#flightsims

Anyone looking for some cool old gems? I got some flight sims! Try these at your own risk, Most of these are older titles that can run on my three year old HP Laptop. 

IL-2 Sturmovik 1946

have been playing this for about 10 years now. Never got bored and put thousands of hours into it. I have a original copy and some newer ones. Thousands of mods and many more hours to waste loving this. It has somewhat terrible multiplayer interface, using the old way. But otherwise great! You don’t need a beefy computer it get this running. I got it running well unmodded on a old windows XP E Machine.

Aces High III

I played this first when I was around seven years old. This was at at time when online gaming wasn’t considered or practical. Aces High III is a fully online (and offline) fully moddable flight sim from HiTechCreations. It just seems to always be getting updates and patches. Its not 100% free, but you can make your own missions and skins. Vehicles are land, sea and air with massive maps like WW2 Online. There is lot to explore and do, as the AI is pretty aggressive and fun to mess with. All around really fun experience. Note that I never spent a dime on multiplayer mode, its completely optional.

Microsoft: Combat Flight Simulator

As a young lad I found Microsoft FS 2002 in my closet. I popped it in and a demo of Microsoft CFS came with it. It was a quite pleasant experince despite the limited, wonky graphics. It was a bit fun and indepth, I even unlocked the Corsair for FS 2002! You can probably find it on Abandonware sites or any place that sells older games. It will run on anything for sure. The newer versions are more famous (CFS 3) but otherwise this game lays the basis for a good intro.

Lock On: Modern Air Combat

A surprisingly modern community. I encountered a add for this game in a old Flight magazine. Was ran aground in attempts to find it. Could not for  years until I ran across it on a pirate site. The game has decent graphics and a whopping 8 planes for its age. As well as 80 NPC aircraft and numerous NPC vehicles. Though, dont get me wrong! It is a stand alone game. It has questionable graphics compared to more modern games. But overall is very playable if you have a decent controller set up and a screen. It ran on older hardware pretty well and without stutters. It was given its own module in DCS.

DCS: Digital Combat Simulator

Flying is a fantasy for most of us. We’re like Snoopy… going after the Red Baron in our minds. We lay on top of our “little dog house,” gaze into the sky and dream. With today’s flying simulators you can use your computer to escape your earth-bound existence and experience life-like flying you’ve only dreamed about.

Realism Is The Main Thing In Simulated Flying jet simulator cockpit (oh, wait… that’s what Snoopy does). Snoopy never heard of airplane simulator games. He has to imagine. You don’t have to because you are looking at your instrument panel on your computer screen. The gauges and needles respond to your touch of the controls.

Out the cockpit window you see the skyline of the city. The runway is before you. What time is it? If it’s noon the sun is high in the sky. If it’s night the moon and the stars are where they should be.

The weather is whatever you have chosen… a clear day for a leisurely flight or threatening storms to test your skills in bad weather. That’s the magic of flight simulation software.

Checklist complete… Cleared for take-off. As you advance the throttle, you hear the engines rev, you see movement out the windows and your aircraft begins to move down the runway, the plane begins to lift and you are airborne.