by Obi Offiah

As he continued to pan around the nose of the B-17 I stopped him, "Wait a second, are those the crew members in the nose I just saw?" "Yes" Ken replied. He zoomed in and sure enough I could see the bombardier and navigator through the plexiglas nose and side windows, both going about their dutes. They were in full 3D and moved about their stations. WOW!

I just stepped backed and laughed, there were no words to express my impressions. The amount of work these guys have put into this sim is so great it's quite ridiculous. Ken continued around the aircraft, along its fuselage and pointed out one of the waist gunners at his station, aiming a 0.50-calibre machine gun.

Again the gunner was a fully articulated 3D motion captured model. He rotated the view so that the underside of the Fortress was visible and then activated the bomb bay doors. Although there was a lot of noise at the Hasbro booth I'm certain I heard a whine of gears and hydraulics as the bomb doors opened. The operation was extremely smooth and very realistic.

B17 Nose

In B-17 II anything that opens and closes on the aircraft, i.e bay doors and undercarriage, is animated very accurately and realistically. I've seen other sims where the lines marking these panels usually appear blurred at first, then when activated, i.e undercarriage deployment, they darken and become clear and thin, then the door opening sequence will commence with them already being slightly open.

B-17 II displayed very smooth transitions from closed to open and vice versa. I saw a great deal of detail in the bomb bay. Iit was empty as Ken had dropped the bombs previously. It was painted light green and had visible bomb racks and other details surrounding it.

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The P-51 Mustang is an amazing beast. I was curious at first as to why it was always Ken's choice of aircraft to fly, but after spending some time watching it and a little time flying it, it was quite clear why. The more I saw of the P-51 the more I liked it.

First of all it looks magnificent. Like the B-17 it had a silver unpainted finish, and there was some kind of graphical technique present which made the aircraft skin glisten and shine as the sunlight reflected off it, giving it a true metallic feel. I could see lines marking individual panels which were held in place by visible textured screws.

There were also small labels over parts of the fuselage, indicating the instructions for maintenance, warnings etc. as on the real aircraft. Graham showed some mean reflections coming off the spinning propellor blades, as sun light passed by them.

One feature that I had seen the first day I was at ECTS in B-17 II was the detailing of the aircraft control surfaces. As usual Ken was flying the P-51, performing rolls and loops, dives and turns and all other kinds of aerobatics. During this performance I noticed in the outside view that you could see part of the cross section of the wing and aileron as it moved up or down. In other sims I've flown the ailerons, flaps and other control surfaces are usually flat when viewed from the side.

I told Ken about this, so he switched to the virtual cockpit and panned to the right, until the right wing came into view, then executed an aileron roll. I was quite amazed with the level of detail Wayward had put into the aircraft, seeing a clear side on view of the silver aileron shining, as the sun glinted off it was something else. This was one of the small details that really stuck with me.

Under the wings the P-51 had clear and nicely modeled weapon mounts. The pilot and the cockpit of the P-51 could be seen from the outside views. They were both very detailed, particularly the pilot.

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