by Ron "Baron01" McMasters

  Radio Commands and AI Pilots

Radio chatter goes a long way in making a flight simulator, combat or otherwise, a little more realistic and exciting. This one is no exception. I liked the almost constant chatter from various pilots. It gave me the sensation of being there. Some of the spoken parts were choppy because of the way the numbers are accessed; sounds much like a computer telephone operator recording. I would have liked a little more variety though. After awhile, it became a little boring. I didn't like always being called "Lee" when trying to shoot down an enemy aircraft ("Shoot him, Lee!").

I found the commands lacking in both realism and variety. If I couldn't see a ground target (which was most often the case), the dutiful wingman would point it out to me. But after that, I was on my own to search. Luckily, I could give them the order to strike the target, then watch where they went. I didn't have any means for ordering or requesting mutual support, checking six, or some other commands available in most other good flight sims. I never knew when a target was hit, destroyed, or in need of further pounding.

My wingmen weren't the smartest AI pilots in the world, either. They might begin attacking other aircraft, but then would get lazy and not press home the fight. If I told them to pick their own targets, they would respond, but would then just fly around aimlessly. (This aspect of AI has been addressed in the v. 1.1 patch: Ed). I would also have liked have the ability to tell wingmen which targets to strike.

B29s below.

Yes, I could have assigned a flight to suppress AAA, but if all aircraft were busy on other missions, I would like the option of telling one of two guys to nail the AAA battery first, then pound the primary targets. I think hearing that a target (air or ground) was destroyed would have helped.

I got confused about sending pilots home. Sometimes, they didn't really go home at all, they just came back into formation. I know that's what the instructions say they will do, but how do I send them home to land when they're whining about a lack of fuel? I rarely saw the aircraft reform on my aircraft after an attack. Bottom line: I would have liked to communicate more with my wingmen and other flights.

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Post Combat Sub menu

I did like the fact that AI pilots identified enemy aircraft coming up from behind, but they didn't always lend a hand to get them off of me. When on the tail of a MiG, many enemies would just fly straight and level, no matter how close I got to them. Often the MiGs never flinched until I fired the guns and by then, it was too late.

The use of "Dentist", the GCI controller was appropriate for its time. It was quite realistic, adding excitement to the air phase. But both Dentist and the tower controller could have used a few more phrases. A little more control over the AI pilots would have been a little more realistic.

Keyboard Controls

One of the first things I noticed with this sim is the lack of an autopilot. You're flying the aircraft the entire time. You have to constantly watch your heading and altitude. I missed not having the autopilot for those moments I needed to hit the refrigerator.

On a good note, I did appreciate their method of advancing between waypoints, although I would have preferred a key to advance to combat instead. I never saw any reason to actually fly the waypoints because nothing ever happened to and from the target. Keep in mind, I didn't fly every mission available in the campaign or entire war.

Some keystrokes didn't work at all. I couldn't get the spin recovery key to work, although I induced several spins, including takeoff and departure, spins from accelerated stalls, deep stalls, and flat spins. None were recovered from by using this keystroke. Dumping fuel actually means dumping auxiliary fuel tanks. No internal fuel could be dumped, which is normally what the term implies.

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