| ExhibitTitle |
Comments |
Year |
Thumb |
| Break turn in Eurofighter Typhoon |
Let's say you're dogfighting a bogey and are sure that it has no buddies around. You may be approaching head on and want to do a bat-turn to let rip with an ASRAAM. Then try this. |
17-Nov-2001 |
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| F-15 Eagle driver compares sims and reality |
Can you learn to fly in a sim? Maybe, but it it turns out that real life training works in a tactical jet sim. Check out this encounter with an F-15 pilot reported by Bruce Irving. |
17-Nov-2001 |
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| Comanche 4 new screenshots |
Cajun Hawk sent in a couple of good screenshots. One shows the famous "ripple effect" that has tantalised the sim community for months - the rotor downwash creating ripple effects on the water. The other shows a awesome pyrotechnical display as oil tanks go up in flames. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Land Combat roundup |
Xmas is coming so I did a whip 'round the land combat wing of the Museum. Mmmm... there are a few goodies I have to pick up myself... can someone sell me a Chronosphere, slightly used... you see I need to find a whole lot more time! |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Jos Grupping: Friend of the Museum |
Despite professing to be not a serious gamer Jos has constructed a wonderful tribute to the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. "My first (and last) sim was Microsoft Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002, since version 3.0 in 1988/89. But up till I got color with an EGA card Microsoft Flight Sim 4 - I mostly used it to test for IBM-compatibility!!" |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Museum Utilities |
I'm often asked what software I use to maintain the Museum so answer that I added this section. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Platinum add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 |
"These planes are all from the design studio of Terry Hill, one of the most experienced designers in flight simulation." |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| LHX Attack Chopper donated by simhq.com |
A classic chopper sim which set the goals for the 1990's. Realistic scenery, great cockpits and plenty of action! MiGMan thanks SimHQ.com for donating a copy of LHX to the Museum collection. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Bargain World War 2 Fighters |
With World War 2 Fighters available for $ 9.99 at Amazon - then get the 600 meg of shareware add-ons - Skins - Terrain Sets - Campaign sets - Utilities - DCE (Dynamic Campaign Engine) and better sounds - and you have a lot of flying to do ! |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Comanche Gold added |
Comanche Gold added new campaigns, new missions, mission design tool, weather effects, a campaign designed exclusively for NovaLogic by a former U.S. Army Team Comanche member to the 1997 release Comanche 3. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Comanche 3 working under Win 98 |
Comanche 3 was released in 1997 by Novalogic. It was one of the last sims to run in DOS. It is pretty easy to run under Windows 98 although some trial and error was needed to select a workable sound card setup. It ran quite smoothly at near maximum detail on my P166 laptop and as you would expect I could totally max out the settings on my Celeron 466 Mk II system. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Flameouts at high altitude |
Jet Pilot was an incredible in-depth simulation of two famous vintage jets, in a ultra-hardcore way. Read about flameouts at high altitude and bad weather approaches with one eye on the fuel gauge. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Earth 2150 enters the Museum |
I played Earth 2140 back in 1997 - one of the last DOS games - and had been impressed by the gameplay and graphics. Topware.. who are these guys? What a brilliant debut. Well the follow-up, Earth 2150 is bigger and better. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Brent Iverson info added |
Brent Iverson created some of the most popuar and influential titles in the Flight Sim Genre. I tracked down some info and a picture of him in the LHX Attack Chopper Manual. |
22-Nov-2001 |
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| Heavy bombers in action |
Fatal Terrain by Dale Brown. The general story will be a bit predictable to anyone who has followed the series, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. You will know what to expect - lot's of action packed sequences involving every permutation of engagement between ships - fighter aircraft, SAM's and of course Brown's favourite - the heavy bombers. |
29-Nov-2001 |
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| Finished the campaign in Eurofighter Typhoon |
I finally finished the campaign and am feeling very pleased with myself - even if I did resort to an unorthdox solution. A few gripes aside - which I've outlined in the exhibit - this was the best month or so of flying I've had in a loooong time. |
29-Nov-2001 |
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| Eurofighter Typhoon - the aircraft and the sims |
I gathered a few factoids together about the Eurofighter cockpit, It is interesting to compare the real a/c to the sim treatments in EF 2000 and Eurofighter Typhoon. EF 2000 had the buttons and Eurofighter Typhoon got the concept! There's also an outline of the Eurofighter airshow routine. |
29-Nov-2001 |
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| The early 1980's who'd want to go back? |
"This is where it all started, looking at three dials and flying at night on a crummy TV !!! I seem to remember it took about 30 minutes to load off the tape, with a 60% failure rate." The good old days - the early 1980's who'd want to go back? |
29-Nov-2001 |
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| A Dutch friend of the Museum |
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29-Nov-2001 |
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| Rotor-head and friend of the Museum |
I have known Bob since the Flight Sim Museum opened as MiGMan's Combat Diary in October 1998. He encouraged me from the very beginning and made some of the earliest contributions to the Flight Sim Museum. |
29-Nov-2001 |
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| Old school sci-fi |
In The Andromeda Strain the plot is an old standby :"Earth is invaded by Aliens and our four heroes save the day".... but there's a twist or two ! The Aliens aren't 7 feet tall with acid blood and the heroes aren't tall with lust in their blood. In fact, our heroes are middle aged - not too attractive - and their super weapon is .. the mind!. |
29-Nov-2001 |
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| No pilot voice patch |
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07-Dec-2001 |
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| Mickster's classic arcade web site |
Food for thought for home cockpit builders. This guy - Mickster - has built his own video game arcade using PC emulators running in original arcade cabinets : Mickster's classic arcade web site - It shows what can be done these days using PC's and a bit of imagination and effort to create your own entertainment environment. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Falcon 4.0 gets a Super upgrade |
The release of the Falcon 4.0 Superpak tempted me back to this iconic sim. Here's some info to whet your appetite as I get under the hood of the Falcon again. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Falcon series refurbished |
I refurbished all the Falcon exhibits and added an image of the HUD in Falcon 3.0. For 1991 it seemed incredibly complex but compare it to the cockpits in later sims like F/A-18E Super Hornet or even F15 by Janes. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Saitek X-36 analog config file for F/A-18 Super Hornet |
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07-Dec-2001 |
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| Vicarious thrills |
Whenever I want a huge adrenaline rush - to pit my flesh and sinew against the unforgiving precipice - to push my body to the limit of endurance - and beyond .. then I make a nice cuppa and watch Stallone in Cliffhanger. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Realistic hangliding |
Microflight started out as a project by Ilan Papini to create a realistic sim for gliding, hangliding and ultralight fun. The open architecture has encouraged a host of addons so you can now do everything from ride a bicycle around San Francisco to fly an ultralight down the Grand Canyon! |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| History of Flight Sims Parts 1 and 2 |
Len Hjalmarson put together a great history of Flight sims - this first part runs from 1971 to the beginning of 3DFX. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Free flight and Manuals on the web |
Free manuals on the web - from civil aviation to AH-64 Apache and F-16 manuals. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Caricature artist extraordinaire! |
Rob "Bomber" Henderson Check out Rob's reminiscences of a whole swag of 1980's sims - then duck over to his website and enjoy his aircraft caricature art which has a focus on those British types! |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Bond - That's James Bond! |
Aircraft, aerial stunts, Jet Fighters, seaplanes, helicopters, Gyrocopters, Mini-Jets... it seems every Bond movie features some air action. And let's not forget the plethora of gadgetry! In the interests of science I hit the local video-rama and revisited these classics. I thought I'd seen them all, but not so! |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Museum hosts the Indian Scenery for F/A-18 Super Hornet |
The Indian scenery update disappeared from it's original home and after Edge helped me locate it again I decided to house it in the Museum. |
07-Dec-2001 |
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| Still experimenting |
Mark Hermonat was already known to the Flight Sim Community as one of the driving forces behind Game Tool Technologies. GTT has gone but Mark is still experimenting with sims: "I am slowly developing my own sim. Nothing fancy, nothing cutting edge. Just something to fool around with to learn the various aspects of a flight sim. Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon was the basis for the landscape. It is modelled in detail down to the three airbases, all of the mountains and even the suspension and cantilever bridges. Those nostalgic for that sim may have fun exploring the world here." |
15-Dec-2001 |
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| Links to Graphics Card Manufacturers |
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15-Dec-2001 |
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| Mech My Day II |
I was really looking forward to trying MechCommander 2. It promised all the elements of MechCommander transformed into the 3-D type of game engine which is de rigeur for strategy games nowadays. Also I had just taken possession of a Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 graphics accelerator card so I was ready for some spectacular graphical effects! |
15-Dec-2001 |
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| Seems to fly by miracle force! |
Satoshi "Bin" Hiranuma is chronicling Japanese sims and has provided info on this sim from Systemsoft.: " It seems to fly by miracle force from another universe. The shape of level flight envelope is far different from real aircraft." |
15-Dec-2001 |
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| A free sim ignites a passion |
"My first experience ever with a flight sim was when I had a job in the media department of a Toronto advertising agency doing research runs on an original IBM XT. Hiding in the corner with all of the other computer documentation was a copy of Microsoft's Flight Simulator 1 - I guess the computer store threw it in for free?" |
15-Dec-2001 |
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| History of Military Flight Simulations on the PC: The Mature Years 1997-2000 |
As promised here is part 3 of Len "Viking 1" Hjalmarson's History of Military Flight Simulations on the PC : Combatsim.com founded, 3D wars heat up, Voice Control!, SimHQ.com founded, European Air War, DEBRIEF, F15, WW2 Fighters, Total Air War, Microsoft's first Combat sim, The Pace picks up, Falcon 4.0, USAF, Enemy Engaged, Su-27 Flanker 2.0, 3DFX and Nvidia, AMD, Nations, F/A-18 by Janes, Helicopters, Combat Flight Sim 2, Jetfighter 4. |
15-Dec-2001 |
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| Rudder pedals working with a USB joystick |
Bob Church has devised a way to get your separate rudder pedals working with a USB stick. I was hanging out for this so I could get my Thrustmaster Rudder Pedals working in tandem with the Top Gun Afterburner II. |
15-Dec-2001 |
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| 25 minutes to load a mission |
When we complain about missions taking too long to load in Falcon 4.0, hear this: 25 minutes to load a mission on the tape version of Gunship on the C64. Twenty-five minutes, I kid you not. Anyway, it was worth it. |
23-Dec-2001 |
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| Flight Simming on a budget |
It doesn't have to cost the earth and you don't need a brand new computer with all the bells and whistles to enjoy Flight Sims. I've just played 84 missions - NOT counting replays - in Microsoft Combat Flight Sim. I played the campaigns which come with the sim - there's 48 missions - and then downloaded Mike Eustace and Doug Attrell's fabulous Korean campaigns which gave me another 36 missions of fast jet action and carrier ops. Microsoft Combat Flight Sim will run quite well on a Pentium 233 and a modest graphics card - I used a Banshee 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator Card the first time around. For a controller I used the Top Gun Afterburner II. |
23-Dec-2001 |
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| Hardware 101 - Setting up your sticks |
Flight sims can be pretty darned confusing for folks. I remember it took me years to be able to land in the things! I manage it now - most of the time anyway. And those controllers - what are all the buttons for? What do they do?
I was reminded about this dilemma just the other night when watching an air combat "epic" on video. It was the classic jet combat scene. The bad guy gets on the hero's tail. He decides to pull up vertically... the camera zooms in on him pulling back on the throttle!!!! OK - sometimes you do pull back on the throttle but there seems to be a lot of confusion about what those dangles and dongles actually do. Here are my tips on setting up your throttle and joystick for basic combat flying. |
23-Dec-2001 |
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| That Afterburner game.. |
Although this was an arcade game rather than a sim it is worth a mention because it had a pretty good moving cockpit in the arcades and it probably got many people interested in flight sims. Well it may have! Anyway the fact remains that if you tell someone that you're into Flight Simulators there is a pretty good chance they'll say "Oh, yeah - like Afterburner! |
23-Dec-2001 |
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| Air Combat Yugeki-oh II lands |
Air Combat Yugeki-oh II was developed by SystemSoft for the NEC PC-9801 series of PC's in Japan. Satoshi "Bin" Hiranuma reported on this popular Japanese sim: Air Combat Yugeki-oh II. |
23-Dec-2001 |
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| Xmas Face lift |
I gave the Museum title bar a face lift and added a visual display over each year in the: 1980s - Civil flight sims, 1990s - Civil flight sims, 2000s - Civil flight sims, 1980s - Combat flight sims, 1990s - Combat flight sims, 2000s - Combat flight sims. |
23-Dec-2001 |
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