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What, if anything, is in the works to feed this radar jones, this modern-fighter monkey on my back?

Flanker and its successors, that's what. We're not just talking about just a patch or two. Meeting some of the key people behind the production of what promises to be The Next Big Thing is reason for hope in our beleaguered genre. These guys are serious and passionate.

Fig. 3. Flanker 2.5 Main Menu

Carl Norman looks across the table in a small, secluded cubicle behind the Mattel display hall. It's late in the second day of the E3 show, and Carl is obviously tired. As Director of Product Development, Novato Studios, he has had a long day of dealing with journalists and retailers. When the subject turns to flight sims, however, the enthusiasm burns through his fatigue. "We made Flanker 2.0 as something we wanted to play," he says, "and I think we hit it right on. But it's still a work in progress. Flanker 2.0 was never meant to be a dead end - it's still evolving."

Fig. 4. Fighting Ships in Flanker 2.5

Evolving, indeed. Carl's master plan involves releasing one or two more v2.0X patches to the original Flanker 2.0 sim, the main purpose of these patches being to ready the original for the next level of refinement: Flanker 2.5.

Flanker 2.5

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"Want to see 2.5?" I love questions like that- so easy to answer.

We walked a short distance down the corridor to another room behind the Mattel display area. After submitting to a retinal scan- OK, that didn't really happen, but it sounds cool- we entered a slightly larger cubicle to meet the two other gentlemen responsible for Flanker. Standing beside a wall-mounted monitor and a HOTAS rig was Nick Grey, Flanker Project Director and Director of the Fighter Collection; and the Director of the Russian development house Eagle Dynamics, Igor Tishin. On the monitor was the beautifully rendered cockpit of the MiG-29K, the new flyable airplane included in Flanker 2.5.

Fig. 5. Flanker 2.5 Ships duking it out