Night Raider

Night Raider was like the big brother of Dam Busters.

You had to fly the Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber as a member of the British Fleet Air Arm. Again the aircraft was a multi-tasking effort, but far more complex that the Lancaster. You could take control over pilot, engineer or rear gunner position, aswell as the navigator.

Again all based at night, the sky and sea were both black with a horizon line to help. The pilot had a gun which you could change from fixed to flexible mounting by pressing the space bar. In fact, combat was a lot easier when using the gun on a flexible mount.

Your opponents were Dornier-217 nightfighters, which when hit would go down trailing smoke and bits of German. You also had to contend with shooting groups of anti-ship mines and small patrol boats. After getting through this you then had the task of sinking the Bismark with your torpedo - if you survived the flak!

You had to hunt down all the other enemy groups otherwise they threatened to sink your aircraft carrier, which would cost you the game. If need be, you could return to the carrier to repair and re-arm and re-fuel, but landing was very challenging. However, after experimenting, I found that you could take-off and clean the aircraft up for combat without changing the altitude, so that if you needed to land again, all you had to do was lower the gear and hook and hey presto! you were safely on deck!

This is were the forward firing gun on a flex mount became useful! It was also handy to note too, that if you stayed at the same height after take-off, that it was also the ideal height for releasing the torpedo!!

The only really annoying thing about this one was that if you stalled the aircraft would never recover. It would just remain in a nose down attitude and hit the water.