Air Power The Cold War
Tupolev Tu-16 'BADGER'
This is a big aircraft!
I decided to use it's long legs and explore the region around Vladivostock, a long time favourite area of mine since Advanced Tactical Fighters. Check out my campaign set in the region at: Operation C.O.R.K.
Needless to say, neither the scale nor detail of the region was accurately presented in the 'Fighters' series but at the time it still seemed marvellous. I even bought ONC charts (Operational Navigation Charts) as used by military pilots, but these were useless in my combat flight sim adventures until Jetfighter III was released. This sim recreated the region in amazing detail and I spent happy hours on my '486 navigating by reference to the real world map. Power lines, lakes, towns, all the airbases, rivers, coastlines and terrain elevations were all there!
With the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 I eagerly anticipated revisiting the old 'virtual stomping ground'. To my dissapointment the program only lists one airbase out of the dozens in the region - understandable I guess when the one program covers the entire world. Also absent were the cultural details present in Jetfighter III, although as I had the season set to winter, many of the urban areas were obscured. The terrain detail is good and with map in hand, autopilot on and one eye out the virtual cockpit I enjoyed a good hour's flight down to the coast of North Korea and back up to Vladivostock.
These screenshots were taken in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 near Vladivostock, Russia.
Knevichi Airport - UHWW
AFX Designer : Colin Norwood
Panel : Phil Perrott
Length:34.8m / 114ft 2in
Span: 32.99m/108ft 3in
Weight:82000lb Empty / MTOW 165350lb
Power:2x AM-3M-500 turbojets @20944lb
Range: 7250km / 4505 Miles
