I've just returned from Los Angeles where Microsoft hosted a CFS event at the Santa Monica air museum. The Combat Flight Sim team invited seven WWII veterans to attend: some of them members of the Confederate Air Force, and some of them members of the famous Tuskegee Airmen.

On Jul. 19, 1941, the AAF began a program in Alabama to train black Americans as military pilots. Primary flight training was conducted by the Division of Aeronautics of Tuskegee Institute, the famed school of learning founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881. Once a cadet completed primary training at Tuskegee's Moton Field, he was sent to nearby Tuskegee Army Air Field for completion of flight training and for transition to combat type aircraft.

The first classes of Tuskegee airmen were trained to be fighter pilots for the famous 99th Fighter Squadron, slated for combat duty in North Africa. Additional pilots were assigned to the 322d Fighter Group which flew combat along with the 99th Squadron from bases in Italy.

In Sep. 1943, a twin-engine training program was begun at Tuskegee to provide bomber pilots. However, World War II ended before these men were able to get into combat.

By the end of the war, 992 men had graduated from pilot training at Tuskegee, 450 of whom were sent overseas for combat assignment. During the same period, approximately 150 lost their lives while in training or on combat flights.

Additional men were trained at Tuskegee for aircrew and groundcrew duties--flight engineers, gunners, mechanics, armorers, etc. Others were sent to Texas and New Mexico for training as navigators and bombardiers.

Unfortunately, I am still relying on a Canon SLR camera, and I won't have any pictures to show until the film is developed and the pictures digitized. I've taken shots of a few of the aircraft in the museum, as well as a shot of Lt. Col. Jack Morgan in front of a Mk. IX Spitfire.

The event itself was a great deal of fun, and included presentations by various members of the development team as well as selected WWII combat veterans. Early in the afternoon we had the opportunity to fly a late beta of CFS, and then we divided into teams to fly 3 on 3 in head to head competition. In this article I'll give you a report of that hour of combat experience.

German Flak field. Click for larger and note the two balloons...

First, we met in tactical briefing sessions with a couple of members of the Microsoft team, along with three veterans of WWII air to air combat. We tossed around detailed physical and energy management stats. We considered the tactical advantages of two on one. We plied the real pilots for those golden gems of experience gleaned from real world combat. We reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of the aircraft we would fly and fight. Then we donned our flight suits and headed back to our desks.

From a strategic perspective, there was only one sensible approach to take: stack the deck in our favor by forming a team with the best pilots available! Since the attending airmen were not participating, this meant selecting from the other writers: Rod White from PCM&E and Tom Basham of "Debriefs" magazine and I would fly Axis aircraft against Gordon Berg of Flight Sim Therapy fame and two of his cronies.

Aircraft and simulation settings were dictated by the Microsoft crew. The dastardly villains must have anticipated our plot, because settings were UNLIMITED AMMO and EASY flight model. Whats a guy to do??

Furthermore, we Axis pilots found ourselves restricted to Me109e's. We were told that we would be flying against Spitfire Mk. Is. Okay, so far so good.

Unfortunately, our noble opponents were also thinking strategicly, and they correctly calulated that P51 mustangs would fare better against us! Damn their hides! Such cheating would never have been allowed if there had been a VPAMFPICG rep present (Virtual Pilots Association Monitoring Fair Play In Computer Gaming).

Naturally, it didn't take astute pilots like Rod, Tom and I long to figure out why we were dying so quickly. Getting on the tail of a P51 while flying in an early Messerschmit is about as easy as plucking feathers from a pig.

Being men of honor, we played and lost rounds of competition to the dishonorable Allies. Then something in us rose up in outrage. Rod, Tom and I donned Spit MK IXs and took to the skies in the third round prepared to even the score. About five minutes later the smoking hulks of three P51s littered the virtual battlefield.

The valiant fighters of the Axis also took round four, but in round five the desperate Allies made a comeback when one of the Axis aircraft unexpectedly collided with Mother Earth. Ah well!

Prior to round five the Axis strategists put their heads together and came up with a brilliant new strategy: don P51s! The element of surprise would be in our favor.

As expected, we too round five quickly, but round six went to the Allies. Hmm. After that round no one kept track of anything any more, we were too busy having fun!

While no one can deny that the Allies held their own when the odds were evened up, history will never know what would have occurred had the realistic flight model been selected, and the ammo been limited to under 15,000 rounds.... Curse you, Red Baron! I'll get you next time.....

Combat Flight Sim Beta

The CFS beta has come a good distance in the past six weeks. The flight model has under gone a good deal of tweaking, and with input from WWII veterans is going to please the vast majority of virtual pilots. The Focke-Wulfe is especially challenging to fly, and I've faced some nasty accelerated stalls in the Spit.

The physics of damage modeling has seen the level of care one would expect for a state of the art WWII flight simulation. The number of parameters taken into account is very impressive, and while other sim developers may match CFS in this department, I doubt that the level of modeling will be surpassed.

Physics modeling proper is similarly impressive. For example, every gun on the B17 is modeled individually, each with its own ballistics and physics. This means that rate of fire, damage impact@range, and even muzzle velocity is appropriate to each gun. Each bullet is also modeled in flight in relation to altitude, and then impacts are calculated in accord with the detailed damage modeling mentioned above.

The terrain, as you have seen from previous screens, is the most impressive of any of the WWII sims I have yet seen, surpassing even Janes WWII Fighters. Finally, the open architecture is going to give CFS the same extended life as Microsoft Flight Simulator. The ability to create and modify and share missions, import aircraft and scenery from Flight Sim '98, and generally construct and modify aircraft with abandon should result in the same kind of community that has grown up around Microsofts other product.

To date I haven't yet said much about the padlock in CFS, but I've had more time with the sim and want to comment on the options provided. In short, it doesn't look as good as it could, but with frame rate considerations being more critical, it functions very well and there are a number of options.

First, there are three formal padlock options: 1) fixed cockpit with Enemy Indicator; 2) virtual cockpit padlock; 3) no cockpit view with Enemy Indicator. Furthermore, each of these views can be zoomed in and out.

Enemy Indicator. Click for 1024x768

The fixed cockpit and no cockpit Enemy Indicator is a stroke of genius. Imagine the arrow ( > ) that slides around the screen on some simulations, but modified in a 3d cone that sits center screen but rotates to point to your current target. This indicator works brilliantly well, allowing you to follow your target directly or even to manouver to your target indirectly.

However, the indicator itself isn't perfect. If your target is slightly below or above you, there may be times when you will almost have your target in sight, but your view is obscured by the cockpit art, or your target may be off screen slightly above. Enter the zoom out view. Tapping the - key when the target is close to your forward view will provide enough peripheral vision for you to eyeball him.

Padlock Normal View

This is also where the virtual padlock view becomes useful. I have found that once I have my target somewhere in the front 120 degrees, I can tap the padlock key and orient myself via cockpit cues. As soon as I get lined up with the target in about 35 degrees of my nose I tap the padlock key and flip back to fixed view, which I prefer for lining up the shot.

Padlock Wide View

Now there are some occasions when you will flip to your padlock view, but not get a fix on your target. You can hit the - key to zoom out. Or, you can use this key for a wide angle fixed cockpit view. The wide angle view from fixed cockpit does not give you a zoomed out from the cockpit itself, but changes perspective relative to the outside view. Your peripheral vision is expanded. I haven't found this view greatly useful, but on the other hand the zoom in view from fixed cockpit is helpful for identifying an enemy aircraft or lining up a shot.

Quite a few of you have written to ask for more information on the challenge level. I'm happy to report that choosing ACE level of competition has lowered my kill ratio considerably. Enemy aces have always had a good repertoire of moves, but now have also become more aggressive. Head on passes have become especially dangerous. If you refer to previous reports you can read about the loss of sight model and the stick position model that Microsoft has used for their virtual pilots, but innovative approaches that are more effective at representing realism in this sim.

Microsoft today announced that the Internet Gaming Zone (http://www.zone.com) is hosting a unique Fighter Ace Squadron event, code-named Route 66, on September 24 and 25 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm PDT. Fighter Ace is a multiplayer World War II aerial combat game playable only on the Zone.

One of Fighter Ace's biggest events of the year, the squadron-based six vs. six tournament, is so massively multiplayer that it has to be run over two days. On September 24, the first 16 six-person teams to sign up win a slot in this battle of the best. Day One of the tournament will see heavy air combat action as the field of competitors is narrowed to the best four teams. Those lucky four will then go on to a second day of aerial dogfights to determine the top two teams. These two battle worn teams then meet in a grueling, best of five face-off to determine the top Fighter Ace six-player squadron on the Zone. Prizes will be awarded throughout the competition.

Fighter Ace, developed by VR-1, is an Internet Gaming Zone pay-to-play game designed specifically for play over the Internet. In Fighter Ace, more than 100 players can compete in a single flight arena while enjoying sophisticated aircraft graphics, immersing sound effects and terrain modeling. Pilots can fly in "free-for-all" or team modes, or arrange private games with their friends. Fighter Ace features 16 carefully re-created aircraft from the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Russia. In addition, Fighter Ace offers arenas of varying difficulty, player profiles and a Hall of Fame.

To participate in "Route 66" go to: The Zone