What has shown up more recently is improved lighting effects. Missiles fall freely before igniting, but when they do they have a ringed glow when seen from the rear quarter. These shots have the gamma cranked about 30% for a better view.

In EF2000 night never really seemed dark enough. In F22 you'll find a moonless night is pitch black. On the other hand, this particular night had a moon....By the way, in any of the training missions you can adjust time to fly day, night, dawn or dusk. This ability is a nice touch! If you really love to fly at night, or want to see how the same mission will play at night, its up to you!

As mentioned earlier, attention to detail includes different voices for different wingmen. At times this catches me off guard, on a recent mission I found my wingman wasn't a wingman at all, but a wing woman... (shades of Batman!)

The structure of F22: ADF is such that the Single Missions are set up as training for the Tours of Duty. As a result the training section of the sim has about forty missions in total, allowing you plenty of opportunity to familiarize yourself with the avionics systems, tactics, and comms. Each mission has its own briefing and map and you can also access a picture of the target (similar to EF2000 but more detailed). When you complete the mission you will get a debriefing that will summarize your performance, and you can also access an ongoing personal log which also records any medals you've been awarded and the number of times you have ejected or been killed. For each mission you can also adjust the time of day you are flying.

Unfortunately, while the briefing itself is great, the map is a very weak feature. All it really shows you is your waypoints overlaid on a low res contour graphic. You can zoom in or out but why bother? You can't overlay threats and radar envelopes, you can't do a thing with it. I know that TAW will expand greatly on this component, but for the moment this feature is rather empty, even though on exit the map will show you locations for various in-mission events

In the training missions you can access the missions in any order you choose, but in the Tours you must successfully complete one mission in order to move on to the next. Training is divided into six sections:

• Flight Training
• Weapons Training
• Air to Air Tactics
• Free Flight
• Wingmen Training
• AWACS

In the first section, flight training, there are six missions as follows:

• Take off Practice
• Landing Practice
• Refuelling Practice
• Engine Failure: Emergency Take Off Practice
• Hydraulic Failure: Emergency Landing Practice
• Electrical Failure: Emergency Landing Practice

Weapons training comprises twelve missions:

• BVR AMRAAM
• Dogfight Sidewinder
• Maverick Mobile Attack
• Cannon CAS
• Harpoon Ship Kill
• Rocket Attack
• Bomb BAI
• Bomb CAS
• Cluster CAS
• HARM SEAD
• JDAM Interdiction
• Cluster Airfield

The BVR AMRAAM mission begins with thirty fighters crossing the Yemeni border. You are tasked with your wingman to deter as many as possible. You will have support from other F22 flights. Obviously you will need to utilize stealth as well as guerilla tactics here. If you enter this hornets nest you won't survive the mission!

Its in the weapons training missions that some of the less pleasant aspects of the simulation in its first incarnation begin to surface. Obviously, there is a LOT here. Maybe too much. Digital Image Design has a great deal of creative talent and some lofty design goals. Their reason for splitting this simulation into two pieces, ADF and TAW was because they KNEW that they were setting their sights very high. Inevitably, some things have been pushed too quickly or have slipped through the nets of "realism" or "practicability."

Some of the frustrating items I'm referring to are these:

• Time between lock and launch of a SAM: 2 seconds
• Blast radius of heavy ordinance: 0 feet
• Shoot list generation: 360 degrees
• IRST detection ability: 360 degrees
• Separate radar and IRST detection ability: none
• Ability to query wingman status: none
• Ability to edit weapons loadout: none

Obviously, there are some weaknesses in the simulation. On the plus side, DiD has never been hesitant to patch their releases and my GOLD version has not crashed once. We've come a long way from EF2 in its first release!

But these are bothersome details. In order to destroy a target with cluster bombs you need to score a direct hit. But this weapons was designed so you wouldn't HAVE to! And when your shoot list places priority on a bandit ten miles to the rear rather than the one coming straight at you... its time to get nasty.

Meanwhile, on the ground attack missions, having no realistic distinction between lock and launch of a surface to air missile means your reaction/response time is lost. As an example I was flying in the first Red Sea Tour mission last night and was near the final waypoint in enemy territory. A SAM locked me up as I pulled too sharp a turn past the waypoint. I relaxed the stick but the SAM launched a second later. In reality he probably should have lost lock over the next ten seconds or so, but this doesn't happen in the present version.

Inability to edit my own or my wingmans loadout is another tip of the hat to the coming TAW. This component is intricately wedded to TAW and did not find its way into ADF. Unfortunately, this means we have a stealth fighter which is sometimes not very stealthy. You can jettison external weapons and tanks if you like but your wingman may still give you away. And this also carries over into the AWACS component. You just don't have all the control you would like to have. If this ability could find its way to the coming Tours expansion disk it would add a great deal to the sim until we have TAW.

As for the radar and IRST connection not much needs to be said. There is no reason that we should lose IRST ability when radar goes down or vice versa. Hopefully this will be remedied in the first patch.

Inability to query wingman status is a bit of a mystery. Why this wasn't designed into ADF from the ground up is inexcusable. JSF actually allows FIVE separate queries to wingmen (and either collectively or individually!) including fuel, action, ammo, damage or FULL (which brings a report on all four areas). Trust a newbie to the field to show the way!

The next section of training missions involves A2A and instructs you with regard to targeting systems and tactics. Air to Air Tactics training has nine missions:

• Using EMCON
• Using IRST
• Eyeball and Shooter
• Drag Left
• Offensive Split
• Sd Left
• Defensive Split
• The Grinder
• Stealth Attack

FreeFlight has simple goals like take off at Abu something-or-other and land at Hafi something-else. However, you can also join an in progress CAP on some of these flights if you would like to do so... In fact, most of the single missions feature ongoing environments and if you are in good shape you can land and rearm and refuel and take to the air again and take on some more work or get a vector to another intercept.

Next on the list is Wingmen Training which comprises four missions:

• Pickle
• Engage My Target
• Engage Bandits
• Engage Hostiles

Following the wingmen training missions you will be well prepared for the Tours of Duty.

Tours of Duty

The heart of ADF is the Tours and the AWACS interface. The Tours are progressively more difficult and missions must be flown in sequence; you will not have access to the next mission until you successfully complete the first. This allows for a sense of progression since the flow of political and military will is pre-configured in the tours.

Red Sea Tour

There are three Tours: Red Sea Tour, Eritrea Tour, and Arabian Tour. The Red Sea Tour is composed of ten missions. The first mission in the Red Sea Tour is "Prelude," and here is the description:

After long negotiations, Egypt has bought military equipment from the USA. In 2007 they bought a small number of F22s, and three years later the Egyptian army seized power and has begun to threaten Sudan to the South.

Your mission is to fly an Egyptian F22 on a dry run for planned strikes, probing Sudanese defenses for weak points. Note: your alter ego is Egyptian and you will notice the accents!

Eritrea Tour

The Eritrea tour is composed of ten missions. The first is "Deny Flight." Here is the briefing:

Ethiopian troops have invaded Eritrea, who have called on the UN for help. Both Somalia dn Sudan have claimed neutrality and have threatened to shoot down any foriegn aircraft who violate their airspace. The UN has pledged French forces in neighboring Djiborah, US forces in Saudi Arabia and British forces to be placed in northern Eritrea.

You will fly a CAP with wingman, preventing any Ethiopian aircraft from violating Eritrean air space.

Saudi Arabia Tour

Like the other Tours there are ten missions in this tour. The major difference in this final tour is that you will have to be a Class One Black Belt Top Gun to complete it! The first mission is "Border Patrol" and here is the briefing:

The border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen has long been in dispute. Recent discoveries of oil reserves has split the Saudi government into two factions. One faction has used force to gain control of the far south west of the country, claiming independence and forging close ties to arch-rival Yemen.

The Saudi government retains control of the rest of the country and is now set, with UN help, to retake this independent area by force and at the same time deal with the increasing border incursions by the three Yemeni armed servies. The US will use this opportunity to reduce Yemen's strike capability.

You will fly a CAP. Rules of Engagement are strict: ALL contacts must be VIS-IDENT and you are not to fire until fired upon. You are not permitted to engage ANY ground targets.

Support arrives from Allied A10s

In keeping with increased difficulty the first mission in this tour must end by your landing at the airbase to the north. The second mission both begins and ends on the ground.

Gameplay in the Tours is challenging. However, its not necessary for you PERSONALLY to accomplish all goals. If your wingmen can take a few and a few are taken by other allied sources (air or ground) they still count as completed goals. However, you have to also SURVIVE long enough for this to happen!

The point of the tours is to give the player a greater sense of immersion in an ongoing effort to gain or maintain a hold on territory. Is this accomplished?

I would answer that question with a qualified yes. The first couple of times through a mission or the first time you complete a tour you may feel that you have participated in a dynamic and immersive virtual battlefield, but obviously scripted missions have limitations in this regard. Still, ADFs ability in the area of comms contributes a great deal, as does the graphic detailing of the sim. For more discussion of comms see the Wingmen and Comms section below.

The lack of a dynamic campaign does leave a gap. Replaying some missions more than a couple of times gives one that deja vu feeling. The same bandits generally show up in the same positions at the same relative times. (The AWACS interface is almost an exception since the interaction of so many aircraft over a longer period of time creates more possibilities).

On the positive side, you can replay a mission trying different tactics and do some serious learning. In fact, once the mission goals are accomplished you can choose to end the mission or keep playing. If you keep playing you will get AWACS calls for new mission goals, even though you have already done enough for the mission to be rated a SUCCESS on debrief.

ATC and Avionics

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Any simulation which lays claim to being of the "serious" variety has to pay close attention to avionics modelling. ADF does very well in this area, surpassing even iF22 in this regard. iF22 did what it did very well, and gave us great wingman control, but left too many things undone, lacking a variety of autopilot modes, a moving map display, ability to change waypoints in flight, and not addressing LANTIRN capabilities (although this last point is up for grabs in terms of F22 future abilities). Lets look first at the MFDs and related systems.

The Attack display is one of the most critical tactical displays. It has four modes: 1. Display sensor information with the emphasis on ranges and heights, 2. Display LANTIRN TV image from the under-fuselage 'eyes' for targeting laser guided weapons, 3. Display interactive Auto-pilot, 4. Display images sent back by a camera equipped weapon (such as a Maverick Air-to-Ground missile). Pull up the LANTIRN display to see this:

As I mentioned, the autopilot is actually even MORE advanced than that in EF2000. In the F22 there are some additional control modes added to the ap system: landing, refueling, and takeoff. Here is the display itself:

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If you pull up the larger image you will see the new functions on the mfd. Not only is the AP this sophisticated, the system can be controlled from any one of three mfds in case of damage to others. And at 800x600, the display looks like the real thing!

Next lets peek at the general Systems mfd. On the default display you get a quick glance view of your weapons and engine status. From here you can move to the fuel systems display for a graphical picture of your situation and can manage the flow accordingly. You can also access the Startup mfd which is like a pilots checklist. The status screen gives you a summary of operation systems and will tell you when a system is down. This mfd also allows access to the autopilot.

Click for a larger image..

The Situation Display allows access to the MFD map. The display is extremely detailed, and you can access the EMCON system, increase or decrease sensor range, display the artificial horizon (handy when you are head down for too long), and filter air and ground targets or even your own sensors. You can also display the AP system and display waypoints and place names.