment (DCS) in the near term.
CAD: I have experience using CAD tools but wanted a way to visualise the thing I'm designing (an aircraft) in a more intuitive, realistic way to aid with the design process. The result - WOW - It's a bit if a pain to get the model into the rift but this really is a game changer. To be able to 'walk' upto a full size aircraft, sit in the passenger pod and experience the design first hand is fantastic. To be able to poke your head through panels and into compartments, intakes, etc allows you to experience the design process in a way that's impossible on a 2D monitor. It was worth the money for this alone. 5/5
DCS: I've been a pilot more than half my life but a couple of years ago stopped flying (other than as a passenger) so wanted to experience some of the enjoyment of flying again. Did DCS achieve this? Sort of. To be able to position yourself in the cockpit and look around allows you to achieve the same perspective you would as a pilot and this is impossible by looking at a monitor, even with head tracking and photo realistic graphics. All my head movements were the same and I was able to fly profiles just like in a real aircraft. I could easily read the numbers in the HUD and needle readings on the gauges but gauge numbers were undefined. So was this like real flying. Err, no. I've flown demanding aerobatics in reality and never felt ill. After 5 mins of a few loops and rolls in DCS and I was feeling nauseas. Also a lot of how I fly is by feel; the stick forces, movements, airframe vibrations, G, the risk, etc. It's a bit of a cliché but you do become one with the machine you're flying. This is all missing in a flight sim and is impossible to replicate. Was it fun? Undoubtedly. Will I continue to enjoy using it? Definitely, especially as it allows me to 'sample' aircraft I have no chance of flying in reality 3.5/5
Will the next generation VR headset improve the experience? Quite possible with the nausea (which may be to do with frame rates) and higher resolution will always be better but I didn't feel the current resolution was a significant drawback in the applications described above. The often quoted barn door effect was evident and higher resolution will help with this but again, for game play, you soon forget about it.
