Discovery Channel's Wings CD-ROM Collection

An aviation buff's idea of heaven?

By Jim Bray

When I first saw a TV commercial for this set, I began to salivate uncontrollably. You see, I've always been plane nuts (or is it plain nuts?); my father flew in World War II, and as a kid I used to bicycle out to my local International airport to watch the planes. This fetish culminated about 1983, when I got my private pilot's license.

That made this multimedia offering from the Discovery Channel a perfect choice for someone like me, who already has innumerable aviation-related books hanging around the house.

Wings, extremely loosely connected with the TV channel's popular series that takes an in depth, loving look at a different plane each episode, breaks aviation history down into eras: Wings Over Europe, Midway to Hiroshima, Korea to Vietnam, and Saigon to Persian Gulf. The discs, each of which has its own look and feel, focus pretty well exclusively on military aircraft (which is fine - those are some of the coolest planes anyway), and does a pretty good job of covering those eras.

Unfortunately, aviation before World War II is mostly ignored. There's more "Wings" on the way, though, including "London Blitz to Pearl Harbor," and "World War I to the Rise of Hitler." Bring 'em on! I'd like to see one for early aviation and one for civil aviation (everything from Piper Cubs to 777's), too. Then I'd die a happy man!

But these current omissions don't mean this collection isn't worthwhile. It is. Very much so. There's enough information here, and multimedia glitz, to keep a flying freak feeling fortunate for many, many hours.

Taking Flight…

The opening virtual tour of "Wings Over Europe" features a flying jacket-clad actor, who's also the series' narrator, taking you through the various features of the disc. The virtual adventure is broken down into eight modules, from the Blitzkrieg through the Battle of Britain, to Victory in Europe. Along the way, you get to meet some of the famous aircraft from the Bf-109 through the Spitfire, the B-17 and the P51 Mustang. Aces include Douglas Bader and the crew of the famous American B-17 the "Memphis Belle."

I was disappointed to discover some important planes missing from this disc, most notably the Handley Page Halifax bomber (the plane in which my father served). Not so much because the plane was missing, because the Halifax is featured on disc two ("Midway to Hiroshima"), but it should have been included on the "Wings Over Europe" disc, because that's where the plane saw most of its service.

Anyway, the occasional gripe notwithstanding, you still get a terrific overview of the air war, and enough airplane information to whet the most jaded aviation aficionado's appetite.

Right: A screen shot from "Midway to Hiroshima." A rare photo of the nearly-forgotten Halifax bomber of the RAF, a plane that fought alongside the more famous Avro Lancaster. Only one copy of this plane is known to exist; it was discovered in a Norwegian lake in the 1990's, and is now being restored in Canada. Below the photo, the authentic-looking control panel lets you navigate the CD-ROM.

Besides photos and descriptions of the planes, many of them come with terrifically-rendered "3D" versions of the craft, and you can move them around with an on screen "joystick", get info on their armaments, crew complement, etc. You can even hear the sound of their engines or guns in action. It's fascinating and fun, though only a few of the planes offer this coverage.

The disc also includes newsreel footage, print articles (linked to related planes and topics) and lots of other cool stuff.

"Midway to Hiroshima" and "Korea to Vietnam" are the most satisfying of the discs, in my opinion, because they're less about battles and people and more about planes. And this series is called Wings, after all. On "Midway to Hiroshima", you can do some "virtual walkarounds" of some classic aircraft and there are even some flight simulators that let you pilot a few of the planes on the disc. The flight sims are disappointing when compared with some of the "real" ones that are available, but you don't buy these discs for their toy quotient anyway.

"Midway to Hiroshima" uses "virtual airfields" as its heart, and you can walk around them just like you can some of the planes. But the real treat is a large database of planes through which you can search by name, type, manufacturer, country of service, etc. It's great!

You also get a gallery of nose art, live action film footage, multimedia war reports, and animations of combat tactics. Exhilarating!

The airbases are broken down into the various theatres of operation, including the Russian front, the Pacific, England, and North Africa. The tours are linked to related topics, either "Facts," which takes you to the database, "Explore," a link to the 3D models, and "History," which accesses war reports and timelines.

The Cold War Years…

Disc Three, "Korea to Vietnam," also has a large database of aircraft from various nations and various configuation (including helicopters). It spans the 1945 - 1975 era, as the title might suggest. Once again, you get some 3D models of planes, multimedia war reports, airbase tours, animations of combat tactics and weapons in operation.

The disc includes more than 1000 photographs and 500 aircraft. There are also some flight sims, though once again they don't come close to some of the standalone flight sims you can get. But this is more a reference work than a game, so it's not a big deal.

As with the other discs, you can point and click your way through the various features, which are cross referenced and linked.

The airfields you can visit ranger from winter in Korea, aboard the USS Coral Sea off the Vietnam coast, and RAF base Waddington during the cold war. You can explore the planes stationed each place, as well as learning more about the area, and the era, in which the information is set. You can also access info on the capabilities and armaments of the various aircraft, and "Time Lines" give you a chronology of the various planes and events in the era covered by the disc.

"Saigon to the Persian Gulf" updates this virtual look at military aviation technology to the present crop of craft, including such models as the B2 "Stealth" bomber and the huge Russian AN-124 transport that now flies errands of mercy around the world.

The information is quite extensive and the presentation is slick, though not overly so. In short, it's a terrific collection for the aviation buff and I , for one, can't wait for the next releases in the series.

The "Wings" CD-ROMs, for Windows, Mac, and PowerMac:

suggested price: $49.95 US each.

Minimum System Requirements:

IBM/compatible: 486SX, 2X CD ROM, 256 Colour VGA Display, 4 Mb of RAM (8 recommended), Windows 3.1 and Dos 3.3, AdLib and Soundblaster compatible.

Mac: Performa, Centris, and Quadra families. CD-ROM drive, System 7.0, 8 Mb of RAM, 13" colour monitor.

PowerMac: 6100 with System 7.1.2, 8 Mb RAM, 2X CD-ROM, 13" Colour monitor.

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