SVGA Harrier

Screenshots from the Mac version

(2002) Screenshots for this sim are very hard to come by nowadays - luckily Peter Nilsson had archived some screenshots from the Mac version on DAT and he kindly sent them in - with commentary! Thanks Peter!

"These are small gifs, so there's no compression loss of quality but the 640x400 formats is a bit limiting of course. Also, I'm not sure the palette conversion is OK as the pictures seem a bit.. pale? Not much one can do now, right?"

The colours seem about right to me. The sim employed a subtle pastel pallete. - MiGMan

Tracking an A-4 Skyhawk in the Harrier.

Seconds later. Splash one!

"That blue heap of pixels just above the HUD is actually an enemy Skyhawk. The yellow pixel behind it is my Sidewinder. The grey balloons to the right are, believe it or not, missile smoke!"

Yea - the missile trails were VERY "realistic" and scary at the time! - MiGMan

"This is what you'll get if you reload an earlier savegame. Indonesian C-130's drop fresh supplies over their airbases. Some parachutes can be seen but some of them have turned into troops.

Magic...

The yellow pixels are AAA."

What a buzz it was to make your way up to Dili airport - then spot a C-130 coming in and try to intercept it before it dropped supplies. You couldn't get an AIM-9 lock on so it was down to guns. The sense of distance and the low altitude gave me a few stopping moments! - MiGMan

Low level formation flying, Harrier style.

You could get even lower. I remember screaming along between huts and palm trees - the sim ran ultra smoothly on my 66Mhz 468 so a very fine degree of control was possible. - MiGMan

Rocket attack. Salvo set to four, 15 degree dive. Target is a truck.

The sense of speed in a strafing dive was awesome! - MiGMan

With friendly troops nearby you get automatic laser designation of targets. So if you bring along some LGB's or Mavericks you'll see a box over the designated target.

Steep dive, the target is a bunch of green pixels north of an enemy base.

Mk-20 Rockeyes are modeled. To the right you can see the individual bomblets. Target is artillery.

And the sound of the ordnance was heart stopping at times! I would often be startled out of my seat by an unexpected artillery barrage. - MiGMan.

This is the view from a HARM missile just milliseconds before impacting a SAM launcher. In the upper right you see the smoke trail of SAM launch.

" He he he... now THAT is what you call a SAM! You could see that smoke trail coming at you from miles away and ignored it at your peril!" - MiGMan

Another SAM launcher. Some AAA to the left.

Dogfight! I'm in a scissors dogfight with an Indonesian A-4 Skyhawk.

Home sweet home. This is where you take off all missions from, the Tarawa.

MiGMan- It was NOT easy to land on the thing either! Taking off with a full load had to be judged nicely too - using the "jump start" technique of rotating the nozzles at liftoff.

One of the larger towns. Dili? Notice there are some enemy vehicles hiding there. Can you spot them?

A column of tanks and support vehicles. These are friendly, with a slightly darker color than the enemy. Friendly fire is entirely possible.

Just some example of the "beautiful" East Timor terrain. This is a valley running N-S across the island.

MiGMan- The Terrain was simple but extremely effective. I used to get vertigo looking down at the mountain ranges... then again I was sitting in my home-built cockpit in flight suit, helmet and total darkness! Total immersion!

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