Page 3
Typhoon
by Geert "Warrior" VervoortWhile all this takes place, the war rages on without you (or if the pilot is an AI pilot, he is out of action for all this time). If the unlucky pilot were a good pilot, you'd surely miss his abilities. Many things can go wrong, but in Typhoon many things can go wrong in a very different way. Also, because the theatre is so small there will also be no in-flight refuelling. A Typhoon can fly from one end of the map to the other without needing to refuel anyway---external drop-tanks will do.
The Battle of Iceland
Just how realistic the Typhoon is modeled, I don't know so I won't speculate. I do know the original DiD crew has maintained close connections to the British Eurofighter program staff and the flight model has been tested by and received input from Warton's chief Typhoon test pilot, Jon Turner. Wind, sadly enough, is not modeled in a sense that it affects the plane. There will be different weather types however, which affect avionics functions.
Keeping a laser lock in bad weather conditions will be hard, as well as locking on an IR missile or visually locking a Maverick (actually, its European counterpart) onto a target through the LANTIRN camera. Flying the Eurofighter will be much less of a challenge than is flying the F16 in Falcon 4 or the F18 in Jane's F/A 18.
This is in part because the Eurofighter is of a new generation of combat aircraft and ergonomics and ease of handling were top-priorities in Typhoon's design: fewer buttons, a more ergonomically arranged cockpit with three multi-colour, multi function displays (MFD), even voice-controlled functions and a helmet-integrated display are present to assist a Typhoon pilot in getting the job done.
When I asked Whiteford whether or not landings would be as tough as they were in EF2000 or as arcadish as TAW, his answer was something in between. He explained that the real Eurofighter is really not that hard to land and that it has a very sturdy airframe and a landing-gear which is designed to withstand landings on normal roads or flattened terrain. According to Whiteford, it shouldn't be that hard to successfully put your bird on the ground---just how hard it will be to land remains to be seen of course.
Graphically Typhoon should look stunning. It uses an improved model of the 3Dream engine that powered Wargasm. Anyone who's seen Wargasm should realize the potential of this 3D engine. The few screenshots that have been released so far look promising. There will be long nights followed by short days.
Click Here for Printer Version
© 1997 - 2000 COMBATSIM.COM, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
