by Leonard "Viking1" HjalmarsonDecember 20, 1999

  If you have followed the interviews and previews regarding B17 Flying Fortress II from Wayward Design, and if you are a fan of WWII prop simulations at all, then like me you are very excited about this product. There isn't a lot of recent news as we approach the Christmas season, except that it doesn't seem very likely that B17 II will release in January.

Instead, I would place my money on late February or early March. B17 II hasn't yet reached beta, and they will need six weeks or so of solid testing as they move from beta to the final master.

With that news out of the way, I'd like to share some impressions from the alpha. At the alpha stage software isn't even feature complete yet, much less optimized or bug free. But the alpha isn't bad for a look around and to get a sense of the overall design. I've spent two hours bumping around B17 II, and I can tell you.. I am still very excited!

First Impressions

First, as we have surmised from the many interviews and experiences shared by various authors around the net, the Wayward team is showing careful attention to detail. Not only is the artwork stunning, but the interface itself is carefully laid out, and the interactivity and setting of the interface screens reflect attention to immersion and period factors. In other words, the interface itself begins to take you into the sim and into the period.

Tail Gunner Position

Second, when I first stepped onto the flight deck and began to watch the various crew members in their positions, I had the same reaction everyone else has had on first seeing the action. Incredible! Here we have Spec Ops or Rogue Spear, set in a B17 Flying Fortress! The first person shooter meets the combat simulation. It really is very, very cool.

In the screen above you see one of the pop-up interfaces that can be accessed via your mouse in B17 II. Dragging the cursor to the top or right of your screen brings up an interface for selection of crew positions or viewpoint respectively. At this point you would have chosen the crew you prefer based on their experience and other characteristics, and you will have given them names your prefer or gone with the default names.

Viewpoint Interface: Click for Tail Gunner

Moving your cursor to screen right brings up the viewpoint interface, giving you access to five different perspectives. From top to bottom, they are External View, Compartment View, Instrument View, Action View, and Window View.

Bent Props.. oops!

Click to continue

On the other hand clicking on a crew member brings up a compass rose style graphic that gives you control over that crew member's functions. The center graphic cycles for five different options: "move to," "use," "first aid," "repair" and "jump." "move to" allows you to send any crew member to any other station. Clicking on jump soon gave me an empty Flying Fortress. The crewmembers are appropriately animated and dressed for the task.

Hitting the "M" key places the aircraft in manual control. I went to an outside view to start the engines. The sound and the smoke from the manifolds all give a great sense of realism. Notice the grass growing between the concrete sections!

Taxiing from this view is a bit challenging. Once I had separated throttle control by going to the cockpit instrument view and clicking on the left throttle, I couldn't figure out how to link the throttles together again. The SUNCOM split throttle is about to become a hot item for this one! I would assume that using the EPIC card would give us the ability to hook two split throttles in tandem. If not, let's hope SUNCOM comes up with a software solution.

External View Zoomed Out

Getting one wheel on the grass is not a good idea, since it will add a huge amount of drag to one side. Cranking the throttle on that side will compensate, but once the wheel breaks free you have to be ready to throttle back.

I managed to get to the runway after some fiddling and copious use of brakes. Toe brakes will be enabled for those who have them, a great help! Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck sticking to the runway, but it was great fun watching all the dust I stirred up as I zoomed across terra firma trying to get enough speed to lift off. Finally I remembered to pull out the stops for all four turbos. After a great deal of bouncing about on the ground a final bump sent her into the air.

Turned too sharp!

Click here for a quarter shot with one wheel partly up. For our previous coverage on this incredible simulation check out our B17 Flying Fortress II Index

Join a discussion forum on this article by clicking HERE.