Fancy Flights Through History

Learn if you have "The Right Stuff"

By Jim Bray

WalterMitty lives!

Anyone who's ever dreamed of climbing into the cockpit of a classic WWII fighter should run down to the local store and pick up Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator, a wonderful fantasy that lets you pilot planes from either side in the Great Conflict.

As an aviation freak whose father flew for the Royal Canadian Air Force, I was most interested in planes like Spitfires, Hurricanes and, my personal favourite, the P51 Mustang. And they're all here, in all their glory, and (though I've never come even close to flying the real thing) they feel about as accurate as you can get without virtual reality.

You can dogfight, go on strafing missions, escort bombers, you name it!

You can also get shot down, unfortunately, but such was the sacrifice of the valiant men who actually flew these missions more than half a century ago.

Combat Flight Simulator gives you a small taste of what they went through, from the comfort of your home or office - and left me even more in awe of these heroes than I already was.

The sim appears to take the best features from Microsoft's more mainstream Flight Simulator, including great sound and graphics. The geography included in the game stretches between Great Britain and Germany, and from Switzerland to the Baltic Sea. You can follow rivers, fly over towns and 3D cities like London, Paris and Berlin.

To add even more fantasy to it, you import add civilian planes and scenery from different parts of the world; so you can fly a 737 passenger jet and bomb Berlin!

The basic sim comes with eight authentic German, British and American fighters, and the highly detailed cockpit display shows working instruments and gauges. A combination of keyboard and multi-button joystick controls every aspect of the game with all sorts of different realism levels. You can switch the cockpit off for better all around view and rely on smaller windows that show positions of all aircraft as well as important info on your plane.

You also get modern aids like pointers that highlight your nearest target (I can't imagine how the real guys found the bogeys without them!). And you can stock unlimited rockets and ammo to make things even more unfair for your enemy.

One thing I noticed was how difficult it is to fly without rudder pedals, and I didn't have a chance to hook up a set before writing this. You can control the rudder with the keyboard, but I was so busy just trying to stay alive and finish my mission using the joystick that I couldn't take time to find the proper keys and actually use them.

Besides "instant dogfights," you can participate in historically accurate campaigns complete with full briefings or individual missions.

Combat Flight Simulator can also be played over a local area network, modem to modem or with up to eight players on Microsoft's Internet Gaming zone. Scores are shown after play with stats on all players.

So if you're a flying fan (or just plain flighty), with a taste for history and/or valour, Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator is a must have.

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