A well-crafted virtual reality (VR) experience should affect the user in some way. The immersive nature of VR means that everything is much more immediate, more real. So a VR experience has great capacity to make you scared, or sad, or tug at the heartstrings, as is the case with the experience of Lyle Becker.
Becker is 100 years old. He flew planes during World War II, and spent a further 25 years after the war working as a commercial pilot. Intel offered the centenarian a unique opportunity to come to the Intel VR lab in Hillsboro, Oregon to try out a special VR experience.
First of all, the team at Intel put Becker in a HTC Vive headset and offered him the chance to swim with jellyfish in the ocean depths, and visit Florence, Italy and US landmark Devil’s Rock using Google Earth VR.
Becker was then brought to a flight simulator cockpit set-up and fired up Aerofly’s VR Flight Simulator, where Becker was able to use his decades of flying experience to pilot a single-engine plane. “Feels like the real thing,” A delighted Becker said as he operated the controls, “That’s amazing.”
Becker said he hoped to be able to test untethered VR technology soon “All this development in technology is mind-blowing. Of course, I don’t have that much time to wait, so get going.” He said, with a smile.
You can view the full video below.
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via Mint VR