Aircraft Checklists

A fun military aircraft with detailed external model and good sounds.

AV-8B, AV-8B Plus and GR9 Harrier for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

Flyable B-1B Lancer bomber for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 and 2024.

Dam Busters opened the bomb bay door to a new experience in Microsoft Combat Flight Sim 2, that of the bomber pilot. You need a different mindset than when flying the fighters. In the bomber accurate station keeping is everything on the final run.

Has to he hands down the best view out of the cockpit short of flying a gyrocopter, which has no protection from the elements. Plus, this plane is a veritable head-turner!

EF 2000 first saw the light of day (a gloomy Scandinavian day at that! ) in 1995. It's roots lay in F-29 Retaliator and TFX but it went much, much further, breaking new ground in combat flight fidelity. From engine start, sorry, I mean TWO engine starts, you knew this was a new kind of flight sim experience. Taxiing quickened the pulse as the Eurofighter bobbed and bounced on its suspension. Sunlight glinted through the canopy, wheel brakes on, engine spooled up and the beast was straining at the leash.

"Brakes off and the tyres rumble, 120 knots and the dragon leaps into the air."
Ode to EF 2000 - MiGMan, 1999.

This aircraft is a pure delight to fly. Uncomplicated - yet cool looking - with great visibility and handling. The sounds are great, the cockpit a pleasure to look at and landing feels smooth all the way to touchdown. A winner, and I hope to see more from this developer.

In 2001 Digital Image Design (DID) released Eurofighter Typhoon, an accessible and immersive simulation of tactical jet combat. This 2001 sim focussed more on the squadron leader and pilot experience and improved the WARGEN engine of Total Air War.

Eurofighter Typhoon for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

With this flight sim classic Microprose continued their tradition of creating sims which you could live in for months or even years, never getting bored. European Air War recreated the epic west European air battles which helped change the course of World History 1939 - 1945. Every aspect of this sim was superb, from the graphics and sounds to the atmospheric interfaces.

"This VR-ready DC Designs fighter collection for Microsoft Flight Simulator brings you highly detailed F-15C, D, E and I 'Ra'am' Eagles in eight liveries, with the front and rear cockpit positions included in the twin-seat variants. The models feature Head-Up Displays, MFDs with visual layouts based on the real aircraft systems, custom-coded ordnance options, authentic night lighting, custom effects, numerous external animations and working rear-view mirrors."

F-15 by Janes had to be the strike fighter sim of the Millenium! Although it does have a formidable Air to Air capability in terms of Radar and ordnance, the F-15E is about half way down the ladder in manoeuverability... not a dogfight machine! But for fans of the Strike Aircraft community 1998 was hog heaven! Fans initially thought the F-15E as modelled was a woefully under-powered simulation, but pilots of the a/c confirmed the flight model was actually quite accurate.

Boasting one of the most advanced flight models seen in a consumer flight sim. F-16 Aggressor unfortunately had it's development cut short.

One of the most iconic jet fighters added to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Modelled very nicely by SC Designs. A Dec 2022 upgrade added CFD and as of August 2024 the product was still receiving major upgrades (see article).

F-16 Multi Role Fighter by Novalogic combined a lightning quick graphics engine with accessible gameplay.

Follow up to Novalogic's best selling F-22 Lightning II.

Total Air War (TAW) is an aptly-named product. More than a combat flight simulator, it offers a strategic component based on modern air warfare theories first applied in the 1991 Gulf War. he strategic component is based on modern air warfare theories first applied in the 1991 Gulf War and developed by Col. John Warden III. It proposed a 5 ring theory of strategic targeting: 1 – Leadership, 2 - Key Production, 3 – Infrastructure – 4 - Population – 5- Fielded Forces. In addition to a detailed simulation of the F-22 fighter, TAW simulates a near-future war in the Red Sea region (northeast Africa and Saudi Arabia). It does so many things so well, that the player could easily concentrate on any of several single aspects of the sim and still find a lot of depth and fun.

F-22A for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. | Very nice and predictable with a fluidity to the flight model that enhances immersion. Probably one of the smoothest in the landing regime with no hiccups or quirks. This makes it a pure pleasure to fly. The cockpit is 5 -star accommodation with great, unobstructed visibility.

A super aircraft simulation in every way. Not unexpected given the pedigree of the developer, who had previously released this aircraft for Prepar3D. | Three variants in the fleet: A = conventional takeoff and landing, B = S/VTOL, C = carrier. The team at India FoxTecho go above and beyond with their product support. In 2024 their F-35 for MSFS 2020 was still receiving upgrades, revealing their passion for the project.

F-4E, F-4J and British FGR2 Phantoms for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

Korea was one of the most realistic flight sims around 1n 1997 and it ran very well on a modest (Pentium) system. Royal Australian Air Force pilots regard this sim as a very accurate portrayal of the Hornet flight model. The flight model was one of the most fluid around and energy management in a dogfight became a desperate necessity! This sim was worth buying just for the in-game training tutorials. The Hornet was conceived from the word go as a dual-role aircraft, hence the designation F/A-18, which means Fighter-Attack. It was meant to supplement the role of the F-14 Tomcat, providing shorter range Air defense and to totally replace the A-7 Corsair and A-6 Intruder.

This sim reflects the dual role with an incredible array of Air-to-Ground weapons and systems. It was an updated and 3DFX enabled version of F/A-18 3.0.

This sim demanded your full attention. It detected you were not giving full attention... and then turned around and bit you hard! The computers did their best to fly the plane where you pointed it, but couldn't rescue you from gross errors of judgement like my full loops at low altitude! From a hard-core point of view I like this... it forced you to correct sloppy habits and get into the checklist mentality.. getting into a "landing state of mind" when landing... not dwelling on the fantastic dogfight you just had / didn't have. This indeed is the essence of creating an immersive sim!

A complex, real time, multiplayer Air and Ground War sim modelling the behaviour of over 10,000 entities and high fidelity modelling of the F-16 flight model and all avionics. This sim originally shipped to the public in 1998 with a 600 page operating manual. It was the culmination of a series started in 1980 by Gilman Louie, who now creates similar sims for the CIA. The Falcon 4.0 code has been enhanced by groups of enthusiasts and professionals to model 3 marques of the F-16, the ACMI and a weapons modelling has been upgraded, and it was republished as Falcon 4 Allied Force in 2005. Falcon 4.0 was probably the most ambitious air combat sim ever attempted, with a full scale war on the Korean peninsula being modelled. From a problematic beginning - with several patches released before the development team was disbanded by Hasbro to a glorious maturity with user supported development, Falcon remains an iconic sim.

Models the Su-57 Felon.

One of the crowning achievements in the Golden Decade of flight sims which presaged the fluidity and detail we would take for granted in the years ahead.

Models the Su-27 Flanker. Great cockpit and an absolute blast to fly in MSFS.

One of the most enjoyable fast jets in MSFS 2020.

One of the last great sims from Microprose, this reprised their 1988 and 1991 AH-64 Apache simulations and took full advantage of the relatively new technology of 3D graphics acceleration.

Loses a point for limited cockpit functionality and lack of a manual, but if you have an affinity for this iconic low level attack aircraft, or played Flight of the Intruder back in 1991 then you’ll probably want to pick this up and relive the glory days, flying low level, very low level and at night!

IAF was an utter blast with just the right balance of accessibility and challenge. Recreated the 6 Day War (1967), the Yom Kippur War (1973) and contained a second CD ROM featuring the 50th anniversary of the IAF. The ability to change aircraft during a mission turned out to be a real fun factor accelerator. Highly recommended.

JetFighter III, released in 1997 was probably the last of the great DOS Combat Flight Sims. It was one of the first to support the 3DFX chipset and portrayed very detailed terrain... but still ran at a playable speed! The Navigation and Weapon systems were simple in operation so you could concentrate on turnin' and burnin'.

JetFighter V was released in 2003 under the title of "Jetfighter". It is a stunning looking sim which still serves the purpose of providing an action arena for neophytes to the genre, but old hands will be frustrated by the lack of controls and options.Unfortunately the Jetfighter dynasty seems to end not with a bang but a whimper. It's as if there were two design teams - one who set out to make a fully functioning virtual cockpit and one who vetoed the implementation - the whole sim is like that. Heaps of potential but nothing much is finished.

"The Kitfox Speedster Series 7 by Denny Kitfox is a single engine, 2 seater, amateur built kit plane. The speedster variant of the Kitfox Series 7 line up is much like the Speedster Series 4, but with shorter wings and a faster roll rate compared to other Kitfox aircraft, to increase speed and roll rate." | "Over 4500 kits have been delivered in 42 countries."

M-346 Jet trainer for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

Stable and reliable, I used it to recon my initial MiGMan’s World Tour flights during which it recorded over 700 videos and took more than 5,000 images.

A 5 star aircraft for MSFS 2020.

The "Soviet Super Fighter" is what we called it in the 1980's. Modelled here by Deimos. The cockpit interior has bland textures, however that's irrelevant to me because I use a physical cockpit. BUT - it's in the flight model that the MiG wins! Fantastically fluid and responsive. Does it perform accurately at the extremes of the envelope? Well, (1) I wouldn't really know and (2) I don't think ANY of the ac do, and that's down to limitations of the sim's flight modelling. I also enjoy the engine sounds, which use at least 3 different frequencies and change as you move around the airframe. Great fun.

Prior to 1990 you were flat out finding a picture or even an "artist’s impression" of a MiG-29. Suddenly in Novalogic’s MiG-29 Fulcrum you could go online and fly the plane with or against other pilots in real time. This was a very popular sim with simplified avionics which gave thousands of people the chance to try air combat tactics as taught to the pros, and see if they worked as advertised Flying on-line you could use voice communications to facilitate team tactics. Short multiplayer scenarios were won by destroying key enemy communications and infrastructure. Battle damage and asymmetric thrust were modelled. The sim provided a quick way to get an appreciation of the different design philosophies in Soviet aircraft. Examples of differences in instruments were the combined AOA/G meter and the NAV displays. You also had to think in metric! (Outside the former Soviet Union the standard system of measurement in aviation is Imperial). The sim ran as smooth as silk on Pentium 233MMX with 64 MEG of RAM. ( No 3D accelerator) and looked great. With a Banshee card the framerate seemed to double and the object detail is spectacular. Smoke trails are thicker, and the framerate doesn't seem to slow even at 1024 x 768 resolution.

Microsoft's first foray into combat flight sims is a class act. This sim combines the famous attention to detail seen in Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 with photo-realistic scenery generation and challenging missions. The missions are full of action and the photo-realistic scenery adds to the adrenaline rush whether you're in a dogfight at 5,000 feet or strafing a train at 50 feet! By designing an open architecture sim Microsoft have encouraged 3rd party developers and there are already custom aircraft and missions proliferating on the net.

After a 14 year hiatus Microsoft re-envisioned their flagship IP. A combination of Bing satellite mapping, cloud storage, Azure cloud computing, photogrammetry, atmospheric physics modelling and many other bespoke software technologies have delivered a quantum leap in the flight sim experience. The next decade looks to be the best yet for flight sim fans!

Acquired this in December 2022 and I am really enjoying it. The virtual cockpit scales nicely with my physical cockpit and it gives a really most immersive "you are there" feeling to the whole experience.

Superbly modelled inside, outside, flight modelling and cockpit/systems functionality.

Prepar3D kept the Microsoft Flight Sim flame alive after MS abandoned their flagship product in 2010. It expanded the base software into commercial and military markets while still allowing the personal user to keep the dream alive. I only wish I had more time to devote to exploring the sim but life intervened and by the time I had resources to spend on it MSFS 2020 was mere months away. Nonetheless I managed to get a few months in on the F-35 and F-16 and with Air Manager driving all my panels and an 85" screen to fly through, I got a taste of the reliable and fluid flying experience that many thousands of military and amateur pilots like me had been enjoying over during the 20 teen decade.

I rate this 5 stars based on the high quality aircraft alone! "40 officially licensed aircraft, including 10 North American P-51 Mustangs, 10 North American T-6 Texans, 10 Aero L-39 Albatros’, and 10 Aviat Pitts Special S1S."

One of the first air combat flight sims to use the brand new 3DFX graphics accelerator technology.

"Strike Fighters 2 Complete Edition is a collection of the entire Strike Fighters 2 series (over $400+ value!) including 5 games, 2 expansion packs, and 29 DLCs all in one single, easy-to-install package!"

One of my favourite aircraft since encountering it in Rowan’s MiG Alley (1999) I am really looking forward to flying it in MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024.

Brings the iconic lightweight fighter F-5E Tiger II into the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Not having flown the Tornado since Tornado by Digital Integration in 1993, seeing the India Foxt Echo set my pulse racing. Anywho, life intervened for a while in 2024 and finally at Xmas I was ready to lay down the dollars. Having published several hundred videos in IFT’s MB-339, then their F-35 and M-346, there is no doubt in my mind that this will be a solid and stable aircraft with real atmoshpere. Watch this space!

Flawless voice communication with the ATC in your sim and to control any aspect of the aircraft.