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Host sims from the 2020s

1942 The Pacific Air War
1992
Sierra
1942 The Pacific Air War was a World War II air and sea combat simulation from MicroProse -- you could regard it as the spiritual predecessor to the wonderful European Air War. It allowed you to fly in WWII for the US Navy or the Imperial Japanese Navy (an update also gave access to USAAF planes such as the P-40, P-38, and P-51).
Combat World War II Pacific Theatre WWII Carrier

A-10 Attack
1995
Parsoft Interactive
This Mac sim featured fabulous flight modelling and was the predecessor to 1996's A-10 Cuba. Ran fluidly on an average machine in 1996.
Combat

A-10 Cuba
1996
Parsoft Interactive
A-10 Cuba by Eric "Hellcats" Parker is a fluid and exciting sim which ran well on modest PC's. This sim was one of that rare breed which begged to be flown! The handling from taxiing to landing is pure flight sim joy! The wealth of detail, smoothness and sense of speed added up to an addictive experience The handling from taxiing to landing is pure flight sim joy!
Combat

A-10 Tank Killer 2: Silent Thunder
1996
Dynamix Sierra
One of the first Windows 95 flight sims and sequel to 1989's A-10 Tank Killer.
Combat

A-10 Warthog
1999
Janes Combat Simulations
The Flight Sim Museum sadly remembers Jane's A-10 Warthog, the best sim that never took flight. A-10 Warthog was the greatest sim that never took flight. The crack team at Janes Combat Simulations had the rug pulled out from under their feet just before the 'Hog flew. Sim fans worldwide were bitterly disappointed when, in July 1999, Jane's announced the cancellation of the project. All we are left with are these tantalising glimpses of what may have been.
Combat

A320 Airbus
1992
Rob "Bomber" Henderson remembers: "A320 AIRBUS by Thallion : This was bar far the most complex civilian flight sim I flew on the Amiga. It was developed in conjunction with the airline LUFTHANSA of Germany. The sim came with a huge manual, a massive "notepad" containing Jeppessen airfield approach charts for almost every controlled airfield in Central Europe, and 4 high level navigation charts, and a massive poster of a real A320 cockpit."
Civil Add-on

A320 Airbus
1992
Rob "Bomber" Henderson remembers: "A320 AIRBUS by Thallion : This was bar far the most complex civilian flight sim I flew on the Amiga. It was developed in conjunction with the airline LUFTHANSA of Germany. The sim came with a huge manual, a massive "notepad" containing Jeppessen airfield approach charts for almost every controlled airfield in Central Europe, and 4 high level navigation charts, and a massive poster of a real A320 cockpit."
Civil Add-on

Ace Combat 2
1997
Namco
An arcade style air combat game played from a 3rd person perspective.
Combat

Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere
1999
Namco
The successor to Ace Combat 2. Third in a popular series of air combat oriented arcade style games.
Combat

Aces Collection
1997
Sierra
It also contained maps and a multimedia reference on Early Aviation pioneers. I have Aces: The Complete Collector's Edition. Except for A-10 Tank Killer 2: Silent Thunder, these sims all run in DOS.
Combat World War II Battle of Britain Anthology

Aces of the Pacific
1992
Dynamix Sierra
Part of the most complex and popular World War II sim series of the early 1990s. It had detailed cockpits, different for each aircraft type and some of the most detailed ground objects seen at that time in a VGA sim.
Combat World War II Carrier

Aces over Europe
1993
Microprose
The most complex and popular World War II sim of 1992.
Combat World War II Battle of Britain European Theatre WWII

Advanced Tactical Fighters
1996
Advanced Tactical Fighters was the sequel to Marine Fighters, and third in the series. It introduced stealth and vectored thrust aircraft. I remember the first time sat in my hom-buil cockpit and booted it up on my 486 DX-66. I leapt into the Grumman X-31 and headed for the clouds. For a while I was convinced there was something wrong with the program because this aircraft just seemed too fast!
Combat NATO

Aero Fighters Assault
1997
Video System Co. Ltd. Paradigm
AeroFighters Assault was developed by Paradigm Entertainment and published by Video System Co. Ltd. for the Nintendo in 1997. It was released in Japan as Sonic Wings Assault.
Combat

Air Combat Classics
1993
Air Combat Classics is a collection of absolute classic flight sims from LucasArts released in 1993. It contained: Battlehawks 1942 | Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe | Their Finest Hour (Battle of Britain).
Combat

Air Combat Yugekioh II
1990
Air Combat Yugeki-oh II was developed by SystemSoft for the NEC PC-9801 series of PC's in Japan. The player is a mercenary pilot working for the Asian Pacific Economic Network (APEN).
Combat

Air Power
1995
Rowan
Similar in style to the 2000 sim Crimson Skies, Air Power was a sim set in a fictitious land and set your colourful planes against zeppelins and other nasties!
Combat

Air Support
1992
Psygnosis
"Don't be misled by its title and the illustration of twin Tornado ADVs soaring across the cover of Psygnosis' latest battle-in-a-box. Air Support is not a screaming, seat-of-the-pants combat flight simulator, It's more like a tedious, and less enjoyable version of their own previous release Armour-Geddon."
Combat

Air Warrior (Public Domain)
1990
Air Warrior was introduced to the gaming public as a free - public domain - piece of software which could be downloaded and played in practice mode at home. You then logged on to a dedicated server in your city via modem and played in a virtual war.
Combat World War II

Air Warrior III
1998
Air Warrior 3, released in 1998 is a popular on-line World War 2 Air Combat sim running in Windows '95 and '98.
Combat World War II

Aircraft and Adventure Factory
1992
Mallard
"In my opinion this is what made Flight simming really interesting - designing visually accurate (in a relative sense, or at least for the time) aircraft, that flew close to what the real planes did. And if they didn't, you tweaked it until it did. If this had not happened, I don't believe that the hobby would have gone to where it is today. " - Thomas Long.
Civil Add-on

Aircraft and Adventure Factory
1992
Mallard
"In my opinion this is what made Flight simming really interesting - designing visually accurate (in a relative sense, or at least for the time) aircraft, that flew close to what the real planes did. And if they didn't, you tweaked it until it did. If this had not happened, I don't believe that the hobby would have gone to where it is today. " - Thomas Long.
Civil Add-on

Around the World
1999
Abacus
Adds Amelia Aerhart's aircraft - the Lockeed Electra - and scenery all along the route of her last, unfinished flight of 1937.
Civil Add-on

ATAC: The Secret War against Drugs
1992
Argonaut Microprose
ATAC (Advanced Tactical Air Command) puts you in the position of group leader of a mixed squadron of F-22's and AH-64's deployed to Colombia by the United States. It required you to plan and fly the missions, thus adding a tactical depth rarely seen in flight sims to that time.

Avenger A-10
1991
Spectrum Holobyte
Lars Gramkow Nielsen reported " From what I've been able to make out, it was supposed to be released after Falcon 3.0, as the second of the Electronic Battlefield Series sims - of which Falcon 3.0 was the first. "

MiGMan's industry sources reported that the main problem was the low altitude rendering of terrain by the graphics engine.
Combat

B-17 Flying Fortress
1992
Microprose
A classic DOS sim, and complex for it's time!
Combat Bomber World War II European Theatre WWII

Back to Baghdad
1996
Military Simulations Inc.
Back to Baghdad was an F-16 simulation set in the Gulf War (1991) . It was a DOS sim with claims to high fidelity of flight model and weapons systems modelling and was priced about 30% higher than other PC sims at the time. The publishers Military Simulations Inc. went on to specialise in military sims and released no more products for the home market. It was unique in that it supported a second monitor for the radar display - and this while running in DOS !
Combat

Birds of Prey
1992
Activision
In 1992 16 bit processors had just arrived and we were plunged into an exciting world of flying polygons! The weapons were destructive to any object, no matter what the device or target. I have witnessed a Forger get hit AFTER launching from a carrier by a Mk83 slick released by a B-1B Lancer." Pretty good for a sim that came on ONE floppy disk - 720K !
Combat

Black Knight Marine Strike Fighter
1998
First impressions (1998): "Black Knight Marine Strike Fighter SE was distributed as a shareware demo in 1995 with some functions disabled. The graphics were VGA (300 x 200). The publisher was FormGen. The flight recorder played back your flight from various angles. It runs very fast on a 486 and is worth a look at as an introduction to jet combat sims." MiGMan
Combat Cold War

Close Combat
1996
Atomic Microsoft
This was the first game to really factor in morale for your troops, which added a lot of uncertainty to the gameplay. The whole series is undemanding on hardware and an ideal choice for whiling away time on a laptop.
Combat World War II European Theatre WWII

Comanche 3
1997
Novalogic
It was one of the last sims to run in DOS.
Combat Rotary Wing

Comanche Gold
1998
Novalogic
Added: new campaigns, new missions, mission design tool, weather effects and a campaign designed exclusively for NovaLogic by a former U.S. Army Team Comanche member to the 1997 release Comanche 3.
Combat Rotary Wing

Command and Conquer
1995
The Command and Conquer series from Westwood Studios was a ground breaking innovater in the 1990s which brought real-time drama to the concept of table-top gaming. And obviated the need to read the rules and carry 16-sided dice!
Combat

Conquer the Skies
1997
Microprose
This collection was published by Microprose in 1997. It contains four of the best ever DOS flight sims: 1942: Pacific Air War, Falcon 3.0, Fleet Defender, Gunship 2000.
Civil Add-on

Dawn of Aces
1998
Interactive Entertainment Networks iMagic
World War I air combat sim optimised for online play.
Combat World War I

EF 2000
1995
Digital Image Design
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."
- an ode to EF 2000 - MiGMan, 1999
Combat

Enemy Engaged Apache vs. Havoc
1998
Razorworks Empire
Enemy Engaged: Apache vs. Havoc had arguably the most successful modelling of dynamic battle environments ever seen on a PC in the 1990's. It featured not one, but two of the premier Helicopter Gunships, created in stunning detail and placed in dynamic combat environments.
Combat Rotary Wing NATO

European Air War
1999
Microprose Microprose
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.
Combat World War II European Theatre WWII

F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0
1993
Microprose
F-117A Stealth Fighter has been referred to as "the mother of all sims" due to the many innovations it presented and the atmospheric way the sim is presented. It set standards of game-play which have probably never been exceeded.The sim was a major enhancement and re-release of F-19 (1988) by Sid Meier. F-117A runs very well on a 386 and is a "thinking person's sim" emphasising tactical thinking over reflexes.
Combat NATO Stealth

F-117A Stealth Fighter (NES Edition)
1992
Microprose
NES version of the PC title: F-117A Stealth Fighter.
Combat Stealth

F-14 Tomcat
1990
Activision
The opening scenes to this 1990 flight sim from Activision are an accurate time capsule! The PC hardware of the day was only capable of displaying a limited number of polygons and colours, and the sound made good use of the latest sound card technology. Note that in the game you could also fly in cockpit view.
Combat

F-15 by Janes
1998
Janes Combat Simulations
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... F-111, A-6 Intruder, Tornado... 1998 was hog heaven!
Combat NATO

F-15 Strike Eagle III
1992
Microprose
F-15 Strike Eagle III was a ground breaking simulation of the premier Strike Fighter and one of Microprose's greatest achievements. It was also one of the few sims that enabled two people to fly in the same aircraft over a network, in this case as pilot and Weapons Systems Operator.
Combat NATO

F-29 Retaliator
1991
Land the Space Shuttle on your iPhone or Android device. Great fun. FlyingSinger put me on to this 10 years ago and I'm still enjoying doing a dead stick landing in the world's most expensive glider!
Combat NATO

F/A-18 Korea
1997
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.
Combat Carrier

F/A-18E Super Hornet
1999
Digital Integration Titus
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!
Combat Carrier

Falcon 3.0
1991
Sphere Inc. Spectrum Holobyte
An iconic flight simulator, Falcon 3.0 pushed the boundaries of air combat sims. It had all the features anyone could dream of at the time and the gameplay was riveting, with dynamically generated missions. It was also demanding on hardware, needing a 486 with a maths co-processor to run the "High-Fidelity Flight Model".
Combat NATO

Falcon Gold
1994
Spectrum Holobyte
"The complete collection of updated versions of Falcon 3.0 , MiG-29, Operation: Fighting Tiger and Art of the Kill dogfighting video."
Combat

Fighters Anthology
1998
Electronic Arts
Fighters Anthology brought the DOS sims US Navy Fighters, Marine Fighters, Advanced Tactical Fighters, NATO Fighters and the Windows sim USNF '97 into one collection under Windows. It gave you over 100 different aircraft types to fly! It was the culmination of an ambitious series which bought hours of fun to flight sim fans the world over.
Combat Carrier NATO

Fleet Defender
1994
Microprose
Fleet Defender, released in 1994 by Microprose, was the most thorough treatment of Carrier Fleet Defense ever seen to that date on a personal computer. The graphics were VGA 320 x 200 and based on the F15 Strike Eagle III graphics engine. This sim gets about as much detail as it's possible to get out of VGA.
Combat Carrier NATO

Flight of the Intruder
1990
Spectrum Holobyte Rowan
Flight of the Intruder, released in 1991, is one of the classic combat flight sims of all time! It was developed by two teams, one in the USA and one in the UK. Flyable aircraft were the A-6 Intruder, F-4 Phantom, MiG-21 - this was the first time I got to fly a MiG-21! I remember flying head-to-head against my brother - he in the F-4 Phantom and myself in the MiG-21. Somehow he could always tell which aircraft was piloted by me despite my best efforts to send in the drones first! Until Falcon 3.0 was released, Flight of the Intruder led the pack in features. I remember getting FOTI for the Atari ST, sometime after I came across Falcon, and being amazed at the depth of the simulation, especially the mission planning options.
Combat Carrier External Views Cold War

Flight Sim Toolkit
1993
Flight Sim Toolkit was a unique concept, putting creative power in the hands of the flight sim enthusiast. Please contact me if you have videos of the series in action.
Civil

Gunship 2000
1991
Microprose
Gunship 2000 was an Apache Gunship sim released in 1991 by Microprose. As usual with their products, a strong sense of atmosphere was maintained by seamless menu screens and music. You could also fly the A H-1 Cobra, OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, MD 530MG, UH-60 Blackhawk, RAH-66 Comanche and AH-64B Apache Longbow. 1998: "If you only have a 386 and want some exciting chopper action then get this!"
Combat Rotary Wing NATO

Harrier Jump Jet
1992
Microprose
"You'll never get closer to the real thing. Your only other option would be to join the Air Force". So sayeth the box blurb from Microprose's 1992 Harrier Jump Jet sim. In the early 90's PC's had finally come into their own as games machines, with Sound Cards and powerful CPU's of the 386 variety! Harrier Jump Jet pushed the machines of the day with it's smooth rolling terrain. Those were the days! A 270 page manual printed on glossy stock and well bound in a size ideal for throne room reading. As well as heaps of tables detailing air-to-ground weapon effectiveness there was diagram after diagram on air combat manoeuvres. Not to mention the 3 full - colour maps!
Combat NATO

Hind
1997
The makers of Tornado sent the sim world a Helicopter Gunship sim with a difference! It's big, it's mean looking, it's heavily armoured and carries a huge swag of ordnance... its the Mi-24 Hind Gunship!
Combat Rotary Wing

Jet-Pilot
1996
Vulcan Software
"As far as I know, this was the only computer simulation based on the Lightning aircraft. Had it been fully developed much earlier, it might have been a useful training aid for the RAF. It could have helped ground radar operators and controllers appreciate the pilots problems, etc."
Combat

Jetfighter III
1997
Mission Studios
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'.
Combat Carrier

Joint Strike Fighter
1997
Eidos Innerloop
"This 1997 Flight sim let you fly the F-35 years before it was ready".

""Let me just rewind, this is a long time ago," laughs Rune Spaans, who's speaking to me over Skype from his home in Oslo, Norway. It's been two decades since Rune was lead designer on the first ever game about the then-mysterious Lockheed Martin F-35 (then designated the X-35), and its Joint Strike Fighter program competitor the Boeing X-32." - read on
Combat

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator
1998
Microsoft
"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.
Combat World War II European Theatre WWII

MiG Alley
1999
Rowan
MiG Alley is a simulation of Air Combat operation in the Korean War June 1950 to January 1951. MiG Alley achieved very close to a perfect blend of action and graphical realism as a simulation of the air war in the Korean conflict. In November 2001 Rowan released the source code, so expect the sim to keep developing in the hands of dedicated fans.
Combat

MiG-29 Fulcrum (Domark)
1990
In 1990 the MiG-29 had only just been revealed to the west at the Farnborough Airshow. It seemed to be a sexy mystery machine which could perform spectacular manoeuvers such as the "tailslide" and "cobra". Despite only having 6 missions, this sim bought countless hours of fun to flight sim fans on multiple platforms.
Combat

Proflight
1990
Proflight was one of the first flight sims I saw on a personal computer. I had bought an Atari ST to arrange and print music for my string quartet and included in the package was a demo of this amazingly fluid sim, running at 600 x 400 pixels (in monochrome).
Civil

Sabre Ace
1997
One of the first air combat flight sims to use the brand new 3DFX graphics accelerator technology.
Combat Korean War Cold War

Su-27 Flanker
1995

Strategic Simulations Inc.

Su-27 Flanker was designed by a team of Russian programmers to run on 386 and low end 486 machines. The project was taken on by SSI and revised to SVGA graphics resolution. The Russian designers didn't have access to the faster PC's, and as a result their code was very efficient and it ran very smoothly despite being state of the art! The sim recreates the Crimean peninsula in great detail and pits you, in the Su-27 Flanker, against the latest Russian and NATO aircraft, armour, ships and SAMs. All control surfaces move during flight and the attention to detail is extraordinary!
Combat

TFX
1993
Ocean
TFX is an acronym for 'Tactical Fighter Experimental'. When you look at the graphics available in the other early combat flight sims it is easy to see why TFX caused so much excitement on it's release. The flight model could be adjusted from 'arcade' to 'military' and play modes ranged from arcade levels to the "UN Commander" mode. As UN Commander you planned missions, selected the aircraft and flew the Eurofighter, F22 or F117 Stealth Fighter.The later versions run straight from CD Rom and in a DOS box under Windows '98. It will run very smoothly on a '486 and is strongly recommended for beginners.
Combat

Tornado
1993
Digital Integration
One of the all-time classic flight sims. The training missions covered every aspect of operating the Tornado and you were wise to work your way through them... this sim gave you more opportunities to "buy the farm" than most! Player aircraft were Tornado IDS (Interdiction/Strike) and Tornado ADV (Air Defense Variant).
Combat

Total Air War
1998
Digital Image Design
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.
Combat

US Navy Fighters
1993
Janes Combat Simulations Electronic Arts
This sim was the successor to the wildly popular Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat and started a series that ran to the end of the 1990’s.
Get an overview of the series in the Fighters Anthology exhibit. The combat focussed gameplay was enhanced by the atmospheric and user friendly interface. The ability to tweak most aspects of the sim from the graphics to mission waypoints and loadouts made you feel in control without overwhelming you with detail.

It still remains a model of good interface design. The first mission of the Ukraine campaign remains for many fans a reminder of just how atmospheric a sim can be. Check out the videos, showing the entire first mission from briefings, through mission planning, arming, carrier takeoff in the F-14, intercept and carrier landing.'
Combat Carrier

Wacky Wallys Configuration Manager
1993
Wacky Wally's Configuration Manager 1.0 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.
Utility

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