Reviews

Fighter Pilot was one of the earlier flight simulation games to appear on the Spectrum, and it was ahead of its time. Depicting the USAF's F15 "Eagle", it presents the player with several options: most of which allow the player to get to grips with the aircraft - such as Landing Practise. The game also has the option to fly in weather conditions from nil wind and perfect visibility, to conditions of turbulence and wind, as well as "flying blind" in the fog with only instruments for reference above 50 feet.

The combat game itself consists of protecting your airfields from enemy fighter/bomber aircraft. Typically, you locate the enemy using your flight computer, intercept, and then dogfight. Four difficulty levels are available, which change the characteristics of the enemy (but don't change the behaviour of your aircraft). A higher level enemy will detect your approach sooner, and will make more manuevres during dogfights. If you take sufficient damage, it's game over; you can repair damage, take on fuel, and re-stock ammunition by landing at one of the air bases.

Some interesting points about the simulation is that it simulates angle of attack - something rare in most flight simulation games until 32 bit computers were commonplace. This is most noticable when you slow the aircraft - at low speeds, to maintain level flight you must fly at a significantly nose-high attitude. It also has six degrees of freedom, one of the things that a flying game must achieve to be properly called a simulation. The six degrees of freedom and angle of attack are simulated well enough that it is actually possible to attempt "knife edge flight" - rolling the aircraft 90 degrees to the horizon, and using the rudder to keep the nose up so that the tail and fuselage sides generate enough lift for flight. It was the attention to detail that made Fighter Pilot much more than just a dogfighting game, but something that could be explored in its own right.

After Psion's Flight Simulation had set the early running for the genre, Fighter Pilot was the first game to come along and offer some serious competition to it.

And serious it was, in that instead of a light aircraft in the earlier game you got to fly a supersonic jet powered F-15. However, unlike many later flight simulations, this is no glorified shoot 'em up. Instead, you've got to put in some serious training just to land and take off again, let alone get to the stage where you can take part in aerial combat.

In terms of realism it gives the Psion game a good run for its money too. There's a reasonable attempt to model the effects of the different flight surfaces and the controls respond in a semi-analogue fashion where the longer you hold down a key the more severe the response is, allowing you to perform delicate adjustments with a series of short taps. This is in contrast to later simulations like Spitfire 40 and the Microprose games where you bank in obvious 15 degree increments.

When you finally get around to it, air to air combat is a tricky affair. You've got to set your flight computer to the right mode, locate your opponent on the map and fly to the right altitude. Once you've managed that you can locate them visually and manoeuvre into position to fire your cannons. This is by no means easy, and there's a training mode where the enemy aircraft fly straight and level which is worth using to get the hang of it before you take on an enemy that'll try to fight back. Strangely, for a simulation of a modern jet fighter, there are no air to air missiles, which seems something of an omission.

Visually, it's not really up there with Psion's game which had some lakes dotted about for scenery. All you get, aside from the runways, are the occasional square or pattern of dots. The cockpit and map graphics are nice, but that doesn't really make up for the Spartan visuals outside the plane.

On the whole, like Psion's game, it's one that appeals more to those who want a realistic feel to their flight simulators, rather than the mission-oriented combat that would typify later games. Digital Integration themselves would later release F-16 Combat Pilot, which did a similar job on the 16-bit machines and was itself back-ported to the Spectrum.

Fighter Pilot is an excellent flight simulator with no bad features to criticise ... especially considering the year of its release : 1983 !!!

1983 Digital Integration (UK)
by David Marshall

I used to be amazed with the realism this game had. Of course nowadays it seems more of a joke compared to the high-tec games around. Nonetheless it as aged quite well and it's a very good game to start if you are new to this sort of simulators and are into retro gaming.