There is something about fighter jets that makes them so alluring. We have all envisioned ourselves in the cockpit maneuvering the beast through wreckages or even enemy fire. Now BBC has developed something that is the next best thing to the experience of being an actual RAF Lancaster Bomber – A VR experience in the backdrop of WWII complete with the original 1943 commentary from Wynford Vaughan Thomas, BBC’s commenter who explained the events of the Berlin Raid in a Lancaster Bomber. BBC has rightfully named the VR experience as 1943: Berlin Blitz.
BBC has put in quite a lot of effort to make the VR experience as close to what happened in the inside and outside of the Lancaster Bomber. The setting starts with the user inside the Lancaster Bomber with the aircraft moving out of the hanger. Then the bomber takes flight and soon the user will have an aerial view of Berlin, the skies tainted with black smoke and Anti-aircraft shells, trying to take down the bombers.
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Visuals are carefully crafted so that the user can take in the elements of war in its true authenticity, or till the extent that we can recreate it. The user is not alone in this ordeal as a Lancaster Bomber is made to house 7 persons. This particular mission adds a pilot, nose gunner, bomb aimer, navigator, wireless operator, flight engineer, navigator, and rear and upper gunners.
There is also another face to this experience other than witnessing the brutal war, to understand the courage and teamwork that soldiers have going into war. In a time where real-time radio broadcasting isn’t used by the Radio channels like BBC, reporters have to get on a plane and take in the ordeal themselves. It surely lets users have an understanding of the scale of the whole operation and the aftermath of a war.
Anyone who wants to experience BBC’s creation must first buy a headset from highstreets shops. Then, the next step is to download BBC’s VR App to either a tablet or smartphone. The headset has a slot to slide in the smartphone and the smartphone will then act as the screen.