A Blast From The Past

[Pielstick]

I was trawling Youtube last night and came across some videos of Digital Integration's Tornado from 1993. I played this sim to death when I was a kid, and would load it up just about every day after school between the age of 12 and 14.

Check out the music!!!

The memories! Those JP233 runs were murder!

While I'm at it, here's some other oldies I remember from back in the Atari ST/Amiga days...

Here's Fighter Bomber - this had a great range of aircraft to fly. Check out the menu music!

Falcon - the original!

Digital Integration's F-16 Combat Pilot - my first flight sim back in 1989!

F-19 Stealth Fighter - another favourite. Love the music The missions were all in Libya funnily enough!

Gunship 2000 - played this one to death. Is it me or did flight sims have much better menu music back in the day?

Now onto the PC era - which for me begain in 1996.....

My first PC flight sim - Jane's AH-64D Longbow had the BEST intro video ever:

EF2000 - absolutely fantastic sim back in the day (1995). Remember the accent of the AWACS controller?

Su-27 Flanker of 1995 - this is where the Lock On and DCS series all started out...

F-22 ADF - the successor to EF2000 in 1998

And just for a comparison of how far we've come, here's a vid of the latest DCS A-10 sim:

I wonder what we'll have 15 years from now?

Edited August 27, 2011 by Pielstick

[Murdo]

Excellent stuff Pielstick.

I played the EF2000 to death, loved it, even though my PC couldn't really keep up with it.

The first "Flight Sim" I ever saw was on a BBC home PC waaaaay back in 1983 when I was stationed in Belfast. It was a sort of wire frame cockpit in a wireframe Spitfire and a wire frame scenery. Truly uninspiring but... Hey.

We had some kind of flight sim on someJapanesecomputer too. Took about an hour to load from the cassette drive and usually crashed at 98% to howls of sheer rage from Jocks just in from patrol. I think someone finally set fire to it after a Smoker (party type thing - lock lots of aggressive Jocks in a room with lots of beer and wait to see who survives).

Next there was Fighter Pilot or something on an Amstrad. Also had Fighter Bomber and the Apache Longbow.

I just couldn't get on with LOMAC for some reason but loved the CFS lot.

Latest fad is FSX (well, MSFS has been a fad through the entire series actually). I have an (okay so it's American) Aircraft Carrier that leaves Stornoway at midnight and steams down the west coast of Scotland to Prestwick area for midday so I can land and take off in the Sludge Hornet. There's an air to air re-fueler (RAF L1011) that wanders happily around in a racetrack pattern at 15000' between Edinburgh and Belfast for when the plane gets thirsty. I'm currently trying to makie a scenery of Helensburgh and Faslane for FSX just for the hell of it. I'm also trying to program an AI Sub to sail up to the Isle of Skye and hit it but it's just not working, problem with the Sub model. Damn good fun!

If you want any of this stuff give me a shout but be warned, it's really not professional class stuff.

That A10 Sim looks superb though. Very tempted to get it when it comes out.

Have fun.

[Pielstick]

I just couldn't get on with LOMAC for some reason but loved the CFS lot.

What didn't you like about LOMAC? I remember when I first got it the sim used to stutter really bad because it wasn't particularly well optimised for contemporary hardware. It's got a Flanker and F-15 so I love it

Latest fad is FSX (well, MSFS has been a fad through the entire series actually). I have an (okay so it's American) Aircraft Carrier that leaves Stornoway at midnight and steams down the west coast of Scotland to Prestwick area for midday so I can land and take off in the Sludge Hornet. There's an air to air re-fueler (RAF L1011) that wanders happily around in a racetrack pattern at 15000' between Edinburgh and Belfast for when the plane gets thirsty. I'm currently trying to makie a scenery of Helensburgh and Faslane for FSX just for the hell of it. I'm also trying to program an AI Sub to sail up to the Isle of Skye and hit it but it's just not working, problem with the Sub model. Damn good fun!

If you want any of this stuff give me a shout but be warned, it's really not professional class stuff.

Funnily enough I was looking at putting a carrier or two into FSX as I want to try my hand at landing the VRS Super Hornet on a carrier!

That A10 Sim looks superb though. Very tempted to get it when it comes out.

It's already out mate - digital distribution only though. http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/series/warthog/

Digital Image Design's first flight sim... F-29 Retaliator in 1991. This was the predecessor of TFX and EF2000.

TFX - 1994 I think? Complete with crap techno music! DID's next sim was my old favourite, EF2000

And now the follow-up to EF2000 - "Typhoon" of 2001 - by now DID had been swallowed up by Rage Software and it wasn't as well received by flight sim fans as the original.

Now the daddy of them all - Falcon 4.... 1997 I think? This one is still on my computer in the form of Free Falcon 5

Jane's F-15 from 1997-ish I think?

Jane's Longbow 2 - 1997 sequel to the original AH-64D Longbow - this was a real favourite of mine too...

And now the final sim to be released under the famous "Jane's Combat Simulations" label - Jane's F/A-18 of 1999:

A-10 Cuba of 1996 - crap graphics but at the time great flight and damage modelling

1995 - Digital Integration released the next simulation after Tornado - "Apache Longbow"

And followed it up in 1996 with "Hind"

Digital Integration's final flight sim - "F-16 Fighting Falcon" of 1997:

Eagle Dynamics released Flanker 2 in 1999 - now well on their way to making a name for themselves and ultimately the DCS series.

And in 2003 they gave us Lock On: Modern Air Combat - the direct predecessor to the current DCS series.

Graphsim made a series of F/A-18 sims in the 90's and into the early 2000's, here's one of the later ones, F/A-18 Hornet: Korea:

In 1999 Rowan released the excellent MiG Alley:

Rzorworks released Enemy Engaged: Apache Havoc in 1999:

And followed it up with Enemy Engaged: Comanche Hokum in 2000:

Microprose's European Air War of 1998. The developer from this went on to do the Strike Fighters series:

Also from 1998 - Jane's WW2 Fighters

And completing the trilogy of 1998 WW2 sims was Parsoft's Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe. Not very well received if I remember correctly!

Then in 2001 we got the daddy of all WW2 sims - Il-2 Sturmovik. It's been upgraded and developed since then and is currently available as Il-2: 1946

Rowan's Battle of Britian of 2001:

Which Shockwave (now A2A Simulations) picked up and developed into Battle of Britian 2: Wings of Victory in 2005:

1998's hugely popular Red Baron 3D

And Rowan's first flight sim in 1996 - Flying Corps

Microsoft getting in on the action with Combat Flight Simulator in 1998

Following up with Combat Flight Simulator 2 in 2000

And finally Combat Flight Simulator 2 in 2002

Which in turn was used as the base for the superlative "Over Flanders Fields"

Eagle Dynamics have upgraded the Lock On series to "Flaming Cliffs 2"

As well a giving us a totally new series called Digital Combat Simulator, the first title being Ka-50 Black Shark:

Thirdwire have been developing their Strike Fighters series for many years now, with the series now being in its 2nd generation:

Then there's the Free Falcon 5 - the current development of the classic Falcon 4:

2009 saw the release of Rise of Flight:

If you're not into blowing stuff up....

Remember Flight Unlimited in 1995?

Flight Unlimited 2 in 1998

Flight Unlimited 3 in 1999

Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 - my first MSFS title...

Flight Simulator 2000

Flight Simulator 2002

Flight Simulator 2004

Flight Simulator X

And finally, a few vids showing some of the current addons available for FSX, just to show what can be achieved with contemporary flight simulators:

Edited August 27, 2011 by Pielstick