Look at Us Simmers in 2023 and how far we have come.

[Jaydee]

 

 

Chuck Yeagers Flight Sim, MS Flight Sim, Red Baron, Janes , Pacific Air War, Apache Vs hind , F3 and F4, IL2 FB and here we are with DCS  anIL2 GBs.(just to name a few ).

Thankfully, for us Flight Sims are not dead yet. 

Graphics..OMG  Would you Believe in 1995 what you are seeing on your Monitor Now ? ..Plane Detail and Cockpits, Systems , all when we        Spawn in. Clouds , Landscapes and Horizons that we could dream about 20 years ago. Sims have jumped in Leaps and Bounds in the past few years . And so has technology. .Make No Mistake, If you have 4 or 5 year Old PC/GPU, DONT Expect Everyone to sit around and listen to your Gripes ! ...2023 is lookin good  ! In the Pacific !

[javelina]

4 hours ago, Jaydee said:

 

 

Chuck Yeagers Flight Sim, MS Flight Sim, Red Baron, Janes , Pacific Air War, Apache Vs hind , F3 and F4, IL2 FB and here we are with DCS  anIL2 GBs.(just to name a few ).

Thankfully, for us Flight Sims are not dead yet. 

Graphics..OMG  Would you Believe in 1995 what you are seeing on your Monitor Now ? ..Plane Detail and Cockpits, Systems , all when we        Spawn in. Clouds , Landscapes and Horizons that we could dream about 20 years ago. Sims have jumped in Leaps and Bounds in the past few years . And so has technology. .Make No Mistake, If you have 4 or 5 year Old PC/GPU, DONT Expect Everyone to sit around and listen to your Gripes ! ...2023 is lookin good  ! In the Pacific !

I remember flying this in the late 80's.  At the time, I thought it was the cat's @$$....

[Canvas25]

Immersion is everything.

[FAW-SPIT]

From the very first sim i use what a progress!!

Just for story i remember to play a sim in text mod  we fly an interceptor plane from Aircraft Carrier.. No pics.. nada only numeric parameters  you must have a great imagination to play

Then Flight Sim from sublogic  moutains as green triangle, ground was a green grid instrument are at bottom of screen plane a dot with two line for wing 

When i see IL2 GB or DCS i can't imagine the 2035 sim (hope to be alive at this point)

For near futur i will try VR it seem to be realy good now.

As i"m retired i have many many time but the health sometimes is bad
I can play all the days as i can't walk long time
With no PC i'm dead man !!I 

 

I think many users are not young men or kids   many of us are history fans, aviation fans ( I've fly as glider pilot mainly or a bit civilian but work and money...)

Now i will dream of Zero ... or P400 ( P40 followed by a Zero)

[wheelsup_cavu]

34 minutes ago, FAW-SPIT said:

or P400 ( P40 followed by a Zero)

P-40 pilot better hope that Allison engine doesn't cough...

 

Wheels

[Mysticpuma]

European Air War and Janes WW2 were my first 'proper' sims 🙂

 

 

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

Just now, Mysticpuma said:

European Air War

I played the heck out of that sim. I was devastated when the 7217 error made it unplayable on my system.

 

Wheels

[javelina]

anyone play "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe"?  😀  I burnt man years on that game, on a 286, with a cheap @$$ sound card, (rather what could be called a sound card in that day).  I still remember the 30mm cannons, "whomp, whomp, whomp..." 

[FAW-SPIT]

56 minutes ago, Mysticpuma said:

European Air War and Janes WW2 were my first 'proper' sims 🙂

 

European Air war  was our sim when i founded our Squad FAW  French Air Warrior It was great moments intercept B17 Box in BF or FW  @ high angels.  Then we switch to IL2 Sturmovik Flying Low with our flying tanks
That was  an exotic plane this IL2 and a pleasure to use it. Again in great battle we fly many hours on black death.

Now hope to fly a Cat from Grumman. F4F2 against Oscar and Zero  TBM for bombing and many other

Jason'project is really a very good new... I love sims but a bit bored by classics Spit and BF we fly this in any sims we have play.

I would like early war planes as Gladiator Finnish against I16 or Fiat Cr42 or even Cr32  i love pre WWII planes may simmers want the most armed and powerfull..  On japan Side I enjoy Ki27 or A5M I'm realy an Old Timer.. also in other passion .. I'm sport Shooter  and mainly with antique arms (i'm alos collector) firing a 1816 Musket is a great expérience 

[JediMaster]

SWOTL with a hex editor was a modding dream. Want the Me-262 with the big cannon? No problem!

Want your B-17 to have cannons instead of MGs for defense? No problem!

The graphics were poor even for the standards of the day, but while CYAC was just a string of single or random missions it had that awesome campaign where you could even pick targets or allocate resources like Eisenhower.

I spent even more time with EAW, though, because it did everything acceptably well beyond the annoying split S evasions EVERY SINGLE AI DID when you got on their six. 🤨

[Hoss]

12 hours ago, Jaydee said:

 

 

Chuck Yeagers Flight Sim, MS Flight Sim, Red Baron, Janes , Pacific Air War, Apache Vs hind , F3 and F4, IL2 FB and here we are with DCS  anIL2 GBs.(just to name a few ).

Thankfull8thy, for us Flight Sims are not dead yet. 

Graphics..OMG  Would you Believe in 1995 what you are seeing on your Monitor Now ? ..Plane Detail and Cockpits, Systems , all when we        Spawn in. Clouds , Landscapes and Horizons that we could dream about 20 years ago. Sims have jumped in Leaps and Bounds in the past few years . And so has technology. .Make No Mistake, If you have 4 or 5 year Old PC/GPU, DONT Expect Everyone to sit around and listen to your Gripes ! ...2023 is lookin good  ! In the Pacific !

I think you meant "Holy Shiznit" look how much money I've spent on this.....🤑

Edited May 26, 2023 by Hoss

[Roover]

Hi guys. First post.

Yes, long long time ago (show how old I am), before the Internet, used to play online Airwarrior. Yes, very very different today. Awesome in fact 🙂

Now Combat Pilot...

Nice day guys 🙂

 

[javelina]

43 minutes ago, Roover said:

Hi guys. First post.

Yes, long long time ago (show how old I am), before the Internet, used to play online Airwarrior. Yes, very very different today. Awesome in fact 🙂

Now Combat Pilot...

Nice day guys 🙂

 

welcome buddy!

[Boom]

I'm fortunate to have kept an old, workable XP machine for offline use. On it I've loaded RB3D; CFS 1,2 & 3; Rowans BoB II and MiG Alley; EAW & B-17 Flying Fortress The Mighty Eighth; and Sabre Ace. I've even got all the original boxes the sims came in. 

And after all these years I still have great fun flying each and every one.

[wheelsup_cavu]

Great collection @Boom!

 

Wheels

[Boom]

Thanks. I cherish them. Even Sabre Ace, which is awful! 😁 But I have to say it's redeeming feature is a very good, and realistic, flight training section.

I do miss the old sim CD/DVD versions, with their excellent box cover art, actual manuals you can hold and sit beside you while you fly etc. Downloads are just sooo unsubstantial and etheral.

[343KKT_Kintaro]

20 hours ago, Jaydee said:

Chuck Yeagers Flight Sim, MS Flight Sim, Red Baron, Janes , Pacific Air War, Apache Vs hind , F3 and F4, IL2 FB and here we are with DCS  anIL2 GBs.(just to name a few ).

Thankfully, for us Flight Sims are not dead yet. 

Graphics..OMG  Would you Believe in 1995 what you are seeing on your Monitor Now ?

 

With the Yeager's title I think you refer to the "Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer" (1987) or maybe to "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat" (1991). I intesively played that latter. So you could have asked "would you believe in 1990"

 

In my opinion the two most important and revolutionary leaps in the history of PC combat flight simulation happened in 2001 and in 2008-2011:

 

1) in 2001 with the first "IL-2 Sturmovik"

 

2) in 2008/2009/2011 with "DCS", "Rise of Flight" and "Cliffs of Dover" ("Great Battles" is part of the second revolution, but it's RoF-based so it's implied in it).

 

Only Russian developers undertook these two revolutions and what's funny is that they did it because the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. This allowed the ex-Soviet engineers to step into in the competition market of video games, so they read a few books published in USA in the 1990s and they simply took the best advantage of the American ideas in  the domain of coding and software development. This is what the Maddoxes (Sturmovik, CoD), Solomikyns (RoF), and Tishins (DCS) really did in the 1990s and this is how we have DCS or Great Battles now. I have no idea if whether or not "Combat Pilot" is about to be a third revolution in the history of PC combat flight sims, but the "PC Combat Flight-Sim Russian Revolution" is a process that seems to be over and "Combat Pilot" could be now a wind of change. I hope it will... because, in my opinion, combat flight simulation for PCs needs new technologies and new methods in terms of coding and development. We really want something new, something better than what we had til now... don't you agree fellow pilots?

 

[Gambit21]

IL2 was great but it was missing much of what made EAW so good…because Russian Devs just don’t think about immersion that way. Technically very good - but no soul. You need both for a truly good flight sim.

IL2 wasn’t in any way close to a revolution. It was an improvement and a regression at the same time. I switched from EAW because of better graphics and physics, and took a huge immersion hit. 
 

Nothing changed for the better in the immersion department with Albert and BoS.
 

Combat Pilot will bring that soul back finally I think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Gambit21

[Mysticpuma]

11 hours ago, Boom said:

I'm fortunate to have kept an old, workable XP machine for offline use. On it I've loaded RB3D; CFS 1,2 & 3; Rowans BoB II and MiG Alley; EAW & B-17 Flying Fortress The Mighty Eighth; and Sabre Ace. I've even got all the original boxes the sims came in. 

And after all these years I still have great fun flying each and every one.

I still think BOB: WoVII has the best Ai I have ever faced.

Ai that would evade with rolling scissors, yo-yo, chandelle, it was quite incredible.

I still have a video I made from a few years back in which I was very lucky to capture one of my favourite 'Ai' moments.

At the end of the video I am chasing a 109 low on the deck. I have had a few hits into it and it is weaving, trying to evade me. The thing is, the Ai isn't taking into account the damage that has occurred and it stalls into the ground. I still think it's one of the most incredible moments I have seen in a flight sim (for Ai that is).

 

That moment happens at the 9 minute 10 second mark.

 

[Boom]

Cool vid Mysticpuma, especially liked the final combat. 

Did you ever fly MiG Alley? If you liked the AI from BoB, you would have been astounded by their skill in MiG.

[Boom]

On 5/27/2023 at 5:41 PM, Gambit21 said:

IL2 was great but it was missing much of what made EAW so good…because Russian Devs just don’t think about immersion that way. Technically very good - but no soul. You need both for a truly good flight sim.

Combat Pilot will bring that soul back finally I think.

Amen to that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Krispy_Duck]

I started with SWOTL, then moved to Aces Over Europe and Red Baron. I put in hours and hours on Red Baron... great simulator in its day with a fun campaign dynamic. Aces Over Europe was actually quite difficult - a couple of hits would really tear your plane apart in Aces. I moved from there to the Microsoft Combat Simulator series - 1, 2, and 3. And of course to Red Baron 2 and 3d, which soldiered on for years in the WW1 setting.

One of the vintage sims that was always frustrating for me was Microprose Pacific Air War 1942 (I had the "Gold" edition that came in the box with the books and materials), which was a very rich simulator that I had so many technical problems with - getting it to run, getting a boot disk to work for it, then finally getting it working but having it run slow and rough controls on my computer at that time (a 486).

[Hetstaine]

Late bloomer here, first one was EAW after seeing some pictures of 109s and 111s heading to England in 2001. Had my first pc and joystick that weekend! Moving into il2 not long after and flying through clouds was amazing, night time missions with searchlights...so good. Then the excitement of the Pacific Fighters addon..2004, it's been too long.

[Rjel]

A lot of the sims mentioned in this thread are available on the Internet Archives to use through an emulator. I have many fond memories of those older sims too. My first was LucasArts' BoB: Their Finest Hour. I played that game hundreds of hours. It was a new experience and fulfilled a long held but never realized dream of being a pilot. It's been an amazing experience watching flight sims evolve over the last 35 years of my playing them.

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Rjel

[easterling77]

Thinking of starting with Microprose's Doghfight 80 Years of Arial Warfare from 1993 on a MS DOS and seeing where we are now.

So happy my Hobby survived with me😅