'Sand Castle' is the first mission from Skyward Flight Media for Nuclear Option by Shockfront Studio created by mission editor Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza . OVERVIEW 1 to 6 Players. Player VS Environment (Co-op). Fixed-Wing and Rotary Wing Aircraft. Night time, bad weather combat operation. Successful sorties give considerable credit boost. Limited enemy air assets. Recommend turning on Cinematic Mode in graphics settings. BRIEFING SITUATION A surprise amphibious invasion by a carrier battlegroup has seized a remote cluster of Vertical Factories to the far north. Using these factories as the backbone of the invasion, the enemy has established a network of Vehicle Depots to provide consistent reinforcements to capture Maris International Airport. If captured, this civilian airport will give the enemy a permanent foothold. The vanguard of the invasion force is approaching from the foothills and mountains to the west. They are minutes away from contact with friendly forces deployed to protect the international airport. At sea, the enemy carrier battle group is providing air cover to assist their advancing forces in taking the airport with an Annex-class Assault Carrier in reserve. Without air support our forces at Maris International Airport will eventually lose against the numerically superior enemy. Daring bad weather air strikes at midnight now launch to halt the invasion force. OBJECTIVES Primary Objective 'Destroy Factories' H alt production of enemy units to effectively stop the invasion. Destruction of all factories will complete the mission. Nuclear Option gives players the choice to either end the mission immediately or continue playing. Secondary Objective 'Attack Depots' Destroying the Vehicle Depots to the west of the Maris International Airport will slow down the deployment of enemy units produced by the Vertical Factories. Optional Objective 'Capture K92' A convoy of friendly ground forces has departed from Sandrift Air Base in the far south-east to set up a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) at K92 Highway Strip. If they are not intercepted by enemy air forces they will arrive at K92 in 15 to 17 minutes. FRIENDLY ASSETS Maris International Airport The frontline. Various main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and short range air defenses supplied by munitions trucks are holding defensive positions around the airport. This civilian airport cannot support combat aircraft operations. Maris Mountain Heliport A small military heliport attached to an early warning radar station on a mountain above Maris city. It hosts two landing pads with rotary-wing assets available. It is roughly 14.0km away from the combat zone. Sandrift Air Base The primary air base for fixed-wing aircraft in this mission. Located in a desert 48km from the frontline. K92 Highway Strip If friendly forces capture K92 forward deployed air operations will be much easier with aircraft spawns and a FARP assets available. K92 can also be captured by ground units air lifted by VL-49 Tarantula. DETAILS Except for the units produced by the Vertical Factories (Primary Objective), the enemy forces do not respawn. The enemy Hyperion-class Fleet Carrier has a realistically sized carrier air wing. It is possible for all aircraft to be destroyed in combat, winning air superiority. Enemy aircraft are limited to a maximum of Rank 2. Players begin at Rank 5, but have limited access to Rank 1, 2 and 3 aircraft. The reward for completing successful sorties is a vital part of players being able to purchase better aircraft, changing the tide of battle rapidly. PLAYER CUSTOMIZATION Nuclear Option provides players with the ability to quickly customize any mission they play without using the mission editor. Even for missions that are a part of the base game or downloaded via Steam Workshop. Use these options to change the settings of the 'Sand Castle' mission to your liking. Play during day time or even modify the mission so much you can fly with any aircraft at any time. MISSION DOWNLOAD ' Sand Castle 1.1 ' is available for download on the Steam Workshop for Nuclear Option .

Flight simulators are nothing without good terrain to accompany them, after all, of what use is having wonderful flight models, amazing 3D models and weapon systems when we are flying over flat, boring terrain? That's why I was initially excited about every single map that was released for DCS World. The South Atlantic is stunning, the Sinai is sublime and Syria is unbeaten in its flexibility, a title it shares with the Persian Gulf. So, knowing all of this, why am I not excited about the Fulda Gap? For all intents and purposes, I should be excited and happy that we are finally getting a map that I have always wanted. It is a very interesting geopolitical region that would have been the center of conflict if the Cold War had gone hot, there is absolutely nothing I don't like about it. From the beautiful historical recreations of Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig and many other cities, this map is the furthest away I would like to be from what has kind of plagued DCS for years: sand and desert. I think that there are only two main reasons as to why I am not as excited as I could be for this release: Map Release Burnout and Lack of Community Support. MAP RELEASE BURNOUT In the past two years, DCS has seen an explosion of terrain support from first and third party developers. It used to be a rarity to see a new terrain, and now it felt like we were getting a new map every other week, and initially I was happy about this change. But as time passed and some decisions were made by certain parties, I started to feel a bit of unease. All of these early access products being released one after the other, while several of these hadn't even finished delivering their initial release phases or were missing crucial aspects of these geographical areas; that just felt off to me. All of these amazing maps made by talented artists were just being shoehorned to us at a pace that the community just could not manage. These are good products, for sure, but the way these releases were paced just felt off. I understand that these are being developed by independent teams, but wouldn't it be better to grab a fraction of these resources and spend them on core features of the game, or even better, a much-needed refresh of Caucasus, the most popular map in the simulator? LACK OF COMMUNITY SUPPORT Speaking of Caucasus, that map grabs a big percentage of the population because of its role as DCS' default map. Most missions are made for or around Caucasus, with the Persian Gulf and Syria trailing behind by a considerable margin. This leads me to one of my main grievances and one that I feel very connected to: none of the new maps have been welcomed by the community. These terrains are expensive, and having these many has divided the population, making it so that community creators have to focus on the maps that the majority of the community own to make their missions or run their servers. There are almost no servers running Iraq and Afghanistan, even less running South Atlantic. Why would I buy any of these terrains if there is no one to play them with, or no servers running them? CONCLUSION I really want to be excited about the Cold War Germany map, but I just cannot justify spending another 55 dollars on another terrain just to fly on it for a couple of hours in single player, to just set it to the side and go back to the sandbox with my boys. About the Author Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and the co-founder of Skyward ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

An extensive interview with a seasoned software developer Steam Next Fest events are always a good way to discover and interact with in development games from studios of any size. This is true for flight games as well. At Steam Next Fest February 2024, Blue Sky Aces  by Curious Dog Games immediately caught my attention. World War One era flight games / simulators are uncommon these days. My first impression  of the public demo for the game was good and I find myself returning to it somewhat frequently as work by its developer continues. The demo has had some notable changes since I last wrote about it. I strongly suggest trying the demo yourself if you haven’t since February.  I recently joined the Curious Dog Games Discord server  while researching this project and reached out to the developer for an interview. They were kind enough to provide us with screenshots of a new build of the game due to come out shortly after this interview. Hello! Thanks for joining me in this interview. I’m interested in learning more about you since there is not a lot of information about you out there on the internet.  Firstly thanks for giving me this opportunity. My name’s Brent, and I’ve been making games under the Curious Dog Games name for a little over 3 years now. By day I’m a husband, and father to two great kids, working as a software developer. By night, I’m a part time game developer working on what will be my first Steam game. Nice to meet you. Starting at the beginning, is game development something you had planned on trying when you were younger?  Yeah it’s something that’s been a dream for a really long time, but it’s only really become possible in the last 5 years after I discovered Unity by accident while installing Visual Studio. Like a lot of people, it was something that I first got seriously into while studying, but the realities of life quickly put an end to it, and I settled into a normal software development job for almost 20 years. Aircraft operating from a grass airfield. What inspired you to try your hand at game development?  My family’s first computer came with two large manuals, one was MS Dos which I knew of, and the other was something called GW Basic, which I had no idea about. One day curiosity got the better of me and I read the GW Basic book and quickly realized what it was, but while I tried making a few basic games, I didn’t get very far as it was a time before the internet, You Tube, Google, and all those resources that we take for granted now. It did however lay the foundation which would come in handy later in life. After some initial research about Curious Dog Games I was taken over to your Itch.io page  and saw that you have a few games completed. Has game development become more of a focus for you in recent years?  Yeah probably only the last 5 years. I’d got a bit disillusioned with the job I was in, and wanted to try something different, but at the same time I didn’t want to start again from the bottom as I have a family to support. I really didn’t know what that something was, but I figured that doing nothing wasn’t going to change anything. At this time I discovered Unity by accident, and I instantly knew what I was looking at, this was the thing that I’d tried to build so many times while I was in my early 20’s. Back then I just didn’t have the maturity or experience to realize the dream, which was only made harder by the limited tools available at the time. Around 3 years ago I decided it was time to leave the company that I’d worked at for the previous 19 years, and by pure chance a Unity development job came up locally, so I figured I had nothing to lose from applying. Fortunately I succeeded in getting the job, and now I work on a 3D training simulator for earthmoving machines during the day, and make a flight simulator in the evenings. This combination has been really beneficial for both, as what I learn in one can usually be applied to the other. Flying above new terrain coming soon to the game. How did you start creating the concept for Blue Sky Aces?  I made a WW1 game called Mech’s take the Somme for a game jam back in 2021, and as part of it I modeled a Fokker Dr1 triplane as one of the enemies. After this project I decided to have a go modeling a Sopwith Camel, with the idea that if I made a few, then I could create an asset pack to put on the Unity asset store. Somewhere throughout this process I got distracted from this asset pack idea, as I wanted to see if I could get them flying within a game. That led to seeing if I could create AI to fly the planes too, and from there the game was born. Looking back at other indie flight game development projects over the last four years, many of them focus on modern air combat with fourth generation combat aircraft or fictional future settings with fantastic super fighters. Why create a World War One era flight game?  I grew up when fourth generation aircraft were at their peak, and I love all the cool technology, and the raw power, but the most fun flight simulators I played as a kid were the WW2 ones. While guided missiles that can take out an enemy from dozens of miles away are amazing, I much prefer the feeling of getting up really close to an enemy in a proper dogfight. The reason I chose a WW1 era game was largely pragmatic, the period has many of the same attributes that I like, but the market isn’t as saturated. There’s also something I like about the simplicity of the aircraft of this period, where someone with a basic understanding of aerodynamics, some good woodworking skills, and a lot of perseverance, could probably build one in their garage. That said I wouldn’t recommend anyone try it, building a game is way less problematic for a marriage than an actual plane, and a whole lot cheaper too. Blue Sky Aces presents chaotic air battles of the era well. That is a good point about this specific type of genre not being saturated. What are some considerations that you need to take into account when creating a World War One era title? Is adhering to the technological restrictions of the era a challenge when trying to maintain high quality game play?  I do find getting reliable technical information for the period challenging, partially due to the time that has elapsed, and the limited science of the day, and also because the second world war tends to overshadow the first, so there’s a lot more information on it. That’s not to say it isn’t out there, but it just feels much harder to find. We’re trying to take a pragmatic approach with balancing technological restrictions and game play. If we have evidence of a technology being trialed during the period, then we’ll include it if it enhances the game play, even if in practice it was just a prototype, or saw limited use. Part of the justification for this was that there seemed to have been a lot of experimentation during the period, even by individual pilots, so it seems fitting to give players the ability to experiment with these technologies as well. Is this where the idea for the upgrade system introduced in May 2024 comes from?  It did play a part, but the main driver for the upgrades was from player feedback, people wanted more depth, and something to work towards. It was also the realization that people play games like this very differently, they’re just motivated by different things. Some like the history and technology of the period, other’s just like to collect stuff, and some just want a sandbox to play with. The upgrade system just seemed to offer something to all of these groups, as well as adding some replayability. The way aircraft and missions are unlocked is very interesting. I cannot think of another flight game that does it the way Blue Sky Aces does it. As players complete missions, the in-game date moves forward and that unlocks more content?  Yeah, the theory is that as you progress through the war more aircraft and missions will become available, as well as the types of threats that you’ll face. This is currently quite limited in the demo as I didn’t want people to have to grind away on the same few missions just to unlock a couple more, but it’ll happen slower in the full game. Like with many wars, technology progresses so quickly, and the first world war was no exception, so it doesn’t make much sense to put late war aircraft like the Fokker DVII against early war models like the Airco DH2. That said, there’s nothing stopping players from trying to play the later missions with earlier aircraft once they’ve unlocked them. I admit that at first I was unsure how this type of progression would fit, but during my time with the demo I can say it is working out so far. How do you plan on introducing missions going forward? Will there be a set single player campaign or will all missions be standalone like they are now?  The current plan is to split them into different groups, training or tutorials, single missions, dynamic campaigns, and mission builders. The first two are similar to what you see in the demo now, but with just more of them. These are handcrafted by me, and have global leaderboards that players can compete with each other. The dynamic campaigns is one I’m really looking forward to implementing, but at this stage it’s just a concept. The idea is that each map will have its own campaign, and that the goal will be to either create a localized gap in the enemies defenses, or to wear down their combat effectiveness over time, until the point where friendly forces can breach the enemies defenses. Each campaign will consist of multiple dynamic missions, which will vary depending on the results of the previous missions. There will be a strategic element to it, where you’ll have a limited number of aircraft available to you, as well as a limited rate of replacements. The enemy will have the same limitations, so you’ll be able to decide whether you want to focus on specific objectives like destroying key infrastructure, or broad goals like gaining air superiority. I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a lot of unknowns to work through to realize the vision, but I believe it’ll be worth it for replayability alone.  The mission builders are going to consist of a few different types such as fighter sweep, ground attack, and air combat. These will allow the player to customize the mission by choosing aircraft types and numbers, selecting targets, etc. They’ll be available for all of the maps, providing players the ability to just jump in and start flying, without needing to worry about tactics or strategies. Mission selection screen. Some of the other Skyward Flight Media staff members always think I’m a little odd for saying this, but I think one of the top features of the game is the inclusion of infantry in combat. It adds a rather “human element” that I think is intentionally forgone in many combat flight games. I’d like to know your thoughts on how infantry is presented in the game.  Despite all the technological advancements that happen in war, and all of the amazing aircraft, ships, and tanks involved, you still need boots on the ground to win. This was especially the case in the first world war, where men and horses probably bore the majority of the workload. Then there’s this weird thing where people are reasonably okay with the idea of a game where you can shoot soldiers, but at the same time will not tolerate shooting animals perceived to be pets. The end result is you get soldiers and trucks, but no horses, because I don't want to find videos of planes machine gunning horses! 😄 That said, the main reason for the soldiers is that I wanted to create a world with life and movement on the ground. Most flight simulators put a huge amount of processing power into making the ground look realistic, and it usually looks great from a 1000 feet up, but fly down low and you quickly find out their worlds are pretty empty, and the textures quickly start to pixelate. I’ve tried to do the opposite, I want you to be dogfighting in the treetops, in fact I’ve deliberately limited the altitude to around 3000 feet (1000m) to encourage it.  Another factor is that armies of the period weren’t mechanized, so I can’t have large numbers of vehicles roving around the battlefield providing that sense of life on the ground, so it only seems fitting to have soldiers given that most of the war involved men facing off against each other in trenches on the front lines. The first World War was certainly defined by the massive amount of infantry engaged in combat. I did not consider it from this point of view most likely because I am so accustomed to other games asking players to pick out armored vehicles as the main representation of ground combat. What are some of the hardest things you have solved development wise in Blue Sky Aces?  That’s a difficult question as there’s a lot of time that’s elapsed since I started, and so there’s been many challenges over the last few years. Probably the first big challenge was the scale of the world and the performance challenges that come with it. Modern hardware and game engines make it rather easy to build small and detailed worlds without much need for optimization, however the scale of terrain required for flight simulators doesn’t typically work out of the box without a lot of work. This specific challenge was one of the key factors that steered me towards the game’s art style, as I wanted to get on with building a game rather than spending years learning advanced algorithms for rendering large scale terrains. Another big one was the aircraft AI, as I’d only ever done character and vehicle AI in the past. This was definitely one of the most satisfying parts of the project, and the point where I knew I could actually turn what was then a prototype into a game. This was one of those tasks that had so many layers of complexity to it, from the basics of getting the AI to fly a plane, to teaching it to dog fight, and probably the most challenging which was teaching it how not to crash into each other or the ground. That last one is still a work in progress. The vehicle system that controls the trucks and trains driving around the world was another big challenge. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent countless hours watching them drive around test tracks, keenly looking for any glitches or problems. It’s rather hypnotic watching large numbers of them, and it provides a lot of insight into real world traffic issues that we all experience on our everyday commutes. Performance was something that was really important for this task, and probably took up the bulk of the time. It’s a real balancing act, as you want their movement to be good enough, but no more, as every millisecond of CPU time is precious. The other big challenge is actually a lot of little ones, anything related to the physics system is often a real hair pulling experience, whether it be aircraft movement, soldiers moving around, or water collisions. I just have this love-hate relationship with the physics system that has cost me many hours of sleep. The way you approach updates about the game is very transparent.  Besides your YouTube dev log videos  that started in September 2023, you also have a text channel development blog in the official Discord server . It is not all sunshine and quick updates either. You openly talk about the difficulties you have run into as well. Why be so transparent?  I’ve been a professional developer for over 20 years, and I’ve worked on all manner of enterprise projects, and I can honestly say that while game development is the most rewarding, it’s also the most difficult type of development. Part of that is because you’re not just a developer, you're wearing many hats, and you’re doing it at the same time. There’s a lot of people out there literally trying to sell the game development dream to people, “do these 5 things to make 6 figures guaranteed” kind of stuff. I don’t want to deceive people into thinking this is all roses, it is difficult, and it takes an extraordinary amount of time and perseverance to keep going, but it can also be extremely rewarding. Flight model is always important, but even more so when the scenario has some historic ties. How would you describe the flight model to someone that has yet to play Blue Sky Aces?  Believable but approachable is the goal. I want the player to feel like it’s realistic enough that they don’t question it, but without any of the weird nuances that aircraft of the period had such as propeller torque making turning one way easier than the other. One of the key drivers for this is that I want people to be able to play the game without any special hardware.  That said, I do have plans for a more realistic model as well, which would be best suited for players with HOTAS setups, where it’s much easier to make continuous small adjustments that you just can’t do very well with a mouse or controller. This model is likely to have the ability to perform maneuvers that you can’t do currently such as stall turns and spins, as well as additional forces such as propeller torque and wind. On that note, how is controller/device support looking? Are there any restrictions?  Generally speaking controllers, joysticks, throttles, rudder pedals, and other similar devices are all supported, however you will need to manually setup all of your control bindings. The exceptions to that are XBox style controllers which should just work, but of course you can always customize your controls. Unfortunately I’m really limited in what testing I can do with hardware as I simply can’t afford to go out and buy one of everything. That all said there’s still some work to do to improve the usability of the controls screen to make it easier to configure HOTAS style devices. Do you have an idea of where your game needs to be development wise before preparing for a full release or early access release on Steam?  That’s a tricky one as my own opinion of what done looks like is constantly evolving. Part of that comes down to the feedback from players, and the expectations that it places on you. Initially you get very little feedback and you think that you’ll add a couple of dozen missions and call it done, but then players start engaging with you and you realize that the whole thing is starting to snowball. At this point in the process it’s quite clear that I need more depth and breadth of content to live up to my own expectations, let alone the community’s. In practical terms that means more aircraft, and the ability to customize them, a wider variety of mission types, and a campaign mode. The last one is probably the key decider for me, as it feels like the big feature that’s still completely missing, whereas the others will arguably never be 100% done, and can always be incrementally improved post release. Thank you so much for this interview. I’m glad we could get deep into a few topics and really get your thoughts on game development. I’ll be writing about the next big update to Blue Sky Aces for sure. Good luck to you! Thanks again for the opportunity and support, I really appreciate the chance to show off something that’s been a big part of my life for almost three years now. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the other half of the team. Earlier this year I got an offer from someone who saw one of my development logs to model the aircraft. This has taken a huge load off my shoulders and has massively improved the overall look of the game - you only have to look at the early development logs to see the difference. To add to that he’s also extremely knowledgeable about aircraft of the period, which saves me a massive amount of research time. The Discord members have also been a huge help, whether it be offering suggestions, reporting bugs, or just providing reassurance, it’s all been invaluable to the process. Low altitude air combat. About the Interviewer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

“Everyone knows Star Wars was saved in the edit.” – Every Youtuber ever. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I am more than willing to consume anything regarding Ace Combat 04. To me, it’s still the pinnacle of the series and should qualify as one of the best games ever made. One of its greatest strengths is in its storytelling. I’ve read it described as the retelling of a novel. This is very prescient; it does in fact feel like a chaptered comic or visual novel in the way it's built. It’s unique in this regard, as later installments of the franchise build themselves like a movie, from the after-action opening credits to an adherence to a three act format. But what if you could really make that novel shine through as well? Can you make that elusive novel-to-movie transition work for the first reboot of the franchise? Well, Nassault found a way. Nassault is a supremely talented video editor and as die-hard a fan of Ace Combat and aviation as they come. Utilizing Digital Combat Simulator as the engine for cinematics, he manages to translate the fun of the game missions and turn them into bite-sized, action-packed trailers that exude world-class editing expertise. But it also exposes his action as a world-class director and a pretty decent pilot. His videos constrain themselves to making the action feel real and within the time limit constraint of the mission’s soundtrack. He flies the planes themselves to get the action just right. He can make the simple flipping of a switch dramatic, and it’s in service of the story. Imminent Threat compacts the 8-10 minute mission into a realistic runway strike by Mobius 1 and his comrades by using standoff munitions as a way to condense the main objective. He does well to cut out anything superfluous, and uses in-game voice lines to great effect, demonstrating the strength of the game’s script. He keeps within the limitations of the game engine and convincingly portrays the destruction of the ramp at Rigley Air Base. “The hardest part about making this video was learning to fly the Phantom” (sic) – Nassault’s top YouTube comment for Imminent Threat. … But what about the substation?! This is not to dismiss his enormous backlog which has built this highlight. From his excellent interpretations of Ace Combat Zero to his dabbling in VTOL VR , he puts his best foot forward each time and uses tried-and-true methods to portray the story being told. Sitting Duck exemplifies this marvelously. Starting with the overlaid merging of the title attract screen with the iconic blue F-4 flown by Mobius One. The use of DCS also performs a great interpretation of that iconic first mission, with believable beyond-visual range engagements against the Bear bombers. The in-game audio works almost ideally as well, being snappy while following the plot-relevant details to the letter. The ace-focused dogfight is exciting and engaging and doesn’t overexert itself; the entire thing wraps up nicely. With the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 I’ve been on a bit of an eager kick for its bugs to be ironed out, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s got something to pay honor to that legacy as well. His Evolution of Microsoft Flight Simulator video could put Asobo and Microsoft’s marketing groups to task. With expert cuts between the primitive colored lines of the original and the still outstanding graphics of the 2020 release. It even implements a little humor in between the grandeur on display, with the CAS yelling about an imminent collision. Nassault can claim over 100 and a dozen videos dating back over 16 years. His steady buildup to the excellence you see today is exposed from day one, even if he may have been constrained with the technology of the time. Though he has dipped out of creating content from time to time, he always bounces back stronger than ever. You can catch his work on his website or check his YouTube channel . Writer T.J. "Millie" Archer T.J. "Millie" Archer is a life-long realist and aviation enthusiast. Once the co-founding Administrator of the Electrosphere.info English Ace Combat Database. In the present day, he is freelance, roving the internet in search of the latest aviation news and entertainment. [ Read Profile ]

Thoughts From Staff About 5 Years of Operation March 24th was our fifth anniversary! Since being founded in 2020, we have enjoyed five years of operation as a less-than-traditional flight simulation website. Striking out to do something out of pure passion, knowing it may or may not catch on is always a rollercoaster. Wins, losses, good times, bad times, amazing successes and quiet failures, but all of these experiences have tempered our organization into what it is today. Members of our staff now express their thoughts during this important time. Caio D. "Hueman" Barreto Writer To work with something you love is an incredible privilege. Since an early age, I've always known I wanted to work with aircraft; this road led me to university, an engineering career and, in one of its twists and turns, I ended up coming across a group of people who shared this same passion, the one that makes you read up on books about Corsairs and Spitfires, build scale models, and play flight simulation games. I've been around Skyward since its very start, though at the start it was mostly playing DCS with the lads. My first article , posted in 2022, started out almost by accident, when I mentioned I had really enjoyed playing Novalogic's old simulators as a kid. I've always loved writing, so when I heard "hey, you should write an article about it", that was exactly what I did - and since then, I've been able to experience my hobbies in ways I could never have anticipated. I’ve always liked sketching and dreaming up my own aircraft designs; but the harsh reality of aviation is that everything takes a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of people. And as aircraft have (for good reasons!) grown more complex, and their development cycles grown longer, gone are the days when engineers would’ve worked on dozens of different aircraft of various types by the end of their careers. However, designing airplanes is much faster (and a lot cheaper!) if your construction work is done in Blender rather than on a factory floor, and your flight testing is done in Unity rather than in ISA +20. And so, in something that started out almost by accident, I’ve found a creative outlet for my designing itch. We’ve written an entire article about the SW-201 Dragonfly , our first original aircraft design; later came the SW-210 Colibri, and we’re definitely not done yet! It’s hard to express in words how incredible it is to have a team - and a group of friends - who made this possible. To “sit” in the cockpit of an aircraft I had designed in VR, even if it was just a 3D model, and to fly it around, was an experience that is truly priceless. Skyward is a truly unique place; over the past five years, I've had the opportunity to meet truly amazing people, who share this passion for aviation and flying in the virtual skies. I've been able to write and draw about it, even create my own flying contraptions, and I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to do so. Thank you for being part of this journey with us - and stick around, there's a lot more yet to come! Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Co-Founder The fact that 5 years have passed, and I still think of Skyward as a "new" aspect of my life is astonishing to me. Blue and I started this just to see what we could do after the unfortunate downfall of our previous project, but it has turned into something so much bigger than that. Skyward has taught me so much, and I have met so many people thanks to the work I have done here with Blue, Hue, Millie, Kosmos, Sournetic, Vtail and the others. It is amazing to see how this team, my friends, have stuck together through thick and thin and have pushed through many challenges to make this website what it is right now. I am extremely happy not only to have founded this community with Aaron, but also to have such a wonderful group of friends by my side that have the same creative drive than I do. It certainly makes everything fascinating when it comes down to putting the pen to the paper, be it when we write an article or tackle 3D modeling projects while modeling our original aircraft, just like how when Hue and I modeled both the Dragonfly and the Colibri. Technically, Skyward is the reason why I can call myself a professional 3D modeler now. Both of my current jobs got offered to me because of content that I made for Skyward, in one or another. So yes, I wouldn't have it any other way. I will be here, typing away about aviation games from past and present for the foreseeable future. This is just another anniversary, with many more to come, as there are no plans to stop doing what I love to do. T.J. "Millie" Archer Writer I wouldn’t call Skyward my first dogfight. Some people might actually remember my stint as a co-administrator of Electrosphere.info  nearly 10 years ago. In fact, I’m the reason the old Electrosphere URL forwards to skywardfm.com . But Skyward was my first foray into Web 2.0 and all that comes with it. Thank God my overlords let me be as opinionated as I am. When I first started writing for Skyward, I wasn’t really as in tune with the rest of the crowd. DCS, War Thunder, and VRChat weren’t really something I was heavily invested in. But if there’s one thing that this damn website has done, it’s forced me to get feet wet where I never thought I would, and now perhaps I’m just as lost as the rest of this crew. What amazes me the most is Skyward’s tenacity. I hold up Skyward as more proof in the bucket that hard work and persistence pays off. When this place first started, it was a struggle for every view. Now? People are approaching us regularly. And it’s been so much fun being a part of that growth. As long as Cube and Blue let me keep writing about obsolete Sega Saturn rail shooters, I suspect I’ll be here for the next five years and more. Aaron “Ribbon-Blue” Mendoza Co-Founder 5 years… is a long time. Lives change so much in that amount of time. People have children, friendships come and go, college degrees are attained, new skill sets are crafted, and Skyward Flight Media is still here. As of the time of this letter being posted, I am just three releases short of having 200 pieces  in my name posted on this website. It is quite a feeling when I sit back and think about that number. Admittedly, I am going through a bit of a tumultuous time in my life right now, but even in the midst of this, Skyward is a shining light.  When I think about Skyward in 2025 I think about bigger things. Things we have not tried before or did as a one-off never to repeat again. More consistently reaching out to fly together with the people that support us, more mission files in various games, more virtual reality experiences, reaching out to creators and manufacturers that we ourselves feel as though we were not “established enough” to try and contact before. This year it may be time for myself and other members of the Skyward staff to also believe that we, as an organization, are capable of a bit more than we expect.  As we move forward into this new year of Skyward operations, I plan on “swinging for the fences”, seeing where the organization will end up. Watch us fly!

Minor updates : 2/22/2023 // Originally published : 08/31/2018 What do you remember whenever you think of a Spanish guitar arrangement, flashy squadron intros, and a certain Round Table? Because if you remembered Ace Combat Zero, you must be one of the estimated 782,000 proud owners of this classic title. ​Coming back to that number, 782,000 units sold. That's the second worse selling mainline Ace Combat title, only behind the now infamously cheesy Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. This is an odd situation, as the game also received very good reviews at launch. Gamespot gave it a 7.9/10; users of Gamespot gave it an 8.7/10. We have to ask ourselves why did such a loved and greatly received title sell so little. Mitsubishi F-1 w/ Cipher's markings Remember, this game tends to be the benchmark of storytelling and the example that many longtime fans of the franchise use to describe what an Ace Combat title should be. It has one of the best soundtracks out of the franchise, if not, the best. The vibes that it gives tend to remind me of Area 88, a well-known manga/anime that is famous for its take on aerial warfare. These vibes mainly come from the protagonist, as he is a mercenary fighting a war for money, just like some of the characters based at Area 88. The interactions you have with the enemy squadrons, the allied units and his "Buddy", Larry "Pixy" Foulke are also very reminiscent of some of the conversations that the mercenaries had over the battlefields of Area 88. Galm Squadron's iconic F-15C liveries Colorful liveries and very identifiable enemy ace squadrons are also something that sets this game apart from the others. Usually, the standard Ace Combat titles focus on one or two main enemy ace units that you fight against several times throughout the story. In the case of Zero, you face multiple ace squadrons, each of them with their own identifiable leader and personality. Some of them are just more skilled enemy units with enhanced AI, others take specific strategies and apply them in battle; for example, the use of beyond visual range tactics by Schnee Squadron, the baiting/swarming strategies used by Schwarze or even Gelb's backwards firing missiles, etc. Each of these squadrons also present themselves before entering the battlefield with a very identifiable and trademark feature of Ace Combat Zero, the squadron introductions; and who can forget that you fight different enemy aces depending on your actions on the battlefield thanks to the Ace Style Gauge. Silber 1 DLC skin for AC7 This bar is a feature unique to Ace Combat Zero that has been forgotten in future titles. It presents a factor of choice and a bit of a connection with Cipher as you decide whether you kill neutral enemy units or you let them live. Decisions that are intrinsically moral in nature, if you do not look at the score and credit benefits that are gained whenever you destroy neutral targets. This bar has three states: Mercenary, Soldier, and Knight. Mercenary is attained by killing everything in sight, even the neutral targets; Soldier is attained by sparing some of the neutral targets but still killing some of them, and Knight is attained by sparing all neutral targets. Each represents a playing style and indicates your morality, much like the karma meters we see on some other games. A mechanic that was inherited from Ace Combat 5 were the Wingman Commands. This time around, the commands received several improvements that made them way more satisfying when compared to the original counterpart. Ace Combat 5 only let you decide from 4 options: Disperse, Attack, Cover and a Special Weapons toggle for your AI wingmen. All of these were given by pressing the corresponding button on the D-pad. Ace Combat Zero's version adds another layer to the commands by letting you decide which types of targets your wingman would attack, which was a choice between air, all and ground. This mechanic was enough to make you feel like you were putting some strategy whenever you have a command, even if the effect was negligible sometimes. All of these factors contribute to giving Ace Combat Zero a unique feel when compared to the other two PlayStation 2 titles (Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies and Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War) but both of these titles stumped Ace Combat Zero in terms of sales (2,640,000 for AC04 and 1,802,000 for AC5). Dassault Mirage 2000D One very plausible reason is that this title was launched just as the PlayStation 2 era was coming to a close, with the release of the much anticipated PlayStation 3 on the horizon. Many players could have thought about the upcoming launch of that console and decided to skip this title to save money for the shiny new toys that awaited them on the next generation. Another plausible reason is that, even in terms of gameplay and looks, it is very similar/takes much from Ace Combat 5; such as the flight physics, 3D models, textures, cockpits, etc. This does not ignore the improvements that Zero made such as the boresight mechanic and graphical improvements made to the replay viewer and to the game engine in general, but the average user could overlook improvements. Ace Combat Zero transcended its lackluster sales thanks to the spirit that the title possesses. The romance of battle and the scale of conflict in a truly bitter war in which a country ended up killing their own people under nuclear flames to stop a coalition that was about to reach into their homeland. The enemy aces reflecting heroes of old, knights and mercenaries fighting head to head in supersonic jousting. The birth of the Demon Lord of the Round Table and the fallen companion that succumbed to evil in search of salvation for humanity. Wizard DLC skin for AC7 The fans are another factor that made Zero a true success, even if it was a flop in the sales department. A game that made many dream of that idealized life that a fighter pilot would have, inspiring many artists such as Nassault in their short fan made film . Ace Combat Zero is a game that will always be in my heart, that's for sure, as it will be in the hearts of all of those that played it and understood what made it shine. About the Author Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos  Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and content manager ever since. Twitter | Discord : Cubeboy #9034

Simulating the Weight of Responsibility in Combat The reality of war is the burden of loss of life. Even when you do "everything right" a life can be lost in seconds. It is often unavoidable on the battlefield. A blindly fired bullet or a well planned artillery round can equally undo the benefits of proper training and the right tactics. This is just as true for an infantryman in combat in 2025 as it was for a Royal Air Force squadron leader in 1940. Scramble: Battle of Britain by Slitherine Games captures the weight of death and responsibility in combat in ways similar flight games do not. As the upcoming documentary series about Scramble begins on March 31st, 2025, we look at how the early access game portrays the reality of war thus far: Balancing Death and Destruction, A question that we were not able to add in time for the launch day interview with Scramble's lead developer, Jon Coughlin , was about the potential of adversely impacting the player's experience by simulating what could be considered 'perma death' type characteristics. The idea of a flight game that models realistic damage and changes in flight control is fun in theory, but the reality of incorporating these game mechanics is that it can be a risk for players that are not prepared for it. While a combat aircraft with battle damage sounds like it would be visually appealing from a Hollywood aesthetics standpoint, in reality a single well placed cannon shell could be enough to cause massive damage to an aircraft or instant death to its pilot. Even taking a bit of damage is quite the risk. A risky merge to destroy two ME-110s almost resulting in the death of a RAF pilot. How a game incorporates these mechanics can be a make or break feature for its overall reception. A game where high stakes mechanics like perma death can feel unplayable if the worst case scenario consequences happen too frequently and too easily. I am sure we can all think of a few games where we have been stuck at a bad checkpoint in a scenario where failure is almost guaranteed each time the game boots up. That or sudden game over states because of an all to easy to achieve "lucky shot" that instantly ends the life of the player's character with a high frequency. If a sustained Very Positive review on Steam since October 30th, 2024 is anything to go off of, something was clearly done correctly. Squadron Leader If there was a single word to describe The Battle of Britain, it would be "attrition: "the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure." With the potential invasion of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany being halted primarily through aerial combat, the outnumbered Royal Air Force (RAF) had to inflict consistent and extensive damage to the Luftwaffe - German Air Force. The numerically smaller RAF was hard pressed to halt the Luftwaffe air campaign to weaken the United Kingdom's defenses in 1940 to make way for a potential amphibious invasion. Squadron Leader (SQL) is the best game mode in Scramble: Battle of Britain to experience the mindset and conditions of The Battle of Britain. According to the game description on the Steam page , Squadron Leader is designed as "the proving ground for current and future mechanics that will form the foundation of the full Channel Defense Campaign." The aforementioned campaign mode being the ultimate game mode of what the development team is trying to achieve. But have no doubt that SQL is currently more than able to have players experience the strategies and perils of the RAF effort to deter the Luftwaffe. A surprise attack by an ME-109 damaging a Hawker Hurricane. In Squadron Leader players are in command of an RAF fighter squadron flying in defense of the United Kingdom. They are challenged to manage a squadron of 12 pilots flying in two sections of three aircraft per section. Alpha Section flies with Supermarine Spitfires with Bravo Section flying Hawker Hurricanes. The progress in SQL is persistent which is great for long-term play. Players can jump into SQL, play one full in game day and move onto their next game if they wanted to stretch out the experience. But this is also where the true test begins. Upon launching with a new squadron at the start of a campaign, every action in and out of combat is recorded and irreversible. The only option to reset data being a completely new campaign starting from Day 1. Example of Squadron Leader pilot and section management screen. At the start of each day players will select pilots from their roster. Players assign the pilots to each section by using a mouse to drag and drop them from the roster into their flight positions. Each pilot has their own unique blend of traits. For this article, let us categorize these as personal traits, wingman traits and section leader traits. A personal trait mainly effects the pilot as an individual, for example the 'Rabbit Hunter' trait gives pilots a damage buff when they are attacking an enemy aircraft from close range. What could be considered a wingman trait is effected by the presence or death of allies while in flight. Like the 'Claustrophobic' trait that reduces a pilot's control if an ally is flying in close proximity to them. A Section Leader trait effects all pilots in a section when a pilot is set as the leader of a section. Like the 'Sea Spotter' trait that increases the rate at which bailed out pilots are rescued and brought back to the squadron to continue the fight. Example of pilot traits. Four times of day must pass until a day is considered complete - 0800 hours, 1100 hours, 1400 hours and 1700 hours. During those times it is possible for combat to occur. With these being randomized encounters, there is no telling if a day would pass with no action or if a RAF fighter section would be pressed into four engagements. During combat any mix of Luftwaffe aircraft is possible. One engagement may be an evenly matched battle with two to four ME-109s up against three RAF fighters or an ideal interception of six unescorted bombers or a scenario of being outnumbered by fighters and heavy fighters with a narrow margin of victory. While certain Section Leader skills can help prevent hard situations like having enemy forces attacking from behind and above from the start of the sortie, the reality that taking every battle head on as though it is a one and done sortie is the exact mindset that can make a SQL campaign fail fairly early. Learning how to pick and choose battles, avoid disadvantageous situations and flying efficiently to maintain pilot stamina are the ingredients for a successful long-term campaign. Being outnumbered with an altitude advantage. Risk engagement or escape to fight another day? After combat, the results of the engagement are shown at a mission ending screen with categories like Aircraft Destroyed, Fighters Destroyed, Survived Pilots, Dead Pilots etc. with a mission rating. A screen for victory and loss rate of the squadron is provided and the day moves on with next time slot for potential air combat. At the end of an entire day, pilots that did not bail out or were forced back to base because of aircraft damage can be switched between the Casualty list (shot down or injured during combat and made it back safely), On Leave (stamina recovery) and Active Duty (ready for combat). Players must manage their stamina from day to day to ensure that exhausted pilots are not constantly pressed into combat where more well rested enemies may have the advantage over them. It is a rather good type of personnel management system that fits in with a combat flight simulator like turn by turn game without reaching the level of having to manage even more minutiae. Example of pilots in all categories in various states. Example: Stuka Bounce Let us take a look at one engagement in particular to demonstrate the intricacies of this game mode. In this perfect bomber intercept situation, three Hurricanes catch six JU 87 Stukas laden with bomb load and without fighter escort. While this seems like a straightforward engagement there are many factors here to consider. RAF Hurricanes above an unescorted formation of Stukas. First, despite being slightly above the Luftwaffe attackers, the Hurricanes are within range of the Stuka tail gunners - all six of them. Aggressively diving and turning left will bring the Hurricanes into the firing arcs of all six tail gunners for an extended period of time. That volume of fire could cause considerable damage to the RAF fighters. By diving right and extending, the Hurricanes are able to escape the tail gunner's range, dive below the firing arcs of their machine guns, then re-engage using the superior speed of the Hurricanes to catch up to the Stuka formation and attack with all advantage. Second, this is the first flight of the day for the pilots of this RAF section. They will need their stamina in case other dogfights occur. Opting to continuously pull hard G maneuvers and push them to black out frequently could drain them for the rest of the day. Making even slightly contested battles later in the day much harder. In this lower threat engagement, the RAF Hurricane pilots use low G, long sweeping turns to calmly reposition themselves with minimal physical strain. Third, ammunition is a consideration. Letting one aircraft expend all its ammunition could have repercussions later where low ammo could be a problem. Allowing all aircraft in the flight to engage helps conserve ammo for the entire section. Fourth, remember that stopping attackers and bombers from reaching the United Kingdom is the ultimate goal of the Battle of Britain. As far as flight games go, this traditionally means that all enemy aircraft must be shot down during every sortie. However, Scramble differs in a way that mimics reality. While shooting down all aircraft in the Stuka formation would be ideal, causing enough damage to force their air crews to give up on their mission is an effective mission kill. Scramble counts deterred aircraft as a positive gain of points under the category "Bombers Diverted". Stukas in the formation being attacked from beneath. While deterring a bomber does not give as many points as shooting down an aircraft, in the grand scheme of things stopping the bombs from dropping is positive. In our Stuka Bounce example, two JU 87s are destroyed with the remaining four forced to return because of battle damage. Fifth, as the engagement comes to a close one of the RAF Hurricanes flies into debris from one of the last retreating aircraft. This causes significant damage to the aircraft's engine. With the remaining Stukas leaving the airspace, we elect to have all three RAF aircraft to retreat from the battle to save the damaged Hurricane rather than risk pressing it towards mechanical failure and risking the life of the pilot. While the pilot could bail out of the aircraft with ease if needed, there is no guarantee that they would survive their time in the cold waters of the British Channel. No need to risk it. Even in this one-sided victory a last second mistake could have led to a fatal incident, but it did bring down the overall mission score in the end. The last JU 87 turns to abandon its mission as a fireball that was its wingman dissipates Fortunately that was the last engagement of the day with all aircraft and pilots from both Sections back at base safely with minimal fatigue. The entire squadron is fresh and ready for combat the next day. Mixed results on the mission overview screen. Does It Work? I have been having a great time with the Squadron Leader game mode as the signature Channel Defense Campaign continues to be developed by the team at Slitherine Games. I find myself playing SQL more than the other game modes. Perma-death in games is something that is especially hard hitting in long-form games like role playing games and strategy games. Genres where a beloved character may die many hours into a playthrough. The similar high risk game mechanics that appear in Scramble: Battle of Britain work well as they remain in the context of the actual air war that happened with players focused on managing pilots and aircraft, but not overreaching outside of the scope of that. Even in the scenarios where it seems like player controlled pilots are all but doomed, quick thinking to give them the best chances of escape from the situation or bailing out of the aircraft at safe altitudes can greatly increase their chances of survival. In the end, forward thinking players can greatly reduce their losses. Squadron Leader is a good exercise in remembering that when it comes to winning a realistic air war success in combat is equally as important as surviving to fight another day. Connect with 'Scramble: Battle of Britain' Discord Slitherine Games Steam   X.com YouTube ME-110 damaged, leaking fuel moments after being attacked. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info , the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

The beginning of a change in development direction? It has been a little over a year since one of my favorite bush flight games has received a major update. Though my attention was elsewhere at the time, I still saw this major update for GroundFall release on October 27th, 2024. The developer of the game, Snow Creature, may seem like they are rather inconsistent if you look at the recent events and announcements page of the Steam listing, but they are rather active in the game's official Discord server . Even during the seemingly quiet periods, the developer and community are actively engaged. There is a main point I'd like to discuss, but it is important to take about the update as a whole first: The Key Points Season Maps : In the grand scheme of things, the star of the update for version 0.9.6D Papa is probably the new approach to map creation and updates moving forward. The developer has stated that starting with this update, an unusual release schedule for new content has been started. At the beginning of each season of the year, GroundFall will receive a new base map. That base map will then receive regular updates as the season progresses. Pure STOL : The existing maps in the game has been reclassified as smaller, challenge maps focused on landing at a series of different airstrips (or places long enough to fit an aircraft!) with gradually increasing difficulty. The developer describes these as follows, "think of these maps like racetracks in a driving game." Non Player Characters : For a time, non-player characters had tutorials tied to them, but they are now separate. Tutorials are now presented as books for players to interact with, which guide them throughout their learning process. NPCs offer side quests for players to engage in as they fly through each map. Tutorial books. Flight Experience Refinement: The bug fix and minor changelog this time around is rather large, but let's focus on flight model related updates. Back in November 2023 there were also a few noteworthy improvements related to this. I'll talk about them all at once. Natural Point Track IR head tracking is now supported when flying the aircraft from the cockpit point of view. Flap physics were reworked with multiple flap position settings for different flight regimes. Tuned aircraft trim responsiveness and effect. Aircraft weight impacts flight performance and handling - whether it is cargo, fuel or pilot weight. Operations at high altitude are heavily impacted by this. Plan ahead! Optional Survival Mode This is perhaps the most substantial change to GroundFall thus far. You would argue that the updates about flight model map development are higher priority, but I think that overlooks the impact of the choice to make survival elements optional in this game. Even during its initial concept in 2018, GroundFall had survival game elements built into the core of its experience. I would say it is a signature part of its identity that differentiates it from many other flight simulators. Navigating a mountain range. To put things in perspective, the original concept of the game was to have players fly to different locations and complete side objectives using a basic short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft as their primary means of transport. Maintaining a steady supply of food, sleep and medical supplies is just as important as keeping the aircraft operational. Whether they were flights to simply check out a new airstrip or complete an objective, players had to bring necessities to remain independent in a remote lifestyle. Rope, cutting tools, food, water, medical supplies, hunting rifle, compass - each of those were just as vital as fuel to keep the engine running and tools to repair damage that may accumulate during rough backcountry flying. Pushing the player's in game character too hard by not sleeping or staying exposed in the harsh weather can also increase fatigue to the point vision is impaired, and the character could die from over exertion. I can think of a few times I had to spend the evening in a cabin on the side of a foothill in contemplation. Whether I should try to fly my wing damaged aircraft back to an airport for repair or hike thousands of meters to a small airport where I know tools for repairs are and then walk them back. I am hard-pressed to think of current games that give a similar experience. Bad weather flying is not ideal in backcountry operations. As of October 27th, 2024, the survival options are now disabled by default, but they can be toggled back on easily from the in-game menu. To clarify, what is disabled is the need to eat, sleep and remain hydrated. If player health is reduced too much by receiving damage somehow or crashing the aircraft, they could still use in game health items or respawn to wipe damage. Similarly, if an aircraft has received too much damage to fly, the aircraft also respawns at is initial spawn point at the home airport when the player respawns. The aircraft will still need to be refueled by players and can be repaired at remote airstrips. Landed, ready for the next challenge. The fact that survival elements are now optional shows that Snow Creature listened to feedback from their player base as an open-minded developer. They were even willing to adjust a core component of the game's identity. Though I am very used to the survival part of the game, I can fully understand why someone who is flight sim focused would just want the backcountry STOL experience without all the extra parts. GroundFall can finally deliver that. Flying with them turned off, I noticed that I've been progressing through the first Season map and the Pure STOL maps much faster than before. Even the way I approach for landing has changed with the consequences being so heavily diminished. Though, this has encouraged me to push the absolute limit of the low speed flight envelope farther than I would have with survival options turned on. I find myself at the bare minimum engine output, maximum flap setting and immensely short approaches just so "see what would happen". The outcomes are frequently destructive but also very educational for my survival runs. In a way, it allows for practice in a less stressful environment. High altitude flight is risky when at high cargo weight. While I look forward to the new seasonal map and update schedule its developer has announced, I sincerely hope GroundFall never completely removes its survival element. In fact, I hope that system gets a bit more refined in the future to make construction of new buildings, delivery and storage of supplies, maybe even some type of extended mission that requires a player to be kept far from the home airport to have players operate remotely for days on end. I'll be watching where it goes! About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza   Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info , the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [ Read Profile ]

Discussing the Details before Full Release on March 7th, 2025 I enjoy even the most obscure indie flight games. Where taxiing an F-22A through the crosswalks in Akihabara and flying through a psychedelic landscape of hands with waterfall fingertips are normal. And yet, Exosky  by Elevons LLC  somewhat raddled my brain. Something about the formula of this game and a few things I learned about it while doing research brought up a lot of questions in my mind. Fortunately, the solo developer behind the project agreed to an interview that has landed perfectly in the middle of Steam Next Fest: February 2025 (February 24th through March 3rd) where the demo for this game is available for download. The demo also received a considerable update just before game release on March 7th, 2025. What better time than now to discuss it all? Thanks so much for making time for this interview. We have not spoken much up to now, so I am happy to have the chance to get into a more detailed conversation. Hey! I’m Jordan Elevons. I am a professional 3D Designer in the Boston and New England areas. From some of my initial research I see that your background in working with 3D software and related 3D technologies is rather diverse. What are some things you have done with your skills that you are especially proud of?  The things I'm most proud of are projects that can help others. I created a low cost 3D printed prosthetic leg and worked with dentists to make surgical models for training college students. I also designed an airplane cockpit which was really fun and a great learning experience! Oh, a cockpit? Was that for a training course?  No actually it was for a light aircraft company in the UK called the eGo. They were gracious enough to give me the opportunity and working with them directly really helped me learn a lot about design. It’s a single seat aircraft meant to comply with the UK’s version of ultralight standards. It was also where I first realized that video game modeling tools could be used for real world objects and that any distinction between tools for physical manufacturing and digital manufacturing was completely arbitrary, as I built the designs for the cockpit in Modo, a digital content creation tool. How did you decide to pursue a career in this field? Was this something you decided to do before you went to university?  3D Design has been what I've done since as long as I can really remember, but I recall that it really swung into gear around 1998-2000 when I was 11ish years old and Freespace 2/Homeworld/IL-2 Sturmovik all came out around ‘99. These games informed and were informed by an obsession with building spaceships and airplanes. So I learned how to make 3D assets for those games and later did some freelancing for it. I also at the same time was learning about CAD through designing spaceships for 1,000 Planets, a startup that was trying to get funding to compete for the Ansari X Prize. As for your second question, not really no. I went to college originally for New Media Design, because I wanted to make a living and game design even then was fraught with instability and low pay. The program focused on web design, 3d animation, digital photography, etc. I learned so much about so many different digital tools during that program but about halfway through I decided to change majors. New Media was focusing too much on programming websites and advertising, so I joined Industrial Design and learned how to design for manufacturing, hand building models, mass manufacturing techniques and a lot more. Together I think the skills I learned between these two majors constitutes “3D Design”. The about me  page on the Elevons website goes into detail on your education and business ventures, but I wonder, when did you start considering working on video games?  I got my start modding games like Freespace, Unreal Tournament, etc. so I was always kind of doing it. I've always tried to avoid working in the video game industry because it's such a meat grinder so it's ironic I ended up doing game development full time. The scenery of Exosky is truly unmatched at times. In the first Exosky teaser trailer it mentions that the game was designed by a ‘real pilot’. That made my ears perk up a bit considering how fantastical Exosky is. What is your aviation experience?  Ever since I can remember I've been fascinated by aircraft and aerospace. Some of my earliest memories were of this red Waco biplane that offered aerobatics ride on the island where I’m from (St. Croix, USVI). I loved  doing that and did it every year on my birthday for a couple years in a row. We did hammerheads, rolls, zero-Gs and more. So that really cemented it as the coolest thing to do ever. When I was 13 I was fortunate to start pilot training, though I didn’t pursue it seriously until I was 16 and obtained my PPL when I was 18. I’ve only got about 150-200 hours, mostly logged in the Diamond DA-20 and the Cessna 152. Other types I’ve flown have been a Cessna 175, a De Havilland Tigermoth and an American Champion Citabria. Fun fact; the .aero domain of the website exosky.aero can only be obtained by people involved in the aviation industry, whether as a pilot or operator in some other capacity. Thanks for the fun fact, I did not know that. Of the aircraft you’ve flown, do you have a favorite?  I think the Citabria just because of what I got to do in it. I really enjoyed the Tigermoth but I think I would have to pick the DA-20. Not only is it the most familiar but the wraparound canopy frankly gives the best views! I appreciate that even with your real world experience and professional stance towards aviation you still allow yourself to embrace creativity around it. Before working on Exosky, did you have any other game development projects?  The biggest two would probably be Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line and Angels Fall First. The former is a space sim dogfighting mod for Freespace 2 where I did the flight dynamics and gameplay balancing. The latter is a sort of Battlefield-in-space where players can fight on the ground, on foot, board spaceships, etc. and for that I made some background props and weapon models. Both of these were back in high school/early college. When I switched to Industrial Design my game work dropped off but I did keep modeling and took contracts for a few other games out there. Description of a Twodevil drone. During our research about Exosky, there were a few references to a game called “Yesplane!”. Is this the predecessor of Exosky?  Yesplane was the predecessor, yes! The original alpha included the basic flight model, some of the aircraft and a quick deathmatch dogfighting mode. It was named by one of my nephews. I had brought an RC plane to visit and I asked him if he wanted to name it, so he said “Yes!”. I asked him what we should name it and he said “Yes!” and I liked it so much I wanted to use it for my game, Yesplane! How did the concept between Yesplane and Exosky change?  The biggest thing was that Exosky was supposed to be just one of the game modes of Yesplane, where the primary game mode of that game was aerial laser tag. I also wanted to incorporate a bit of sportsball, like Rocket League. However when I really got into developing the game I realized that all of that was too much and scaled down the scope significantly. Lots of stuff stuck around though; for example, the ability to fly in a custom atmosphere was because the game was originally supposed to simulate this sport in the clouds of Venus and so we needed a custom atmospheric model for that. Kickstarter graphic related to aerial combat. This is a favorite question of mine. Why did you choose to make a non-combat flight game?  That’s a good question and it has a couple answers! The first and most important is because it’s the game I wanted to play. I grew up playing IL-2, MS Combat Flight Sim 2 and MSFS. The former taught me how to fly and the latter helped me practice aircraft systems and procedures while I was getting my pilot’s license. However while I consider myself a good pilot I was never very good at gunnery and I found civilian flying to be too boring. So I created Exosky as the in-between game I always wanted; a game that was about flying skill that would be a pure flight challenge. From a larger standpoint games in general are pretty stale. We have this magic box that can create immersive experiences for literally anything we can imagine. You could be a cat, or a fly, or as big as a planet and experience what all of that is like. However for the most part games boil down to “enemies vs. you”. It’s definitely harder to create non-combat based games because it’s harder to find that challenge, but I really think it’s a worthwhile pursuit to be more creative in games and gaming objectives and really stretch our imaginations and experience more. The universe is infinitely full of possibilities, so when I design games I want to challenge myself to find unique games that aren’t just about shooting something else. For example, I’ve built a small game for HTC where the player is a bored teenager and the objective is to graffiti a space station. Stuff like that - there’s so much potential when you get beyond filling the level with enemies. The internet loves cats, so I have to ask. Is Norton, the artificial entity, based on anyone's cat?  Yes! Norton was my cat, who passed into Valhalla in 2022. I got him right out of college when I walked into an animal shelter in New Jersey and said “give me whichever cat you want to go to a good home”. They pointed me towards him and after that it’s history. My spouse actually says that Norton was the reason she kept hanging out with me when we first started dating, since they figured anyone who fawned over his cat like I did must not be all that bad.  A celestial refence to Norton, the legendary "wingman". Aerobatics in an arcade flight game is all well and good when you can just throw the aircraft around the sky with little worry, but Exosky has a rather detailed flight model . Can you tell us some more about it?  Sure, so the flight model was originally built by a contractor and then improved on by me; I added double precision, some extra features, atmospheric transitions, etc. The double precision was necessary for some very fast aircraft, which would generate some large forces for their size. This ended up with force numbers drifting over time or spiking to extreme values at different points, since they would change so much between each physics tic. Tracking them as doubles meant higher precision so we could see smaller fluctuations between each tic and keep the simulation more stable. The atmospheric transition was me taking the original atmospheric code and enabling it to be applied inside of a volume as well as in the entire level. I have a main “Aircraft” component that gets initialized at the beginning of the level and gets all of the atmospheric data from another system. The transition happens when an aircraft enters a trigger collider, that collider basically jumps in and temporarily overwrites the atmospheric data that the aircraft is reading from. On trigger exit, we replace the new values with the original level values and keep flying. As for the specifics of how the model works, we take each wing component and sum up the lift forces for it and apply that to a rigid body within Unity and I designed it in such a way as to be easily editable; just slap a plane down in Blender and export it with my plugin and you will have a wing. It’s very fast to concept out an airplane by tugging on vertices. The tool also lets you build the fuselage and then it will calculate the frontal area for you for drag calculations. That being said it does have quite a few compromises, as I’m sure any sim pilot out there will feel when they play the game. The wing does not take spanwise lift into account and so each wing section force is summed individually. I don’t take the airstream into account either, so blown wind (propellers, jets) will not have an effect on nearby surfaces. Transonic compression is very simply modeled and very large aircraft are not feasible without dropping the physics tic down to a very low amount - something I decided not to do for performance reasons. Post-stall behavior is also something I’m constantly tweaking. I really want to get the sort of violent stall behavior that I saw in IL-2 but at the moment it’s too gentle for my tastes.  Example of flight model documentation. The changes of flight characteristics when entering some of the out of this world atmospheres in the different levels is a nice touch. How did you come up with these unusual levels made up of different atmospheres and… computer graphics cards?  Growing up my dad owned a computer repair store and I used to spend ages tracing circuit lines in miniature cities. My father really hated my interest in computers, ironically, so he would only begrudgingly get me any sort of equipment. This meant that I grew up finding old parts laying around the shop and trying to piece together a gaming PC from them. I got very comfortable and familiar with the literal nuts-and-bolts of computer hardware and my dream some day is to host public computer classes where I just toss an old motherboard in front of people to demonstrate just how sturdy computer parts are and how you don’t have to treat them with kid gloves. When I really got into defining the theme of Exosky, I decided that instead of making a game set in the future, I would make a game that someone in the future might play. That’s when I decided to do all these wacky levels and the idea of flying through those miniature cities really appealed to something deep inside me so I just went for it. Some of the level concepts came from my own experience as a pilot; the Motherboard level takes place in and around a scaled down map of Fajardo airport, Puerto Rico. I had a pretty intense experience there during my training where I struggled to land due to a strong updraft from a nearby land feature. My spouse also gave me a ton of great ideas, like the Norton easter eggs in every level and the sea turtle in the Graphics Card level. After the January 16th demo update I found myself having an amazing experience playing with a Hands-On Throttle and Stick controller more than I did with a gamepad previously. What were some of the improvements made to the flight model?  There were so many small changes but I can break out the three main ones. The first was flow-aligned drag/lift. In the previous model the wing would make the same amount of lift/drag regardless of it’s alignment with the forward velocity. So if a wing was parallel with the ground and falling straight down it would generate both lift and drag, making the aircraft very “floaty” and unable to really drop. Conversely, if the aircraft was flying in a normal configuration, it would generate the same amount of drag as it was falling down. This was obviously unrealistic so a big change was changing the lift calculation to factor in vector alignment. The second change was changing how effective control surfaces were - you can see some of it there, but basically the biggest change was artificially boosting control surface effectiveness at low speed. This is a bit of an artistic tweak to make the planes “feel” more correct, especially when they neared the slow-speed stall flight regimes. You can see the code below; The final big change was just optimization. Awhile back I converted a lot of float values to doubles for better precision at high speed and increased the frequency of physics ticks to make larger aircraft fly correctly. This came with the unfortunate side effect of really destroying performance on lower end hardware. So I went in and was smarter about what was converted to doubles and improved performance overall to where it was back to the pre-conversion state. Here’s is the actual code if you’re interested: Flow-Aligned Drag/Lift Code   // Default scaling for non-control surfaces         float controlSurfaceScaling = 1f;                  // Calculate alignment factor for all surfaces         float alignmentFactor = Mathf.Abs(Mathf.Cos(_angleOfAttack));         currentLift *= alignmentFactor;                  // Additional scaling for control surfaces         if (_isControlSurface) {             float minSpeed = 10f;             float referenceSpeed = 200f;                          float speedRatio = referenceSpeed / Mathf.Max(_velocityMagnitude, minSpeed);             controlSurfaceScaling = Mathf.Clamp(speedRatio, 0.5f, 3f);                          // Apply speed scaling (alignment already applied above)             float speedScaling = Mathf.Clamp(speedRatio, 0.75f, 2f);             currentLift *= speedScaling;         }    Control Surface Adjustments    float InterpolateDeflection(float inputAxis) {         // Lower minimum speed threshold         float minSpeed = 2f;                  // Lower reference speed to improve low-speed handling         float referenceSpeed = 50f;                  float currentSpeed = Mathf.Max(_velocityMagnitude, minSpeed);                  // Inverse the ratio to give more control at low speeds         float controlBoostFactor = currentSpeed / referenceSpeed;                  // Adjust clamp values to give more control authority at low speeds         controlBoostFactor = Mathf.Clamp(controlBoostFactor, 0.5f, 4.0f);                  // Increase base interpolation speed         float baseInterpolationSpeed = 8f;                  // Apply stronger boost at low speeds         float interpolationSpeed = baseInterpolationSpeed / controlBoostFactor;                  float newInterpolation = deflection / maximumDeflection +              (-inputAxis - deflection / maximumDeflection) interpolationSpeed Time.deltaTime;                  float unclampedLerp = Mathf.LerpUnclamped(0, _maximumDeflection, newInterpolation);         return Mathf.Clamp(unclampedLerp, -_maximumDeflection, _maximumDeflection);     } A Two-Devil drone hit by paintballs, deploying flares. The documentation for the flight model is a part of helping players mod aircraft  into the game. It is very detailed, which is quite helpful. Could the flight model documentation also be used by other developers to create or edit their own projects?  Sure - hey maybe they could help me? Haha…yea I think that the documentation could definitely be helpful for others and I’d be happy if someone wanted to use it as a basis for their own projects. Like I explained previously there are compromises in the model and areas where I had to fudge things to make it “feel” right (looking at you low-speed control forces), but I think the documentation does a good job of taking a lot of complex concepts and centralizing them into a spot where someone can build on top of it. In Exosky players fly along strings of procedurally generated waypoints to complete a level. Pre-January update it was definitely harder to fulfill level requirements for unlocking new levels. It seemed like it was difficult to stray off the path and focus on aerobatics. While it does feel more attainable, I cannot say it is exactly easy. What changes were made?  The biggest change came after some tester feedback on how difficult it was to meet the score requirements of each level. This was because the requirements were a large monolithic value without a lot of direction on how to attain it. The newer version of the scoring system breaks them out into smaller specific requirements. Not only does this guide players towards scoring opportunities but it also allows me to design score requirements around specific levels; if one level has a lot of interesting objects then the score requirements coild be heavily weighted towards Points-Of-Interest. If another level has lots of tunnels then it could be weighted towards Proximity scores. The actual scoring values didn’t change much, it was the breaking down of larger score values into discrete chunks. Concept art example. The amount of Extras currently in the demo are quite substantial. There are many radical aircraft designs from throughout the years. Are any of these designs going to be included in the game in the future? To be honest I think the answer depends on how bored I get with the existing aircraft. I’ve been toying with the idea of releasing DLC packs of new aircraft in the future, but since I don’t know how successful the game will be I don’t know if that would be worth it from a cost/benefit analysis. This means it comes down to whether or not I want different planes to fly. If I do then I’ll probably start with implementing those aircraft - a few of them are already modeled and one of them is even mostly textured. Frankly I’m really hoping some people latch onto the mod tools and make some creative new planes for everyone to try out! The concept art, test videos and other development related content show that the development arc that led to Exosky was quite elaborate. Can you summarize what Exosky or the project before it was planned to be? Exosky is…big. I’ve been working on it for a long time. When the metaverse craze took off I wrote an article  that defined a true metaverse as “...a self-referential entity; something that is created to create itself.” In another article  I wrote: “The metaverse offers us an amazing opportunity to not only imagine but also to consciously design and test different futures for life on Earth. We need to use that; great leaps in humanity were not built to sell products, they were made because we wanted to push the boundaries of what we could do.” I’m not bound to the word “metaverse”, in fact I would prefer to not use it, but what Exosky is really meant to be is a visionary future for our species. It’s a grand social experiment; can we build a simulation of the future so compelling that it actively itself becomes  that future? Exosky/YesPlane were made up of two distinct components. The first is the flight sim, which Exosky (as released) is a cut-down version of. The original vision was to have a celebration of flight, with several different gamemodes ranging from a sort of Aerial Rocket League to a multi-level aerial laser tag simulation, where large airships would be commanded by captains using virtual reality to steer the ships and pick out targets amongst smaller aircraft which were piloted by both players and bot pilots. There’s other stuff there and I even have an unlaunched Kickstarter with the list of game modes and such.  The second component is the overworld - the simulation of a future society, one that exists in a universe where the Robotosphere (as mentioned in the game’s intro) has been made manifest. The initial release would have players navigating Venus from a top-down grid view, plotting the course of their airship across the planet as they explore, trade, mine, etc. “Combat” would tie into the laser tag experience, where players could either fly matches against each other or even bet on other player’s teams. Players could let others board their airships to hang out, trade, etc. Visual example of Robotosphere during game intro. The social simulation aspect would be the next layer on top of that. In the original draft it was a sort of “economic system deathmatch”, where there would be different types of economies existing in parallel, including my own . Through player actions these economic factions would compete and strive for dominance in synergy with new government strategies as well. This would test to see which really was the most effective system for this new world. We would also test if the Robotosphere itself could work as designed and more than that, what AI’s role in society could be through AI run NPCs. Eventually, I could see this simulation becoming more and more real. If players started trading real money using these new economic systems, started using the in-game governments and groups to organize and affect change in the real world, started trading virtual goods for real ones and vica-versa then this system in time could become the actual system people live by. It would be a universe that created the conditions for itself to exist. Years later, as Exosky nears release, how do you personally feel? At the moment, pretty tired haha. I have a couple other projects also all due around the same time that the game is releasing. If I take a step back from that though I guess I’d say happy and proud of what I’ve accomplished. It’s kind of weird, when you work on a project this long each task sort of blurs together. Release is just another task, made up of a list of smaller tasks. It’s a big moment because the game will be out there but it’s just another spot on a timeline in the grand scheme of the game. It’s releasing on my birthday though so I am definitely going to be having a party, lol! A medical drone flying away from a fish over a motherboard in simulated deep space. Pre-happy birthday to you! It is a bit early to ask this, but after early access release do you have any ideas about what else needs to be added towards making this a 1.0 release?  So it’s funny that you ask that, because the March 7th date is the 1.0 release. I remember back in like, 1999-2001 when DSL was new and many people were still transitioning from 56k modems. Steam wasn't even around until 2004. Back then games had to be ready to go out of the box because you didn't have a way to reliably patch it or update it once it shipped. Ever since then we've gotten more comfortable with unfinished games and I decided I wanted to do it old school. That's why I'm going straight to full release with no EA or open beta period. That means all the game content is in there, everything has been tested multiple times, etc. New features may come later but those are in addition to the completed spec that is being shipped. Oh my goodness. I am so used to early access releases I made the assumption it was not a full release. Haha! Well, thank you so much for this interview. I appreciate getting into the fine details about Exosky. I just want to say that I really appreciate this interview opportunity. I’m really excited to share my game with the world on March 7th. Regardless of how well it does it’s been a labor of love and a great learning experience and hey, maybe in the future those bigger ideas will take flight too. In the meantime, I hope players enjoy the unique flying challenges I've created and perhaps even build their own unique aircraft with the modding tools I’ve included in the game. I also wanted to say that it means a lot to be able to talk about the project in such great detail and I am happy that I got to do it on your platform. Skyward Flight Media reminds me a lot of the old Internet, where individual websites dedicated to niche interests ruled the web. See you in the skies! :) Connect with 'Exosky' Discord : https://discord.gg/nnM2cUPUW4 Steam : https://store.steampowered.com/app/2795160/Exosky/ Website : https://exosky.aero/ About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info , the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

The place where it all started, still alive and going strong April 17th is the anniversary day for VRChat Aviation (VRCA). Almost five years ago the prefab that became the core of almost all aviation operations going forward was released. For players looking at trying their hand at flying aircraft and burgeoning world creators curious if their flight focused visions could be built, the core of their interests was a world known as ' Test Pilots '. Before this world release, VRChat was a massively multiplayer virtual world platform of used created and driven experiences was mainly known for engaging social experiences in smaller user made worlds. While a form of pseudo-aviation did exist between 2014 and 2019, the true flight experiences started in 2020. The Beginning Development of the Sacc Flight and Vehicles prefab by its solo developer Sacchan truly 'took off' in April 2020 with the release of VRChat software development kit 3 (SDK). This creator's initial goal was to make vehicles that handled better compared to those made with the previous SDK. Our Creator Highlight Month 2022 interview with Sacchan goes into detail about the exact development path, but with the release of Test Pilots and the prefab code base, users across the globe to try out the first iterations of this type of aviation on the VRChat platform. An early version of Test Pilots by Sacchan. During the first summer after its release, the developer was joined by a cadre of friends with varying degrees of aviation knowledge. From real world operations and years of experience with flight simulators of varying complexities. This collaborative effort helped refine Sacc Flight. New weapons, aircraft capabilities, changes in default values and the groundwork for other types of aircraft in the future. For players looking to try their hand at piloting aircraft or hopeful new world creators wanting to see what was possible with the prefab, Test Pilots was truly at the center of everything. Changes and Advancements As the years went on, the VRChat aviation community gained dozens of new world creators. Some making one-off worlds that faded out with no ongoing support, others still dedicated creators with multiple worlds to their name. The free to download and use prefab was thoroughly customized by these creators to make various types of flight experiences. Much like indie flight game development, VRCA worlds reflect the skill level and desire of their developer(s). They cross the entire spectrum of aviation experiences at a rather high rate thanks to how accessible Sacc Flight is. Skyward Flight Media staff in transit to an aircraft carrier. This creates an interesting environment where frequent world releases create the need for new worlds to be produced to remain relevant in the steady stream of world creation. It is somewhat easy for even the best worlds at one point in time to gradually slide into hidden gem status if a world creator does not find ways to update it semi-consistently. There are few VRCA worlds that remain within the Popular World tab for the entire VRChat platform for extended periods of time when they receive considerable updates. Going against the grain, Test Pilots continues to be the most active VRCA world, even almost five years after its release. A feat very, very few other worlds have been able to replicate. Vehicle Variety Back in 2020, Test Pilots was the location to go to try out the newest additions to the prefab, new aircraft that would be built around specific concepts and functions. The venerable SF-1 fixed-wing fighter created by Sacchan was gradually joined by a wide variety of believable and pure sci-fi aircraft. Some of them designed by Sagi-chan with Sagi Aerospace , one of the first highly well known 3D modelers for VRCA. In 2025, there are 21 vehicles in the world's roster. The selection is so diverse. They include anti-aircraft emplacements, cars, seaplanes, airshow stunt plane, biplanes, fixed-wing combat aircraft, light and heavy lift rotary-wing, highspeed reconnaissance, anti-gravity bike, strategic bombers, spacefighter - a wild variety. During a recent private session to gather materials for this article, we took photos of these aircraft to visually demonstrate what players get access to in one visit. The breadth of the capabilities these aircraft possess are air-to-air missiles, unguided bombs, vertical take off and landing capability, hypersonic cruise, forward swept swing wings, thrust vectoring, airshow fireworks and laser effects, multi-passenger transport, main rotor tilt and more. An original design aircraft carrier with two SAK-1 carrier borne fighters from Sagi Aerospace is also featured in this world. My personal favorites are the propeller driven two-seater aircraft. Within VRChat as a whole prop aircraft are uncommon, but these aircraft are capable of passing control of the aircraft from the front seat to the back seat both on the ground and in flight. In my opinion this is useful as a training tool to have new players be introduced to flying by more experienced players and it adds to the unique social side of aviation in VRChat. Even for the newest player that has never flown a simulated aircraft or the tried and true flight simulation pilot wanting to see is possible on the platform, the sheer variety and quality of the aircraft in Test Pilots continues to make this world a perfect introductory experience to VRCA. Device Compatibility VRChat as a platform certainly has limitations for its user created worlds. Especially strict limitations if you compare it to standalone, offline VR games. Many VRCA world creators choose to make their experiences exactly as they plan, prioritizing achieving their vision even if it means worlds are only compatible with Personal Computer tethered VR headsets. Test Pilots has continued to be a rather accessible world in terms of devices used to connect to it. The world is currently Cross-Platform compatible, which means it is compatible with Meta Quest, SteamVR, Pico and Google Play. While the differences between PC connected and headset standalone versions of VRChat is stark in a few ways, the core experience of the vehicles in Test Pilots remains intact and available for a massive number of users. There are dozens of VRChat aviation worlds that could be described as more detailed in aircraft handling characteristics, cockpit instruments or with elaborate terrains, but many of them give up Cross-Platform capabilities, which Test Pilots seems to capitalize on. Dissimilar formation. In World Activities It is safe to say that even during early development, VRCA is primarily player versus player combat focused. Two or more players locked into close range air combat within minutes of loading into the world and flinging themselves into the nearest fighter. As surprising as this may sound, constant back-to-back dogfights can eventually get boring for some players. Test Pilots is built with other types of gameplay in mind as well. The Sacc Flight prefab includes time trials where players can select different courses. The courses are visually represented by rings hovering in the air for players to fly through. Each world instance of Test Pilots shows the top players and their fastest times. Players that achieve fast times and/or other feats sometimes put them on social media to keep track of the fastest times. Example of Time Trial in Test Pilots. The terrain of this world also includes challenges like short runways scattered around the world, natural terrain (caves, valleys) traditional structures (bridges, city buildings) and immensely complicated structures built specifically for players to challenge themselves to fly through. Some of them being truly massive in size. Time of Day Test Pilots has something very few VRChat aviation worlds have: a working day and night cycle. While that seems like a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, much like how clouds and weather change an experience, a gradual sunrise or twinkling night produces memorable moments. Placed a top the air traffic control tower in the main spawn area of the world, players can physically interreact with this model of the planet and sun and set the time of day manually. An SF-1 above a city at night. Flight Model Developer and world creator Sacchan describes the flight model as: "The performance of the planes there is more on the Ace Combat side of things, and sometimes I think I'd like to make it more realistic, but as it's so established as it is, that'll have to be done in other worlds." -Sacchan, Creator Highlight Month 2022 Interview This still remains true in 2025. Keeping the more Ace Combat-y arcade flight model in place makes Test Pilots easily accessible for players of any skill level. However, it is not all unlimited afterburners and extreme aerial maneuvers with no repercussions. The high performance fixed-wing fighters that can perform post stall maneuvers are just as capable of ripping themselves apart mid-flight. A key part of the SaccFlight system is the ability to turn Flight Limits on and off. Think of this function as turning off the flight control system limiters in a fly-by-wire aircraft. With them off there are no control dampening functions to keep the aircraft or pilot safe, but with them disabled more skilled players can eke extra performance out of their aircraft at the very real risk of destroying the aircraft within seconds of pushing it beyond their structural limits. It is a natural risk vs reward system. To The Future There is an impressive list of world creators that have used the Sacc Flight and Vehicles Prefab to take VRChat aviation in new directions. Through it all Test Pilots has remained "at the top" it terms of numbers of user visit. Its combination of accessibility, vehicle variety and activities are a proven formula. Developer and world creator Sacchan is working on the newest iteration of Sacc Flight 1.7, which is sure to define the next generation of VRChat aviation for world creators that choose to delve into its upcoming features. Connect with 'Sacchan' Test Pilots | X.com | Github | Kofi About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info , the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

Developer of SaccFlight for VRChat Aviation It's no secret that VRChat aviation is something we've covered here on Skyward Flight Media with great interest. In the mind of the flight simulation enthusiast, they might be imagining aircraft flying in VRChat as objects shaped like aircraft unnaturally levitating in the sky with the spiciest internet memes flying out the back. Our previous articles on the subject show that not to be the case at all. Virtual reality players will find themselves controlling aircraft by gripping the in game stick and throttle the same way they would in other VR flight simulator. Roaring dogfights, air-to-air refueling, aircraft carrier landings, working instruments, stall characteristics and more can be experienced across dozens of worlds. The evolution of flight physics, ever expanding flight experiences, and a firmly established international community continues to capture our attention. "How is this happening?" is the most frequently asked question by those from the outside looking in. Our next entry in Creator Highlight Month 2022 is with Sacchan , the developer of the SaccFlight system and free to download prefab . that has made this all possible. We discuss how it all started, achievements, hurdles crossed, and the state of VRC aviation today. It probably goes without saying that I’m a big fan of your work. Please introduce yourself. I'm Sacchan, my friends call me Sacc, I'm a gamer with something of a creative side, and VRChat has taken over my entire life for the last 4 years. Nearly 2 years ago I had the idea to make an airplane as an experiment, and now I find myself standing at the center of a worldwide community of creative aircraft enthusiasts. How and why did you get involved with VRChat? In early 2018 I saw it after it got famous because of the Uganda Knuckles meme, and I thought the anime characters looked cute so I tried it out. I never expected to play it for more than a day or two. When did you decide to shift from being a general user to begin world creation? Could you describe some of your pre-flight worlds? Almost straight away. I've always been a bit creative, so when I realized that making your own content was possible of course I wanted to learn. I started learning to make avatars only a day or two after installing the game, starting with MMD model conversions to learn Unity. I didn't have a VR headset when I started, but I quickly realized I really wanted one. A few days later, after I had bought a VR headset, I decided I wanted to make a world too. I wanted to make a very dark and atmospheric world, to relax in. My first world 'Stormy Cave' was relatively popular. It's a campfire in a cave at night with wind and rain sounds and 500m^2 of surrounding terrain to explore with flashlights, umbrellas, and torches. Over the course of about a year it evolved into a full blown puzzle map with sci-fi/demonic elements and a large underground cave system to explore. My other worlds are 'The Sacc Shack' which was me experimenting with modeling a house, I went a little bit crazy with the interactivity on items there. 'Orange Days' is a small island/beach hangout world with some weird architecture, and a lighthouse model that I have used in Test Pilots. The SF-1 is the first VRChat original design aircraft (2021). Something many users that have seen your work wonder is, do you have any previous experience with game development? I've been into mapping since I was about 11 years old, starting with Unreal Tournament (the first one), around 20 years ago. Over the years I have experimented with mapping/modding UT99/2004/3, Quake3, Freespace and more, but never really releasing much. My friend and I were working on a game for a bit back in 2013~, with him as the programmer and me as the artist, but it never got close to being finished. All of those games are a bit old, and learning Unity through VRChat for me was a great experience because it brought me up to speed with a modern game engine, and gave me a creative outlet to improve my modeling skills. After only a few months I had modeled my first from scratch rigged humanoid character to use as an avatar, which I used to think would always be beyond me. What is the general process of making a world in VRC? How did the April 2020 Udon update change this process? To make a world for VRChat, you must install Unity, install the VRChat SDK package, place something to stand on, place a spawn point, click upload/test and you're done. To do anything complex prior to April 2020, (using SDK2) the only option you had was to use the VRC_Trigger script. It's a componant with options for trigger method, and a bunch of things to do when triggered. It does allow you to do a lot of things, but it's limited by it's nature. In April 2020, SDK3 was released, which allowed for node-based programming, and a VRC user created a compiler for Unity C# called UdonSharp that enabled users to write code directly for use in VRC worlds. Creating things for VRC is now very similar to creating things for Unity in general, with some limitations, many VRC-specific things you need to know, and the code runs around a thousands times slower. How did your idea for trying to bring a more accurate version of aviation to VRChat start? That idea never existed, I just wanted to learn how to use SDK3 when it was released, and I had been wanting to learn programming for a long time but had never managed to get into it. Initially I had no idea how to get started with SDK3. Luckily I had a programmer friend who helped me get everything set up, and kickstarted my efforts. So, since SDK3 allowed programming directly, I wanted to do something that was always very poorly done in SDK2, vehicles. The first thing I tried to make was a car, but I had no idea about the correct way to do it. With my first attempt at a car I couldn't even get the wheels to stay attached to the car without causing big problems with bouncing around a glitching out. Since the car was such a failure (I only tried for about 2 hours), I decided to try making a simple helicopter-like vehicle, as I could make something fly without attaching wheels to it. That was pretty easy to get working, and the people I showed it to liked it, but also wanted airplanes. I had some vague idea of what a dot product was, so I tried putting the result of dot(VehicleRigidbody.velocty, VehicleTransform.Down) into the relative up force with a configurable multiplier, which gave me a very basic lift force. Early Test Pilots aircraft concepts (April 2020). It was fun, so I continued improving it, I also made a few variations on the simple vehicles I initially created and just played with them with my friends, and random people who joined the public instance. Since SDK3 was so new I figured I was probably one of the few people who had actually managed to create something with it, so I decided to release what I had made as a prefab. Anyone with any experience with unity would laugh at the first few releases, since I was very inexperienced with Unity code, but because it was out there and was representing me, I felt a strong need to improve it further. At some point during the first days, I created a script to allow players to fly around without a vehicle, just to get to the vehicles faster, which has now become an important feature that almost every flight world has enabled. After a while I started making friends with people who were into flight simulation games, and who had real jobs working with aircraft. They pushed me to improve things further and further, and I guess that's all that has been happening since, really. Early version of Test Pilots (April 2020). The summer of 2020 in particular was really fun, that was the time I was initially coding all of the functions for the function dials in the plane. Each day I would wake up, code a new feature for 6 hours or so, upload a test world, and all my friends would jump on to test it for the rest of the day. This period was when I added Afterburner, Bombs, AGMs, AAMs, Brake, Flight Limits, Display Smoke, Flares, Hook (carrier landings), Catapult (carrier takeoff), Fly Level (autopilot), Cruise (hold speed), Canopy Toggle, Fuel Consumption, and the HUD. Some of this was only possible because of the pandemic. One of my friends, Zweikaku , was laid off from his job as an aircraft mechanic when the pandemic started. He wouldn't have been playing VRC nearly so much if he was at his job and wouldn't have been able to advise me on how aircraft actually work. During this time is also when I taught one of my long time VRChat friends, ' Sagi-chan ' how to use Blender, and he's been modeling planes ever since. Take a look at the 'SAK' aircraft in Test Pilots to see his handy work. Early model of the SF-1 (2020). It’s notable that while you were encouraged to further develop it to include more advanced features, you did not go as far as adding navigation systems, radars, instrument landing systems, etc. Why is that? I won't create anything for my prefab that I don't think will be interesting to me (as a coding exercise or gameplay). I'm only really interested in the flight/combat itself. The specifics of navigation, or targeting are boring to me unless they serve gameplay (which should be fast paced). All the games I enjoy the most are fast paced games that are the easy-to-learn hard-to-master types, like Quake, and Rocket League. I think flying a plane falls into that easy-to-learn, hard-to-master category even without any physics simplifications, but to get to flying, there are often hurdles to overcome that make it much harder to experience the joy of pure flight, such as managing the aircraft's systems. What I have created is something simple enough that someone who cares nothing about planes, but thinks it might be fun to fly, can learn in a few minutes and experience what it's like to fly with physics that are realistic enough that it doesn't dilute the experience too much. I think this is especially important for VR, because the experience is so much more rich being inside a cockpit in VR. Many people that have never cared for flight before have discovered a love for it thanks to my world, Test Pilots. It being a popular world is also greatly beneficial. Anyone who doesn't know how to fly can find help in the form of a conversation with any of the other players that are standing around in the spawn area. That being said, the purpose of the modularization of the 1.5 update was to allow addition of extension code to the prefab without changing the original code. If anyone using the prefab wishes to make more complex systems, I am willing to help and support them. On April 16th, 2020, the first aviation world, Test Pilots, entered community labs (a type of quality assurance phase). Since then this world has been at the forefront of all VRC aviation. How do you feel about Test Pilots after nearly two years of development? I think it's really good. I'm pretty satisfied with it. I'd like to continue adding more and more vehicles to it but the performance gets a bit too low with a lot of players already, so there probably aren't going to be too many large changes any more. The performance of the planes there is more on the Ace Combat side of things, and sometimes I think I'd like to make it more realistic, but as it's so established as it is, that'll have to be done in other worlds. I am always surprised by how communal the development process for VRC aviation is. There are developers and their friends always pinging each other to test things like new aircraft, flight characteristics, map changes, etc. Is the average flight world development process like that? I think it has to be communal at this point, centered around me, because I haven't written any tutorials on how to use it (other than my Instructions.txt, but most people can't read?), people who are experienced with Unity are able to use it without help, but many of the people who are interested in making plane worlds are a bit less experienced. There is also a Japanese community of friends who communicate amongst each other (occasionally asking me something if they get stuck), creating stuff. A few of them are very advanced. Do other world creators ever ask you for assistance with their works? People ask me quite often for help using my prefab to create a world, but if they have no prior experience with unity, I'm not going to teach them the whole thing. If they have made some progress and are just stuck with something, I'll help. It's quite rare that a world will be uploaded to VRChat using my prefab with a customized vehicle without my help , but when it does happen it's very cool to see. Community events like dogfight tournaments, airshows, and aircraft unveiling showcases have become very popular over time. What are your thoughts on these events? They're really, really fun, and it's amazing that such a thing is possible in a social game. The big tournaments are the main time when all of the communities come together. The unveiling of a new plane with the whole community present after the finals of a tournament is a really cool experience. Unfortunately the format of these events is going to have to change soon because they're getting too popular. The framerate in VRChat gets very low with 80 people in one instance and 80 people is the hard cap for number of players, so we're going to be moving to a setup with a hangout world containing a stream of the matches. VRChat is a quirky development platform, isn't it? What have been some of the greatest development hurdles that you have had to solve? Pressing a 'VRChat Button' is impossible in a very fast moving vehicle, which is why I created the function dial system, which ended up being a good thing in my opinion, because it's so fast and easy to use compared to moving your hands to each button. Buttons are possible to create for a fast moving vehicle, but require you to code your own version. One of the Japanese users of the prefab has done it. I may create my own version soon for the prefab. For the most part the hurdles that I have had to overcome have been due to my inexperience with Unity/programming in general, or not knowing how to get specific values out of VRChat componants. Luckily I have a few friends who know a good amount. I have also managed to become acquainted with some of the VRChat developers. There have been multiple times where a VRChat update has broken some aspect of my planes, and it has been somewhat stressful dealing with it, but it's usually not too difficult to fix stuff. If you had to make a top-five list of greatest features or fixes you've had to figure out, what would they be? 5. Creating a prefab that is customizable and simple enough that people have been able to create their own vehicles without any help from me. 4. The Air-to-air missiles (not too difficult, unless you need to sync them over network!) 3. The code modularization in version 1.5 (required such a huge code refactor) 2. The custom position sync. The default VRChat object synchronization is very delayed, making formation flight, and anything resembling a realistic dogfight impossible. 1. Such a easily customizable flight model which allows almost any kind of air vehicle (including VTOL, seaplanes, ground-effect vehicles, helicopters, hoverbikes) Pre-custom position sync lag diagram. (Twitter) Could you describe the significant change that the addition of custom position sync brought? Before the custom position sync, which was added in my prefab's version 1.5, which came out about a year and 8 months after development started, the aircraft were using VRChat's inbuilt VRC_ObjectSync script to sync their positions, it's designed for small scale objects you can pick up, not vehicles, and it has no lag compensation. So if you try to use it for formation flight, it will look to you like you are flying next to someone, but they will see you more than a second behind where you think you are, making formation flying essentially impossible. So once the custom sync was in, formation flying became possible, and quickly became popular among the aviation groups. Dogfights also became much, much more interesting, as things like rolling scissors became possible. Previously you would see someone fly past you, and wonder if you were about to explode because they shot you a second ago. Additionally you can also see bullets flying towards your plane, which wouldn't happen before because the opponent would be shooting at the lagged version of you, behind you. Offering the Sacc Flight and Vehicles prefab as a free resource is generous. There are easily over 50 aviation worlds by creators from around the globe now. Did you ever think there would be so many worlds? My thought was, that I wanted to make VRChat more interesting, because in the days before the Udon update (The one that allowed coding in worlds), VRChat didn't really have a whole lot of things to do. I guess I've succeeded in that. Almost every day I can log in and visit an in-development aircraft world to see what's new, plus there are interesting tweets about the daily occurrences in the flight community. The Japanese community in particular has made a lot of interesting stuff, especially since the prefab's 1.5 modularization release, because it's been possible to non-destructively add functionality. They have a weekly Flight Academy which is listed on the Japanese event calendar in VRChat, where anyone can show up and be taught the basics of flying through a short sit-down classroom lesson, then straight into a vehicle with an instructor. Their world has a near true-to-life Control Tower with radios that is actually manned and used during events, their vehicles also have avionics that are slowly but surely increasing in functionality over time. There's another guy who's decent at modeling and often just creates a whole new plane in one day. While they may not be of the highest quality, it's very interesting to see what he comes up with. In the English speaking communities we have many vehicle-particular dogfight worlds, someone dedicated to making helicopters, someone dedicated to making GA aircraft, various role-play groups with worlds specifically for their needs, some vehicle modelers, and a few people doing more advanced stuff, like Project Fairy , a Yukikaze fan project. More recently there's also been a lot of interest in creating multi-crew vehicles, as version 1.5 of the prefab supports this functionality, more code needs to be written to create functionality beyond simple gunner seats though. What do you think are the biggest hurdles that new flight focused VRChat world creators need to overcome? If they're making their own custom aircraft, they need to learn what each of the variables in the main flight control script do, so that they can make it fly how they want. They also need to learn how to replace all the animations, to make everything on their aircraft move. The biggest challenge being creating a landing gear animation. In general though, if you're good with Unity you should be able to work things out. The hardest part is being good with Unity. While combat aircraft are the most frequently seen vehicles, is there a technical restriction that prevents use of more large aircraft like airliners? There are some large aircraft in VRChat, my world has the crazy modified B-52, the Japanese community has a 737 in which it's possible to sit in nearly every seat, that they use regularly in their events. One of my friends even made a Lockheed CL-1201, which we showed off at the VRChat community meetup event, and got 80 people sitting in it at once. I think the main reason there aren't more large aircraft though, is because my prefab package doesn't come with an example of one that can be easily copied and modified. SAK-52 (top left), SC-1 (bottom left), SF-1 (bottom right) and SAK 2 (top right). Have there been any functions you wanted to add but were unable to get working? Any abandoned concepts? It's been tough, but I've managed to get almost everything I've wanted working in the end. Stuff like missiles, or custom position sync would have fallen into this category in the past. One of my friends has made a 'floating origin' system (that moves the world, instead of the plane), which enables much larger worlds to be made. If it could be improved to the point where it's bug-free it would be very interesting. One thing I'd love to be able to do is have pilotable aircraft carrier, that people can walk around on the deck of, and vehicles can take off and land on. I have made an attempt at it, but it's very difficult, maybe impossible to do well with the current version of VRChat. As you become more familiar with programming, have you considered developing your own game outside of VRChat someday? I've been considering it for a while, but it'd mean stopping making the VRChat stuff, and I don't want to stop while it's still growing so much. I can also re-use the code I write for VRChat, so I don't see it as a waste. I'm also not sure what kind of game I'd make, I think there's a gap in the market for a semi realistic competitive flight combat game, but I don't know if I can pull that off as my first game. Aircraft in formation in Test Pilots. With the two year anniversary of the release of Sacc Flight coming up, do you have any ideas about what the next big updates could be? I want to create a car/land vehicle prefab, as it's the last major vehicle type that I don't have, and if I do it well it could spawn it's own community with the car-people. Other possible future improvements could be things like: Weapons, fuel, etc. contributing to the weight of the vehicles. Aircraft falling out of the sky rather that just instantly exploding. Touchable buttons for the cockpit in VR. I have already created an air-refueling system that is not part of the prefab yet. Vehicle damage models. Your efforts seem to have made quite the impact. To the point that Test Pilots had a diorama and building-sized poster in the official VRC New Year’s Eve 2021 world. It was seen by tens of thousands of people. What are your thoughts on how far your efforts and the community it has spawned have come? New Year's Eve 2021 poster for Test Pilots. It's weird, someone who was already good at programming could have probably created something like what I've made with a lot less effort, but they would probably also have just made what they wanted and moved on. I think it's largely because I was learning and struggling through the whole process, and writing code was novel to me that I was able to stick with it for so long, and build something so big. Thinking back, there are many features working now that I have thought to be impossible at some point. I even thought it was impossible to implement missiles early on. So many people have helped in small ways, and it's amazing what we've accomplished. Test Pilots has just passed 3 million visits, and has 150,000+ favorites. Most of these are from children who are playing VRChat in standalone mode on their Oculus Quest 2s they got for Christmas. So at the very least I've probably awakened a love of flight in a fairly large group from the next generation. About the Interviewer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

A Well-Timed Signal Flare from a Silent Project I am going to be honest with you, I have not thought of this project for at least a year. My last interaction with it happened back on October 24th, 2022, when Skyward Flight Media received an announcement to journalists about upcoming projects from MicroProse and access to the press kit. The Mighty Eighth VR slipped from my mind, not because it was a boring venture, but because it seemingly went silent almost immediately. The initial attempts to reach out to journalists during that time also did not go anywhere either. So you can imagine my genuine surprise to see a dev blog posted on Steam on January 23rd, 2024. Something I did not notice until I was reminded of this game by an adjacent piece of media just last week. I only remembered this apparently still in development virtual reality game because of my recent near obsession with Masters of the Air . This Apple TV original series follows the story of the United States Army Air Force, 8th Air Force, 100th Bomb Group in World War II from 1943 well into 1945. Its portrayal of air combat with B-17 Flying Fortress crews over occupied Europe pulls no punches. Watching these pitched battles unfold, I vaguely remembered a virtual reality simulator focused on B-17s. With players operating from Thorpe Abbots  RAF base, the home air base seen in Masters of the Air. On a whim, I did a quick search and, to my surprise, saw an update from MicroProse. B-17 heavy bombers in formation (2022 Press Kit). For those that do not know or do not remember, the description on The Mighty Eighth VR product page is: "The Mighty 8th VR puts you in the shoes of a B-17 Flying Fortress crew member at the height of the Strategic Bombing Campaign over Europe. Partner up with friends and do your part to ensure that the plane reaches the target and returns home safely." It plans to be a virtual reality simulator that places teams of up to 10 human players into a B-17 Flying Fortress. AI crew mates are available as well. The crews must work together to complete and survive combat missions over occupied Europe. All positions can be occupied by the players, with the ability to move through the aircraft mid-flight to take up other positions or attempt to repair battle damage. Listed on the official website, the positions are: Pilot Co-Pilot Navigator Bombardier /Chin Turret Gunner Radio Operator Engineer/Top Turret Gunner Port Waist Gunner Starboard Waist Gunner Ball Gunner Tail Gunner Walking through the aircraft (2022 Press Kit). Media from the October 2022 press kit, which I am using throughout this article, focuses on interactions with opening doors, operating .50 caliber machine guns, inspecting the Norden bomb sight and walking through the aircraft. The idea of being as hands on as possible within a virtual reality experience that emphasizes atmosphere could be a winning combination if the attention to detail is there. If pushing for a simulator like experience where a player(s) are spending decently long amounts of time within a restricted space, the portrayal and functionality of the interior of the B-17 is going to be just as important as its flight model. Inspecting the Norden Bombsight (2022 Presskit). It is one thing to make sure an aircraft is accurately modeled in every way possible when it is a single seat or two seat aircraft. But something on the scale of a bomber with an average crew of 10 people that move through its fuselage is an entirely different beast. There are still plenty of unknowns about how players will gather, mission briefings, aerial combat and the depth and quantity of interactions. Though, it seems like the scope of the project has extended from just the aircraft. The January 2024  dev blog  showcases the ability to drive a Jeep on base out to their aircraft as a part of pre-mission preparations. Immersion wise, this certainly adds to the "like you are actually there" atmosphere they are hoping to maintain throughout the game. I have to say that I am happy to see there is some life still left in this project. The timing of the update was well-timed with Masters of the Air releasing new episodes over the past few weeks. I find myself getting somewhat excited over the prospect of working in a coordinated bomber crew with friends and strangers, just hoping to make it to the target and back. This has the potential to be a large-scale cooperative air combat simulator on a scale very, very few developers have attempted. My fingers are crossed for future, hopefully consistent updates. Radio compartment .50 caliber machine gun. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

A couple of years back, there was a solid modding community for VTOL VR, but due to game updates and a lack of a concentrated community effort, problems arose and mods almost became extinct for the game, until last year. With the release of the VTOL VR Mod Loader on Steam and native Steam Workshop support, it is now easier than ever to enjoy the hard effort of some amazing creators. VTOL VR's modding scene is more alive than ever. Nothing shows this newly founded energy than C-137's mods, specifically their F-16C Viper. To say that this mod meets the standards of functionality and tactile feel set by BD's vanilla aircraft, would be a disservice to it. This mod might just be the reason that brings me back to playing VTOL VR in a regular basis. The cockpit, the most crucial aspect of any VR flight sim and especially one with functional tactile feel such as VTOL VR, has been masterfully modeled and done, fitting right in with the art style the game goes for. It does not feel like a mod in the slightest, aside from some very minor details, such as is the change of the starters in the start-up procedure. But even a change like that is understandable considering that no other aircraft in the vanilla game has systems like these, so adapting it to reuse preexisting code and functionality is AOK. The fully functional MFDs, simplified systems and even added HMD functionality straight out of the F-45 give this viper a very appealing and easy to use cockpit, regardless of which mission you'll want to run with it. The visibility is amazing, as expected from an F-16. Nothing like an unimpeded view of the sky as you slam your throttle into full afterburner and climb as if you were sitting on a rocket. The exterior also fits right in with the game's art style. It looks realistic enough to fool the eye, but not overly detailed as to not fit within the visual identity the game goes for. The visual effects are nice, the afterburner is amazing and, in general, it is indistinguishable from a vanilla asset. C-137 did an amazing job. The mod also works in multiplayer with no issues at all, which my friends and I tried out with a 3-hour-long session. We did formation flying, cooperative strikes employing a plethora of weapons, etc. There were absolutely no issues, in the slightest. Should you try this mod? Yes, please. Try out the Viper, give it a fair try. It is indistinguishable from a vanilla aircraft, and you can tell that it was made by someone that genuinely cares for the spirit of VTOL VR as an experience. It delivers everything you expect it to, and does it with flying colors. I am so glad that there are talented creators like C-137 in the VTOL VR community now, so expect more articles showing off more mods in the future! About the writer Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

FlightSimExpo takes place June 27-29, 2025 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, just outside of Boston. Organizers encourage attendees to register today, as prices increase on March 1. “Early registrations are hugely helpful for us as show organizers,” says FSA Co-Founder Evan Reiter. “Developers always ask us how many visitors we’re expecting and how registration is trending when deciding to attend. The more information we can give them, the better the chances they’ll exhibit. And we give that back to you in the form of discounted rates the earlier you register.” Attendees can register now at flightsimexpo.com/register . FlightSimExpo will announce the initial list of exhibitors for the 2025 event on March 29. The full seminar schedule will be revealed later this year following community voting. Getting to the Show, Providence is easy to get to from across the country or overseas! Organizers have made attending the show easy for attendees with discounted hotel rates, airfare deals, and travel recommendations available at flightsimexpo.com/travel . “ You can fly into PVD, which is just 15 minutes from downtown. Or you can fly into Boston’s Logan Airport—which offers convenient, non-stop flights from over 100 domestic and international destinations,” says organizer Phil Coyle. “From Logan, take the train to Providence Station or the door-to door Peter Pan bus right to the Rhode Island Convention Center.” Providence combines the accessibility and friendliness of a small town with the culture and sophistication of a big city. From 400 miles of shoreline along Narragansett Bay to great nightlife and a nationally recognized food scene, Providence is walkable, safe, and fun. Attendees can walk from the show’s discounted hotels to Providence Place Mall for movies, arcades, and food—or find a hole-in-the-wall pub, lively country music bar, or elegant cocktail lounge, all within a half mile. “We are visiting Providence at its best time of year and are excited to introduce our attendees to the 2nd Most Walkable City to Visit, according to USA Today’s Readers Choice Awards 2024,” continued Phil. “We’ve worked hard to secure a great hotel room rate—just $199 plus tax—in a place that is easy to get to and enjoyable while you’re there. Make your plans to join us now!” Join FSA Live on March 1 Flight Simulation Association will be live on youtube.com/flightsimexpo at 2000 UTC this Saturday for a panel discussion featuring Blu Games, ForderLearnToFly, and personalities from FSElite, HeliSimmer.com , and Simulation Daily. The stream features reactions and commentary on the November launch of MSFS 2024, along with a live Q&A. Find the stream on YouTube and click the ‘Notify me’ button to receive an update when the stream starts.

An exercise in testing the limits of design Introduction  Written by Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Back on September 19th, 2024 I had talked about how a particular demo from Steam Planes, Trains and Automobiles  stoked my interest in finally trying out a design and fly aircraft builder game from start to finish. Granted, at this time it is a demo, but I had said I wanted to give myself some more time with the title before writing more about it. Aviassembly  is the second commercial game project by Jelle Booij , a developer from the Netherlands. Curiously, his first commercial project was Taste Maker , a game about building a restaurant from the ground up and managing it to success. Everything from the decoration of the building, quality of food and cleanliness of the restaurant was factored in. The success of Taste Maker is what pushed the developer to launch their full time indie game development career. Jelle started development of Aviassembly in May 2023 with the Steam page launched on February 2024 and the first iteration of the game’s demo available to the public on September 16th, 2024. As of the time of this article’s release, the demo has received two updates. Do keep in mind that this game is still in development. A lot can change between now and early 2025, especially with the input of anyone playing the demo. The developer is very open to feedback and requests on the Steam Forum  and official Discord server . There are many additions and changes being applied to the game that are not quite seen in the demo yet. Do be sure to make your opinions and requests known.  As I mentioned in the composite article in September 2024, normally I would refer any aircraft builder games/simulators to our resident aeronautical engineer. And guess what? He briefly heard a mention of a new builder on the scene and jumped in immediately! The Journey Written by Caio D. "Hueman" Barreto As long-time readers will know, I have a particular predilection for "Build & Fly" games ; having spent more time than I'm willing to admit in SimplePlanes, I found Aviassembly's core concept - adding an actual mission, cargo transport, to guide your design objectives - a very interesting proposition and was eager to try it out. Immediately upon attempting to build my first aircraft, however, I was faced with the first hurdle: Unlike SimplePlanes or Flyout, the in-game builder does not allow the player to change the size or shape of the wings. Instead, it takes the KSP approach of offering a selection of pre-made parts; fuselage sections can be stretched and tapered, but apart from that, all parts have strictly fixed sizes. Not a huge problem; being unable to fine tune your wing size is a bummer - and major constraint - but hardly unworkable; We did routinely build aircraft in Kerbal, after all. However, in its current demo version (and this must be emphasized), Aviassembly lacks the flexibility of KSP when it comes to placing your parts. Position fine-tuning is non-existent, and angles can only be changed in increments of 90 degrees. The game decides how it wants the part to be attached - usually, orthogonal to the attachment surface. This means that, if you wanted, for instance, a high wing with anhedral - a staple of basic aircraft design - you're out of luck, at least without resorting to considerable subterfuge. Even after employing the aforementioned subterfuge - playing around with finding specific spots and rotations to "trick" the editor into accepting otherwise unattainable part placement - I was still unable to get rid of the game's forced dihedral in a high-wing configuration. Combined, these current limitations of the aircraft builder means a player’s ability to choose their aircraft’s configuration is severely hampered. It can also lead to hilarious results anytime something slightly out of the ordinary is attempted, as will be demonstrated in this article.  Adding to the challenge is the game’s very purposefully designed constraint system: Players start out with a limited amount of researched parts, KSP Campaign-style, and also a tiny budget with which to actually purchase parts to build their aircraft.  Now, let me tell you how much I absolutely love this concept: Players must design an aircraft capable of accomplishing a mission - usually transporting a set amount of cargo from point A to B. However, in order to do so they must balance: Available cargo volume; Lift (from preset wing choices) and drag; Choice of powerplant; Fuel quantity and consumption; Overall weight, which increases with all of the above; And most importantly, cost. If the above list looks familiar to you, it's no coincidence - these are all key considerations in aircraft design. But the star of the show here is cost. Cost is the great constraint which drives challenge in this game. It keeps players from taking the easy approach, and adds in a little bit of those real-life aircraft design challenges that scratch the problem-solving itch in your brain. In sandbox-oriented games such as SimplePlanes, it is all too easy to solve problems by simply bolting on more stuff. Not enough thrust? Just slap on one extra engine. Not enough fuel? Make the whole thing larger. And while it can also be fun to conceive hilariously oversized aircraft, try convincing an airline to buy a slightly more fuel-hungry jetliner; there's a reason the trijet era is over. Of course, Aviassembly is not the first in its genre to include a cost calculation; but more often than not in such games, cost is merely another number for your creation’s stat sheet. The touch that sets Aviassembly apart is combining that cost and other limitations with a set of missions to be accomplished. In other words: we have our design constraints, and we have our design requirements - this is the very core of what aircraft conceptual design is all about! Starting off, you have very limited resources, both in terms of credits and unlocked parts. The only wings available to you are small, flimsy and appropriately named “biplane wings”, so I immediately set out to create the most conventional-looking biplane I could. However, remember the limitation with part placement? Yeah.  Oh. Oh no. Building a simple biplane - one with reasonably positioned wings, at least - was a herculean task. Eventually I settled for pulling a card from the Transavia Airtruk’s playbook - choosing the enclosed cockpit part, I positioned the upper wings around the cabin, resulting in a workable, but quite funky airplane. Looking at my unsightly, yet adorable creation, I decided “Scrunklo” would be an appropriate name. And thus, the newly christened Scrunklo Mk. I took to the skies. It flew, and handled reasonably well - however, flying an airplane for the first time in this game made me acutely aware of a few issues. The first was that there is absolutely no thrust modulation. The engines have three possible states: full send , off, and full reverse. The second issue was that said engines consume fuel at a prodigious rate, meaning that your time on the throttle is measured in seconds .  This means that, to get anywhere, one must apply “blips” of power and then effectively glide the rest of the way, which feels extremely wrong and uncomfortable if you're used to how aircraft engines are supposed to work. To add insult to injury, there are no brakes in this game - the only two things that can stop you on a runway are regular friction and full reverse thrust. So, a deadstick landing means severely degraded braking distance. In Aviassembly, you'll likely be doing a lot of your flying with the engine out. Ouch. After getting used to treating my little prop-engined biplane like an Me 163 Komet, I was soon faced with my first task: to deliver two crates of medicine (two units of cargo) to a nearby airport. The Scrunklo Mk. I was perfectly capable of doing just that, though its painfully short range meant I had to hop between each and every airport for longer flights. Soon enough, however, the tasks started requiring more and more cargo to be delivered - and no, you cannot deliver them in two flights carrying half each. Naturally, this led to the stretching of the fuselage to make room for more cargo, resulting in the Scrunklo Mk. II. This aircraft suffered from two main issues, though: when fully loaded, it would struggle to take off, and needed to be flown at a much higher speed. This meant more fuel consumption, and therefore a fully loaded Mk. II could only barely make it between most airports. Clearly, a complete redesign was in order - I had reached the limits of what this biplane design could offer. Thankfully, the completed missions allowed me enough research points to unlock new parts - I invested in new wings, external fuel tanks (the only way to increase fuel capacity in the game) and a new cockpit, which carried 4 cargo units by itself - a significant boost in capacity which would otherwise have required a much larger fuselage. Aerodynamics in Aviassembly are modelled in an extremely simplified manner; you're not going to be talking about Cl or Cd anytime soon, and reference areas do not exist as it's impossible to choose wing area to begin with. However, each wing part comes with its own fixed lift and drag “values”, which allows one to deduce the lift-to-drag ratio for each choice. Each new wing you research offers a substantial increase in L/D. This was exactly what I needed - except this is accompanied by an equally significant increase in cost. As it turns out, after equipping the new wings and cockpit I barely had enough funds left. To make matters worse, since the new cockpit was a nose piece, a nose-mounted engine was not an option - I chose the traditional twin-engine, wing-mounted layout, but after adding the cost of two engines, I had almost nothing left for the fuselage. The result of this ordeal was the one and only Twin Scrunklo Mk. III - or as I prefer calling it, The Egg. Straight out of an eggplane model kit! This super-deformed caricature of an airplane actually performed extremely well in-game - way better than it had any right to. It performed so unbelievably well, in fact, that even after getting more funds, I chose to upgrade it instead of going for a clean sheet design. Thus, when funds allowed for a slight extension of the fuselage and extra fuel tanks, it was turned into the Twin Scrunklo Mk. IV, with two extra cargo unit capacity - and after researching brand new engines with the funds acquired from the Mk. IV's successful operation, the Twin Scrunklo Mk. V was born. With more power, extended range thanks to four extra fuel tanks, and a whopping cargo capacity of 9 units, the Mk. V was the pinnacle of my Aviassembly experience. It handled beautifully and had more than enough performance to carry me through most of the playthrough. I regretted only that the game did not offer retractable landing gear, leading to the fixed gear ruining the Twin Scrunklo's clean, egg-shaped lines. Look at how adorable it is! At this point, a new mission popped up - to bring glass from the desert. Now, the desert is a far away place in Aviassembly, hidden behind a vast expanse of ocean - attempting to traverse it with any of the previous aircraft would have been pointless (remember, endurance measured in seconds), but now, I finally had an aircraft with a range up to the task. If there was one machine that could do it, that would be the Twin Scrunklo Mk. V. So I pointed my aircraft towards the distant desert and began my journey. The Mk. V would have had enough fuel to reach its destination - but alas, the area is out-of-bounds in the demo. Upon approaching it, one is greeted by a warning telling you to turn back or else - curious as always, I kept flying until my aircraft was expeditiously disassembled, but not before I got a glimpse of the coastline off in the distance. I wonder what happens when that timer hits zero... It would obviously not be possible to complete that one task - but there was still more to be done in the accessible map area. I was determined to finish every single possible task, and so I got to working on the next goal: transporting 12 cargo units. All good things must come to an end; and so it was that I no longer had funds to further stretch the Twin Scrunklo to a point where it could've carried 12 cargo units. I had to eliminate cost elsewhere in order to be able to afford a larger fuselage - and the engines were by far the most expensive part. If I could use a single engine, there was comfortably enough room in the budget for a 12-unit fuselage. However, I was still using that nose cockpit with its sweet 4 cargo capacity as a freebie, so I could not mount the engine on the nose. The obvious solution was a pusher configuration. However, upon rolling the Push-Scrunklo Mk. VI to the runway, I was hit by a shocking realization: Aviassembly uses the engine as the aircraft's directional reference, not the cockpit. This is the default camera view with a pusher configuration aircraft. This meant that the camera was facing backwards, but even worse, all controls were inverted. To go forward, I had to apply full reverse thrust and fly "backwards". Flying this way was obviously an unreasonable proposition, and thus with a heavy heart I had to abandon the pusher concept. At this point, I was at a loss. How was I supposed to use a single engine if I couldn't mount it on the nose, didn't have any pylons I could mount it on, but also couldn't use it in a pusher configuration? Of course, there was an answer. There always is. I felt cheated by the game, taking away such a basic design choice; but there was another way to look at it - as just another design constraint. Incidentally, I have spent the last handful of years in university learning to work with strict and sometimes unusual aircraft design constraints. Undeterred, I went back to the drawing board and told myself: Unreasonable constraints require unreasonable solutions. And thus, the madness began. I hope Burt Rutan would be proud of me, because I'm really not. Enter the Scrunklo Asimetrico Mk. VII. By choosing an asymmetric configuration, it was possible to employ a single engine in a tractor arrangement, with plenty of fuselage volume for cargo to boot. Takeoffs were difficult due to the far off-center engine - again, being unable to resize wings was a major hurdle here, forcing the two fuselages to be way far apart - but otherwise, the plane handled just fine in the air. However, when fully loaded with cargo, the underpowered, heavy and draggy airplane struggled. It responded sluggishly and was extremely slow; and though it was able to complete one of the 12-cargo missions, it lacked the range for the other one. Further out-of-the-box thinking was required. Fortunately, giants of the past allow us to see further by standing on their shoulders. Of course! The Trislander! I exclaimed in joy. The Trislander has one of its engines mounted directly on the vertical tail - that was the solution to my problem. By employing a tail-mounted engine, the Scrunklander Mk. VIII avoided its predecessor's asymmetric thrust, and by concentrating its cargo in a single, wider fuselage, enjoyed a great reduction in weight and drag. The far smaller number of parts used also lowered cost, freeing up the budget for the acquisition of extra fuel tanks. The Mk. VIII flew a lot better than it arguably should have, and completed the other 12-cargo challenge thanks to its extended range. Now, only the two final challenges remained - after these were done, I would have officially completed every single possible challenge in the demo. The final challenges consisted of delivering 15 wood and 12 apples to the Hospital on the far south of the map. The wood wasn't a huge problem - even though it can only be sourced on the northwest, one can easily design an aircraft solely focused on payload and compensate for its short range by "hopping" between airports along the way for refueling stops. For this purpose, it was sufficient to employ a conventional configuration; one so conventional and reasonable in fact, that it did not feel like a continuation of the Scrunklo series. Therefore, it was christened the Transportador Mk. I, and apart from the minor inconvenience of having its landing gear collapse on landing when fully loaded, it was an otherwise trouble-free aircraft. The apples, however, are a different story. Apple delivery missions are essentially time trials; as soon as you pick them up, the clock starts ticking. After the timer reaches zero, the apples go bad and can no longer be delivered. There is only one source for apples in the currently available map - a farm on the far northeast - and apparently, instead of picking their apples, they prefer waiting for them to drop to the ground instead, as the time before they rot is measured in seconds. Compounded with the fuel limitation hindering full throttle use, this makes apple deliveries truly challenging. My beloved Twin Scrunklo Mk. V had carried me through all other apple delivery missions so far, but it would no longer be enough this time. I needed something extremely fast, with 12 cargo unit capacity (33% more than the Mk. V!), and with enough fuel to fly from the far north to the far south of the map non-stop. And I needed it within budget. I needed something radically different. A wise man once said that airplanes are beautiful, but cursed dreams. I disagreed on the last part; Aviassembly proved him right through my own hands. Gaze upon the Scrunklo Mk. IX - the ultimate apple delivery machine . With two wings arranged in a tandem configuration, a long fuselage capable of holding all the apples you could ever need, two powerful engines and enough fuel to enable this contraption to cross the entire map without ever needing to stop for refueling - and almost without letting off the throttle - this ugly ducking was my ticket to the swan song of this demo. Almost there... Notice the timer on the bottom right. Apples delivered in the nick of time! The Mk. XI had worked far better than I had ever anticipated, and I had reached the demo's end. This was it - there was nothing else to be done. Or was there? See, as soon as you complete these two big deliveries to the hospital, the game bestows upon you enough research points to unlock all available parts - and, crucially, with enough credits to be able to build essentially anything you want. And when I realized the possibilities that lay before me, I thought back to that desert. Sure, it was pointless to try to complete the forbidden glass pickup mission. The area was clearly off-bounds - even if I managed to land, it wouldn't be possible to take off and leave the area in time. But still, I had seen a glimpse of a coastline, and I wanted to know whether the desert airport had already been modelled or not. No - I needed to know. And therefore, I made it my mission to reach the desert. It was time to play around with some configurations; at first, I tried a mostly conventional-looking business jet. However, with its thristy turbojets and small fuel tanks, it lacked the range to make it there. And at this point, I had already made so many cursed designs - what was one more? It was time to go all out. I didn't really need a big fuselage - no cargo would be carried today. Only fuel, an efficient turbofan engine, and the tiniest fuselage possible. With this configuration, I finally had all the range I could ever possibly need. However, it wasn't fast enough to make it to the desert in time. The solution was obvious: Now that the game was essentially a sandbox, not unlike SimplePlanes, I could use the tried-and-true Kerbal approach to problem solving: MORE. THRUST. Behold the Super Scrunklo Mk. X. This little abomination not only has incredible range, being able to easily cross the demo map without refueling, but is also disgustingly zippy. It should not be allowed to perform this well, but the fact that it does supports my personal theory that eggplanes are the current Aviassembly meta. You may not like it, but this is what peak Aviassembly performance looks like. Now armed with this ludicrously overperforming craft, I set out to accomplish my ultimate goal. Lo and behold... The desert airbase, in fact, exists! And it is fully modelled. It just hasn't been implemented in the game yet. Naturally, my creation was vaporized by the timer shortly after this print was taken, and I didn't manage to land on the desert runway; but having entertained my curiosity and pushed the limits of the game this far, I was finally satisfied. And thus, the Super Scrunklo was peacefully retired from service alongside its funky, egg-shaped, and asymmetric brethren. Final Considerations Unfortunately, as of its current state as a demo, Aviassembly fails to capitalize on its very solid and interesting premise. But allow me to reiterate; the game hasn't been released yet, and the core concept is very, very promising. With some tweaks to the construction system, a few quality-of-life additions, and some parameter adjustments - for instance, reducing engine fuel consumption in exchange for reduced power, allowing players to cruise on continuous power instead of "pulsing" their engines - I am confident this can become a very solid game. All in all, I had lots of fun trying to circumvent the game's limitations and trying to see just how far I could push it - and what I could get away with. If you're interested in this genre, I strongly encourage you to try the demo out!

There are only a select group of aircraft that are universally considered to be legendary, be it for their technological advancements, involvement in a famous conflict or even its role in mass media and entertainment. One of these legendary aircraft is, without a doubt, the famous F-4E Phantom II, due to its involvement in Vietnam and the countless countries it fought for. Thanks to Heatblur Simulations, we have the chance to fly this monster in DCS. Released this Wednesday (05/22/2024) after a series of unexpected delays, this Cold War workhorse rapidly climbed in popularity as thousands of DCS players rushed to buy it and download it. We did not get media access to this module, therefore our review will consist of a first impressions approach to all the aspects of this module from a pilot-oriented POV. We will update this review as new versions get released, as well as whenever it receives new systems and/or new features like weapons. With this out of the way, let's begin! EDITS MADE: 09/04/2024 --- ORIGINAL POST DATE: 05/25/2024 EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL 3D MODELS To say that Heatblur raised the bar with this release would be an understatement, and a disservice to this module. The developers and artists have completely outdone themselves in this department, and it is evident that their workflow is one that guaranteed the highest quality possible. Everything from the gorgeous curves and complex shapes of mechanical parts suck as the landing gear, to the unreal normalmaps that make everything come to life. All the small details, such as the remove before flight covers being installed on cold and dark aircraft, the strings flying in the wind, the hoses and cables from the Dash 60 connecting to the aircraft when external power and air are connected, etc. It is these touches that make Heatblur, well, Heatblur. That recognizable obsession with detail. The only two modules that come even close to this level of quality are RAZBAM's F-15E and Heatblur's own F-14A/B; which has been the standard of quality until recently. That being said, it is clear that the Tomcat has been surpassed in every level possible by its younger and older cousin, the F-4E Phantom II. Here, have a look for yourself: The cockpit is just sublime as well, with textures that leave me stunned as a fellow 3D/2D artist. The laser scans did wonders for the quality of this model, something which shows up clearly in the masterfully done normals and diffuse from the texture, as well as the work done with the roughmets. Both pilot and WSO pits are close to what I would consider to be works of art, and so, I would prefer you be the judge since beauty is in the eyes of the beholder: Daytime Nighttime VISUAL AND SOUND EFFECTS This is, usually, a make-or-break category for me. It is through visual and sound effects that digital aircraft come to life, and thankfully, it seems that Heatblur have once again struck gold with their work on F-4E. Visually, it is nothing short of impressive, both externally and internally. The cockpit feels tangible, especially with the shaking of the individual cockpit elements throughout the entire flight, from taxi to landing and everything in between. You can hear the cockpit rattle and quake when you subject the aircraft to high G or high AoA scenarios, something that helps immensely to supplant the lack of physical feedback that real pilots would have had. It is nothing but astounding. Externally, the most impressive part to us only shines when you subject the aircraft to some degree of Gs and AoA: The wing vapor. This has got to be the most brilliant display of volumetrics in any module so far. It is a spectacle and one that we adore. The engine sound quality, which is a Heatblur staple, is present and as strong as ever. You can hear your engine go through its RPM range and, by ear, determine in which position your throttle is currently in. The afterburners are loud, and they do a characteristic "pop" sound when first engaged, something that has aided in determining if one has passed the detent or not. This type of feedback is nothing short of excellent, and aids in the sensation of flight that this module brings to the table. FLIGHT MODELING DISCLAIMER:  This is always a tough category, as like with any other aircraft, there is a lot to take into consideration other than just the feel of the flight model. This category is the most subjective one in this article, as I do not have any real world experience with this craft. I will only base my opinion on practical experience and knowledge of practical aerodynamics and the theoretical behavior that an F-4E should have under certain scenarios. With the disclaimer out of the way, it is important to note that the Phantom is one of the best aircraft I have ever flown in DCS, and by a long shot. By this, I mean that it flies exactly how I expect a Phantom to fly: like a brick with wings. Flying this hunk of metal is a weird experience, something akin to riding a mildly intoxicated bull. Sometimes it is calm, and it lets you just hang out with him, in others it just straight up tries to murder you with evil intent. The power coming from the J79s is palpable, and you will feel the thrust come when you engage those afterburners. Sometimes it feels like it wants nothing but to fly in a straight line, and to do it as fast as possible. This aircraft is the happiest when you are flying straight and not maneuvering much, something that is evident the moment you break that calm to enter a dogfight, or go defensive after being engaged. She will pretend to be ok, she will try to be composed through the maneuver; but the moment you pull enough AoA and you deflect those spoilers and ailerons, that moment is when she will let you know who is in charge. You need to use your rudder to roll under high AoA scenarios, especially if you want to avoid rolling inverted in the middle of your dogfight. These effects can somewhat be minimized by a new system that Heatblur has implemented: the stick deflection limit. This system, which is accessible through the Special menu, will limit the maximum force you are able to exert over the stick, allowing for smoother control inputs for the pilot. This, as well as the blending option, make the experience better for those of us that do not have force feedback sticks. MISSION CAPABILITIES This is a 3rd generation aircraft, and one which is usually considered to be the first "multirole" aircraft in US inventory. This means that, unlike other fighters of the era, it was somewhat capable of performing different types of missions in the same sortie. While this is technically true, the Phantom is still very much limited in this regard. You will be capable of doing both air-to-air, air-to-ground, SEAD and even anti-shipping missions with limited all-weather capabilities, which will be determined by your loadout and mission at hand. That being said, we want to make something very clear: this is no Viper, or Hornet, or Mudhen. It is not capable of performing stand-off attacks outside effective SAM ranges, nor is it capable of true modern BVR engagements. It is still a 3rd generation fighter-bomber with lots of capabilities, but all limited to the technology of the era it was built on. You still have some "modern" luxuries, such as TV guided bombs and even a very early TGP for self-lasing and ranging, but if you come in expecting to be able to use that TGP the same way you would a LITENING pod, you are not in the right place. You will have the tools for the job it was built for, and she will make you work for it. ARMAMENT M61 VULCAN 20mm CANNON + SUU-23 GUNPOD The defining characteristic of the F-4E model is its inclusion of a nose-mounted cannon! You have around 600 rounds with each rearm, so make them count. You can vary its fire rate to give you a bit more time on trigger. Not only that, but you can also mount an additional THREE M61s with the SUU-23 pods, neat! AIM-9 SIDEWINDER The classic heat-seeker missile is back for more, now with the Phantom. You can equip it on dual-racks on pylons 2 and 8, for a total of 4 missiles. It comes in many flavors: AIM-9B AIM-9J AIM-9JULI (better J) AIM-9L AIM-9M AIM-9P AIM-9P3 AIM-9P5 Captive AIM- 9M (for those that like to practice dogfighting) AIM-7 SPARROW Your only radar-guided missile, and it is of the Semi-Active-Radar-Homing (SARH) variety. This will be your lifeline during dogfights and longer-ranged engagements, bordering even on BVR ranges. You have some flavors: AIM-7E AIM-7E2 AIM-7F AIM-7M IRON BOMBS, CLUSTER MUNITIONS AND RUNWAY PENETRATORS You better get used to these, as they are the bread and butter of air-to-ground engagements with the Phantom. To say you have a variety to choose from would be wrong, you have more: Mk.81 (250lbs x 24), 82 (500lbs x 24), 83 (1000lbs x 13) and 84 (2000lbs x 5) M117 750lbs x 17 BLU-107/B Penetrators x 12 CBU-87 Clusters x 14 CBU-52 Clusters x 12 (NEW) CBU-1 & CBU-2 Dispensers x 5 Mk.20 Cluster x12 UNGUIDED ROCKETS Nyom goes the rocket! You have some variants to choose from: LAU-3 pods with 19 FFAR 2'75in rockets each x 15 pods. Total of 285 FFARs! LAU-68 with 7 FFAR 2'75in rockets each x 6 pods. Total of 42 FFARs. LASER GUIDED BOMBS One of the first aircraft to ever deploy laser guided bombs in combat was the F-4! Now you get to use these same bombs, plus some more modern ones: GBU-12 (500lbs x 6), GBU-10 (2000lbs x 4) GBU-24 (2000lbs Penetrator x 4) TV GUIDED BOMBS The most advanced weapons that the Phantom can employ. Longer ranges and effective optical guidance even with slow moving targets. These come in two very distinct variants: (NEW) GBU-8 HOBOS (2000lbs) (NEW) AGM-62A Walleye I & AGM-62B Walleye II AGM-45A SHRIKE (NEW) One of the first anti-radiation missiles, this will be your main weapon when dealing with SEAD missions. Unlike the AGM-88 HARM, it will require some pre-planning on your part as it has interchangeable seekers, all of which are designed to lock onto different radar bands. You can only see what the seeker sees, so you better choose the correct seeker for your target. AGM-12 BULLPUP (NEW) A unique missile, the Bullpup is guided through direct radio commands! You will have to fly the missile to its target manually by alinging the flare at the end of the missile with your target. AGM-65 MAVERICK The classic air to ground missile, now quirkier than ever. Easy to use, reliable and effective. You have three variants to choose from: AGM-65A (OPTICAL SEEKER) AGM-65B (OPTICAL SEEKER) AGM-65D (INFRARED SEEKER) EASE OF USE AND LEARNING CURVE This module, for better or worse, has a variable learning curve depending on how you play it. For pilots, this module will be very simple to learn and use. This applies to both pilots with Jester as a WSO or even those that will have a human WSO. The front cockpit is not complicated and the workflows are very straight forward, no matter the weapon. It is mostly a hands-on experience that will have you wanting for more. We already tackled how this aircraft flies, so no need to repeat that here. For dedicated WSOs, this module can be a bit of a challenge. The radar in the Phantom is not as advanced as more contemporary aircraft such as the F-16 or even the F-14, so it will require constant tweaking and adjusting just to be able to get through the ground clutter to identify a target. It is no easy feat, and I admire those that will learn how to operate this radar. It is a masterpiece of simulation and I am proud of what JNelson has done with it, since he was its primary coder as far as I know. That being said, I fall more on the pilot side of things. Jester 2.0 makes everything very easy and, without his presence, this module would have not likely been a released. The Phantom, just like the Tomcat, is a team effort. They are aircraft designed to be crewed by a two-man crew, a team that will delegate tasks and work together. This is what Jester accomplishes, and brilliantly. It is easy to use and, for the most part, it is a breeze to use all of its quirks and features. EDIT 9/4/2024: In addition to all of this, the Phantom now has dedicated keybinds for the radar boresight mode, which used to be exclusive for human RIOs as there was no way for pilots to tell Jester to activate them. Within Visual Range (WVR) fights have become a breeze with this mode, and the AIM-7s are now deadlier than ever. You should definitely give these modes a try and see how much they change the dynamic of air warfare with the Phantom. It is rather impressive to see what some of these missiles can do now. Head on shots are much more reliable, and with such ease in the execution of the shots. IS THIS AIRCRAFT FOR YOU? If what you want in a module is: An amazing cold war experience. A professionally made flight model that is trueto life. A module that will change the way you see simulators. A period-accurate flying experience that will have you at the center of the fight. If you don't mind: The accurate 3rd Generation fighter pilot experience. Interpreting the radar blobs. Having to improve as a pilot to dogfight in a flying brick. Not being able to fight well in BVR engagements. If all or some of the above is what you want, then Heatblur's F-4E Phantom II is for you. About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

"The squirrels are now fully targetable, as intended." -Paper Planes Version 0.1.1 Patch Note This is one of the most out there patch notes you will see out of a flight game, but that is the type of energy Paper Planes by Creekside Interactive is bringing. This game launched into early access on Steam on January 5th, 2025. Though some of the earliest mentions of the game can be traced back to May 2024 in their Discord server , it has actually been in development in some form years before that. Starting sometime in 2021. Since then, the two-person indie development team has steadily made progress and took a few creative risks until Paper Planes finally reached early access at the start of 2025. My congratulations to the development team for sticking with a long term project and seeing it through. It really is not as easy as it looks. We wrote about the demo for this game during Planes, Trains and Automobiles Fest 2024. Shortly before early access release Creekside Interactive reached out to Skyward Flight Media to inform us of their upcoming release and offered Steam keys for review. We had a pretty decent time with the demo for this rather unconventional flight game, so we took the offer to review the game. This review was written with no communication between Skyward Flight Media and Creekside Interactive about our thoughts on the game. All opinions stated here are unaffected by external sources. The Vibe A moderator on our Discord team named 'Prov', who has also been providing feedback on Paper Planes, summed up the feeling of the game pretty well. He expressed that it felt like an early 2000s game. After a brief discussion, a few older games came to mind. The common thread being that they were willing to present an approachable game, not steeped in a complicated story that would just let outlandish scenarios playout with a few questionable jokes or swagger heavy narration. A type of game really anyone could pick up and learn in just a few minutes. Becoming familiar with the controls and game mechanics in just a session or two. Paper Planes is a pure arcade experience built for quick combat, fast flying and few other things to slow the experience down. The Levels Each level in Paper Planes is as whacky as you might imagine them to be. With no story having to connect each level together, they are an eclectic mix. The level designs are so unconventional, part of the experience is just taking in the sights. There is a constant level of curiosity about what is around every corner or what is behind each object. At launch, the levels include Backyard, Bedroom, Mushroom Forest, Plane Park and Volcanic Ruin. Their names are straightforward and describe exactly what to expect. Though Plane Park and Volcanic Ruin have two derivatives specifically made for air racing in the Time Trial game mode. Each level has built in environmental hazards. Things like backyard grills, model battleships, baseball pitching machines, bubbling lava and medieval trebuchets flinging what seem to be mushrooms that explode in colorful flashes; just to name a few. In my opinion, the most dangerous "hostile force" in each level is easily the world boundary. It appears with enough warning. However, colliding with it is instant death. Even grazing it. There are times I wish the barrier would cause gradual damage over time for being outside of it, but the barrier itself is not an issue. Aircraft, Flight The toy aircraft are made of paper, wood, rubber bands, foam, plastic and maybe a touch of electronics. They can carry rubber band blasters, guided rockets and pick up many other types of weapons and gadgets by picking up power ups. The designs vary from nostalgia familiar to original designs to being slightly IP adjacent. Of course each design has improved flight characteristics that are unique to each aircraft, but I feel as though I did not unlock enough of them to give a decent description of a majority of them. There is a reason for this explained in the "Building, Shopping" section of this review. Examples of all player controlled aircraft. (Creekside Interactive X.com) What I can discuss is the flight model and controls. If the balsa wood and Styrofoam fighters did not tip you off, this is a pure flight arcade game. Turn rates of aircraft do change depending on air speed and these toy aircraft slowly float down to the earth when the throttle setting is set to zero and the airspeed drops to zero. But do not expect anything more complicated beyond that. Each aircraft has a health bar that decreases as damage is taken with ammunition types able to be replenished by picking up power ups from the map. The one-time use power ups vary. They include items that regain health, improve blasters, force fields, afterburner boosts, etc. My personal favorite is a power up that adds a pair of classic paper planes that rotate around the player's aircraft and multiply its firepower. They are reminiscent of the Gradius series Options or Mobile Suit Gundam series Funnels. Styrofoam Airliner with paper plane "support fighters". A considerable problem with gameplay is related button mapping and remapping. When discussing gamepad controllers specifically, the configuration of pitch, roll, yaw and throttle functions are a point of contention. Speaking with 'Prov' again he articulated the problem succinctly, though I will expand upon it. Since the 1980s arcade flight games that use gamepads have a universally known control scheme. Pitch and roll controls are always on the left side of the controller, opposite of the face buttons. And for good reason. If the right hand is constantly manipulating flight controls that same hand could not easily interact with the face buttons of the controller without giving up control of the aircraft. Paper Planes places pitch and yaw controls on the left analog stick X and Y-axis with throttle and roll controls on the right analog stick X and Y-axis. With the throttle inputs requiring to be assigned to an axis with no option to assign them onto a pair of buttons, the result is an odd split thumbstick control scheme where flight controls are split between two thumbsticks. It is a system that can be learned, but for players that may be used to a specific style of control scheme, adapting to this unusual control scheme could be something that bounces them off the game before getting deeper into it. Fortunately the Creekside Interactive developers are very receptive to feedback on Steam and in their Discord . They know that Paper Planes will need more work over time. Feel free to give them more direct feedback on this and any other improvements. Building, Shopping The way this game handles building and buying aircraft is something I enjoy seeing. I am very much used to the clinical item selection style screen most flight arcade games use. Paper Planes uses a real world style model shop which players walk through using keyboard and mouse controls. In the early access version of the shop, players can use Coins to purchase raw materials to build a plane on the crafting table (foam, glue, wood, cans, etc.) or buy one preassembled. Alternatively, players can purchase materials from the shop one item at a time or get those items through gameplay. I like this system, but fully admit that it really can only fit in a few specific types of games. At first the cost of a few of the aircraft or items seems daunting, but as players engage in gameplay the rate at which materials are gathered isn't that terrible. Building or buying one of the high level aircraft made of cans or electronics will certainly take a concerted effort that cannot be interrupted by randomly buying aircraft along the way. Progressively buying aircraft is not something that is a part of game progress in the way that, say, the Ace Combat series does it. During the review I made it a point to do as much as possible with the starter aircraft and there were not hard limits to prevent a player from being successful. More advanced planes make gameplay more engaging with noticeable performance boosts, but the starter plane is still serviceable throughout the game. Domination The primary combat focused game mode available in single player and multiplayer. Each level has a set difficulty with options to adjust the number of enemies fought at a time. The enemies are unique to each level, each with their own means to attack the player. Some are ferocious looking magma creatures that throw balls of magma that can be shot out of their hands. Others are squirrels in miniature hot air balloons throwing nuts. The smaller enemies take an equal amount of damage no matter where they are struck. Besides the default blasters, they can also be hit by missiles. Of note, the blasters have a longer attack range than the missiles. It is possible to get many hits in from a longer distance before gradually entering counterattack range. The missiles are harder hitting than the blasters of course and can be fired slightly off boresight. Meaning they can be utilized while flying evasively. Barrel rolling past a stunned Magma Fiend. While the smaller enemies vary in design and type of attack they are not as extravagant as the boss characters players fight if they are successful in fighting surviving the first half of the mission. Very useful when multiple enemies attack a player at once. The boss battles are legitimate boss battles. They are similar to the types you would expect from a role playing game. Expect them to take a decent amount of time to clear. Of course harder hitting weapons can make it go a bit faster. There are a few phases of the battle that unfold as a boss takes an increasing amount of damage. Most bosses have specific parts that can be targeted. Some of these spots gradually weaken them or remove specific abilities for them to attack or defend themselves. The bosses are also tailor made per level. For example, the children's room is overseen by a one eyed Teddy Bear named Mr. Snuffles who throws toys while being escorted by laser packing robots. It occasionally tries to belly flop onto the player. On the more traditional end of the spectrum, there is an oversized flying fortress called the B-19 Hercules. This aircraft is covered in turrets, backed by a rotary-style missile launcher and some type of... object projection system? It is as visually intense as it is complicated to explain. Time Trial The air racing portion of the game still includes weapons to complicate things for other players. Players are timed against themselves or other players with speed boosts and power ups spread across the map. Even at the "Normal" airspeed, players have mere seconds to make snap decisions. Squeaking their aircraft between obstacles in the pursuit of staying as fast as possible at all times. The general airspeed of the aircraft can also be increased before each race, making them more challenging. I did not get too deep into the Time Attack portion of Paper Planes. Not because it is low quality, but because of my own lukewarm interest in game modes like this. I'd say try it yourself and form your own opinion. Free Roam The easiest game mode, purpose built for exploring said imaginative levels. Players can take their time to explore every detail of the maps. In my opinion, a flight game's Free Flight mode is one of the least used game modes. Once you've seen the terrain a few times, why go back, right? The developers of Paper Planes made one of the most forward thinking decisions I have seen in some time. Players are further encouraged to explore every nook and cranny by being able to find Coins and build materials to use in the in-game Shop. These items are just freely floating in the levels. Some of these maps yield decently large amounts of a specific materials or coins, making it worthwhile to revisit these maps outside of the other combat inclusive game modes. To me it is similar to material farming in a different genre of games. Sometimes you do not want to lock in for a long play session where a few boss fights will be inevitable. Slipping in a free flight or two to make progress towards building your next desired aircraft is a nice experience. Free Roam in the bedroom after shooting the light switch is the best. Closing Paper Planes by Creekside Interactive has very few things working against it in terms of gameplay, beyond the current button mapping restrictions. But again, I doubt that will be a permanent issue. Overall my experience was positive with the game. After taking time to learn the control scheme and fly full force into the concept and settings, I do feel like the game somewhat stands on its own among its peers in terms of creativity and willingness to simply try things that would be considered far outside of the box for other flight games. For the cost of $9.99 USD, it is quite a bit of content at launch for a game this size. The development team is already working on the next wave of content post release, which I do look forward to trying myself. Paper Planes Links Discord - Steam - X.com Defeating a boss is often spectacular! About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

Original Post : 11/20/2021 | Major Update : 2/15/2025 Art on combat aircraft featuring beautiful women is an image that has been etched into aviation history. It is easy to conjure up a mental picture of Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, or any other "bombshell" beauty on the side of an American World War II heavy bomber. In this day and age, people that partake in flight games and simulators have seen fewer examples of classic aircraft pinup nose art on social media and more of something like... 2D characters splashed across the wings of glittering fighter jets. What seems to have started as a one-off crossover has become somewhat of a tradition in its own right. This phenomenon began in 2007 and has now spread far beyond the first series that introduced them on aircraft. It is about time someone provided a thorough explanation about where this trend of "wing waifus" came from and how it persists. “Painful” Roots Itasha (ee-tah-sha; イタ車) is a Japanese slang term used to describe this practice. Combining the words for “pain” and “vehicle,” it is used to describe highly decorated vehicles with the tone of the term being along the lines of “painfully embarrassing,” “painful for the wallet,” “painful to look at” or to use a modern Western term “cringeworthy.” This term is mainly used in jest by those who partake in the hobby directly. The origins of this real-world practice vary, but generally it is accepted that its roots came from Japan in the 1980s. Back then, people would decorate their cars externally and internally with stickers, plushies, and similar memorabilia usually dedicated to one subject or individual. As Japanese anime became increasingly popular worldwide in the mid-2000s, some of the first reports of highly decorated cars appearing at conventions began in 2005. They spawned its own automotive-focused conventions, similar to car shows, in 2007. Nowadays, it’s an international practice; these vehicles can be found in just about any country. It is well beyond just slapping a few stickers on the bumper. Even high-performance cars are purchased with custom wraps, body kits, and racing-grade hardware to take their presentation to the next level. The amount of money expended on a single itasha can easily reach tens or hundreds of thousands of US dollars when it is fully assembled. Depending on the complexity of the final product. This video from Zoom Out Media and DIY timelapse of a complete wrap by L-Dragon provide further examples. On the professional level, itasha cars are sponsored by companies to promote products, events, individuals and are used by racing teams. Good Smile Racing Team 2017 GT300 Champions. The real world itasha cars have inspired many to create elaborate liveries for cars in games like Need for Speed, Forza, and similar titles. It is in this same vein that we begin to understand how this transferred to aircraft. Let’s use terms like ita-aircraft or ita-planes to describe them for our purposes. Before we get to that, there’s something that should be addressed. In the beginning, the inclusion of the first itasha themed aircraft into a certain game was considered an easter egg by those that did not understand the concept. Addressing this briefly, an easter egg is a sort of reference, clue, or inside joke placed into audio or visual media. A type of wink and nod to others that understand it that’s usually done subtlety. For example, the Ridge Racer and Tekken are well-known purveyors of references to other Bandai-Namco-owned video games. Its easter eggs are for many games from as early as the 1980s up to their recent titles. They are referenced in billboards, logos, racing teams, vehicle manufacturers, background scenery, and advertisements on buildings. Itasha vs Pin Up   Directly equating pin up nose art to the itasha style is not correct. You could say that the pin up art style is more accepted globally as compared to the more recent itasha style. It is associated with aircrews in combat going as far back as World War II. Though, even during the rarely regulated nose art of that time period, the art remained in a relatively small area on the aircraft. Famously on the sides of the nose of aircraft. Modern examples echo the storied style of these pin ups, albeit with regulations on the messages they communicate, how explicit they can be and their size. The itasha style is designed for no other purpose than openly conveying an overwhelming interest in something or someone. For a majority of people that see them, these aircraft are perhaps some of the gaudiest creatures to ever take to the skies. Covered from nose to tail with high visibility paint, interesting patterns, shimmering stars, stripes, hearts, and collages. It is hard to ignore them. Which is the point. Below are three pictures of an F/A-18C Hornet in the itasha style and an F-5E-3 Tiger II with a traditional pin up style for comparison. Each livery designed to show support for the same subject. Note the juxtaposition. F/A-18C designed by Cubeboy / F-5E designed by Hueman / Pictures by Hueman The Idol Master The inspirational source for the first ita-aircraft liveries. The Idol Master (stylized as "The iDOLM@STER", "IM@S") focuses on female and male artists on their journey to become successful idols in the music industry. This Bandai-Namco-owned series started as an arcade-only game on the Namco 246 arcade system on July 26th, 2005. IM@S comprises dozens of games, animated TV series, live-action TV series, light novels, audio dramas, manga, live concerts, virtual reality experiences, and an ever-expanding discography of music. At its core, the overall story is centered around companies and producers of aspiring idols working to become successful in the music industry. Much of the series’ initial success can be attributed to the enduring phenomenon of the Japanese idol. Since the idol boom in Japan in the 1970s, talent agencies have sought, trained, and promoted individuals and groups to have successful careers. The potential for high popularity idols is vast. Appearances in TV shows, acting in movies, becoming the face of social campaigns, stage plays, clothing lines, and many other commercial opportunities may await them. Needless to say, idols generate mobs of devoted fans that frequently put their images on itasha cars. Ace Combat: Rise of the Ita-Aircraft Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (2007) was a significant release for that series. Downloadable content (DLC) was one of many new things introduced to the Ace Combat series with this game. DLC packs would include new aircraft liveries with adjusted specifications, single player missions and multiplayer missions. November 22nd, 2007. This is where it begins. The release of DLC Pack 02 was the introduction of the first iDOLM@STER themed aircraft: Su-33 -THE IDOLMASTER MIKI-. Plastic model kit of the first IM@S aircraft. This itasha-styled livery would set the standard for all future designs. All DLC packs for Ace Combat 6 would include at least one new IM@S livery. The first iDOLM@STER game on the Xbox 360 that featured the original cast of characters was also released in 2007. The inclusion of its characters on aircraft in Ace Combat was a cross-promotional effort. The impact of these brightly colored, decal-covered aircraft was immediate. Usually, the flashiest liveries found in flight games and simulators are based on real-world flight demonstration teams, CAG birds, military exercises like Tiger Meet, or aggressor squadrons from around the globe. There had never been an aircraft in an Ace Combat game or other flight titles up to this point that had the same design. IM@S aircraft instantly garnered confusion, criticism, and a solid raft of support from the Ace Combat and Idol M@ster series fans. At the height of online activity, these aircraft were frequently seen in high-level multiplayer rooms. Opinions on their visuals aside, the benefits of their altered performance were undeniable to the point where specific IM@S aircraft became infamous. Hosts of multiplayer rooms and online competitive event planners would go as far as banning them and their users altogether. With news of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (2011) being set in the real world with a military fiction-style plot, IM@S aircraft seemed to be relegated to a one-time-only appearance. But not even the backdrop of a NATO anti-insurgency mission in Africa which turned into a military coup in Russia could halt the inclusion of IM@S aircraft as downloadable content. Additional monotone, more low-visibility style liveries were paired with updated versions of the Ace Combat 6 liveries. The most extensive inclusion of iDOLM@STER themed aircraft came with Ace Combat Infinity (2014). By the end of the game’s service on March 31st, 2018, 13 aircraft, over 40 aircraft emblems, and a set of collaboration events encompassed the IM@S presence. Ace Combat Infinity IM@S event banner. Of note is that Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, Ace Combat Infinity and Ace Combat Cross Rumble (2014) also had collaborations with Tekken, Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky and Amiibo toys for famous Namco characters like Luigi from the Super Mario series and Link from The Legend of Zelda series. Curiously, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (2019) still has not officially added ita-planes as of February 15th, 2025, though it does have emblems that can be applied to aircraft from one of the IM@S series. AC7 IM@S emblems. Coming Full Circle The animated idols of Japan may or may not make another official appearance in Ace Combat, but DLC pack from the Idolmaster: Starlit Season (2021) has shown an ADF-11 Raven fighter jet outfit available for its singing and dancing idols to wear on stage. Things truly came full circle. Community Creation The long-term presence of the ita-planes in a well-known series like Ace Combat resulted in the circulation of screenshots, videos, and fan art for many years now. Because of this influence, there are now ita-aircraft liveries for multiple games thanks to the efforts of skin modders (aka livery creators). Because they are now created by individuals outside of a game development team, they can be added to any sim the modders will commit their time and effort to. Aircraft in these liveries are now available as free to download, or paid commissions for War Thunder, ARMA 3, Ace Combat, Digital Combat Simulator, Tom Clancy’s HAWX, Flight Simulator X, X-Plane, Strike Fighters 2, World of Warplanes, Nuclear Option, VTOL VR, Project Wingman, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020/2024, VRChat, - the list goes on. The subjects of these liveries are no longer solely characters from Bandai-Namco-owned intellectual property. Now just about any anime character, comic book character, musician, show, meme, content creator, VTuber, organization, event - nothing is unheard of. The image gallery below speaks for itself. Take note of the games these are from (hover mouse over image): Indie Dev Inclusion In a rare game developer example, ita-aircraft are the standard design in the game Fatal Employee Training (2012) , developed by the Everyone in the Materials Department Doesn’t Learn their Lesson team, published by Project ICKX. Within the vast world of VRChat aviation occasionally itasha aircraft appear depending on the preferences of the world creator. These examples not only show off their devotion to whatever their hobbies and interests are, but also present aircraft of their avatars or commemorate events. VRChat aviation memorial aircraft. This memorial aircraft is for a person that was a friend of the VRChat world creator behind Aircraft Carrier Jets: F-14. It has been present since 2020. Even in 2025 it continues to fly bearing the memory of this person as the world itself continues to be one of the more consistently popular aviation experiences on the platform. Real World There are real-world aircraft that follow the itasha style. The most well-known examples involve airliners operated by national airline companies designed to show off very successful anime series. Though there are also examples of privately owned aircraft adorned in this style by their owners. An especially interesting example is a Nier Automata themed Rutan VariEze based in Torrance Airport, California, USA. The Japanese Ground Self Defense Force is also known to have utilized ita-aircraft for recruitment purposes . Creative Process (Guest Writer: Cubeboy) While these paint schemes are not for everyone, there is something about creating them that I have always enjoyed. The first ones I ever made were for IL-2 1946, and more specifically, for a couple of the modern jet mods that were available for that game. They take a significant amount of effort and planning to create them. You have to adhere to a theme, usually one that fits the character you are basing the livery around. Then you have to select your color pallet, personally I like sticking to 4 colors and 2 secondary undertones. Then you have to think about the design itself taking into consideration the UV mapping of the 3D model. The more divided it is, the harder a livery like this becomes. For this example, let's use a full-body skin I made for Zweikaku , a virtual aviator and VRChat aviation world creator: The theme for this livery was the Black Aces Squadron VVFA-41. I tried including their emblems and logos on places that would fit while also keeping an aesthetic balance between them and the main character art on the left wing. The colors I picked are the ones present in the character's clothing: maroon, dark gray, white and light pink. After the theme, design and art assets have been acquired; then I start start assembling the livery file. As you can see bellow, these kinds of liveries are not easy to assemble due to the way that the UV map has been laid out. As you can see in the image below, the 3D model for the DCS Hornet module has been divided into two main diffuses plus a couple of others for the external tanks, helmet, pilot textures, etc. Diffuse 1 includes the nose and tail sections of the fuselage, plus part of the hump and almost all the mechanical parts. Diffuse 2 includes the wings, elevons, vertical stabilizers and the mid section of the fuselage plus the back part of the hump, pylons, external model cockpit textures, etc. The hardest part, by far, is when it comes to the alignment of the character art in the wing. As you can see the wing is divided into several sections, one per movable section. It is really easy to see that these parts are not perfectly aligned, which requires a lot of tweaking and sometimes even re-drawing of the art in question. In this case, I had to play with the proportions of the character, her pose and even a bit of re-drawing on her left arm. I also included, for the first time, a complete character art. That means that the legs and feet have to be proportioned in such a way that you can imagine the entire body even when half of it is missing. That meant that I had to play with the pose of her legs in order to have them fit inside the left elevon. But after all that hard work (which included a new set of roughmet textures, engine feathers and some normalmap tweaks), you end up with something that does not look that bad , if you are into this kind of thing! Established Tradition Like it or not, the presence of itasha style aircraft in flight games and simulators has been established and perpetuated since 2007. Whether they’re original fans of the Idol Master aircraft or creators expressing devotion to their interests, people continue bringing these designs to every place they take to the skies. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

What do you think would be the best way to get back into playing a game properly? Maybe some of you are thinking about going to a training mission, or playing something simple to get reacquainted with the mechanics; and both are sane and responsible options. Not me, though. No. I decided that, to get back into the loop, that it would be great to drag some of my best friends with me on a blind, over 250 mile strike mission in DCS with no prior warning. A mission that also ended up being a nighttime operation, the first one we have flown in more than a year. Admittedly, I was a bit hesitant to get us to do this op, but with a bit of reassurance from one of our friends, Wyvern, I decided that we could do it. The mission would be simple: We were to fly into enemy territory, way behind enemy lines and strike a group of stationary targets of strategic importance (factories, outposts, etc.) and then come back. We would take up from Liwa AFB and head north to rendezvous with a pair of tankers, then head into the objective area once we had all topped off. Skyward crew lines up and waits right before take-off. While all of this sounds nice and dandy, the main issue lies in the time of day this op was going to take place: nighttime. For many of us, this would have been our first flightsim op at night in ages, and the first for at least one. While the sane of mind would have called off this strike, we all decided to go ahead and commit to it. We lost one of ours, Erika, on take-off, while the rest got up in the air. We all got up to speed and headed towards our first waypoint, which was our rendezvous with the tankers. By the time we get to the tankers, it is pitch black. I briefly lost connection, so I missed the chaos that was air-to-air refueling at night with two mentally unstable tankers. I was told they drifted left and right, going over 400kts IAS, banking as if they were at an airshow in the 70s. It was absolute madness, but somehow my friends Hueman and RibbonBlue managed to do a full transfer despite these circumstances. Because the server was close to its reset, we decided to divert and hit an alternative target. We hit an oil refinery and barracks at one of the islands under enemy control. Because I was on my trusty Phantom, I lacked self-lasing capabilities, so I teamed up with Aaron to get warheads on foreheads. Four 2000lbs bombs were dropped, and four hits were achieved. The others also dropped their ordinance and managed to get moderate success. Because of changes in the way laser guided bombs are programmed, for good or bad, Hueman missed the mark despite doing the delivery procedure correctly. VTail overshot a couple of bombs, but some did hit their mark. As we all exhausted our stores, we proceeded to RTB. I went to Sirri Island, since it was the closest one to me and due to the fact that my fuel state was borderline critical. I managed to land with well over 3,700lbs of fuel left, which was plenty to spare. VTail, on the other hand, decided to divert his land-based Phantom into the deck of a Nimitz-class carrier. He, somehow, succeeded and landed his Phantom on the deck and in one piece. I was, genuinely, astonished at this. Overall, it was a fun night. We all got back together for a night of flying, quite literally. It was quite the skill check as well, as those more used to their aircraft showed higher proficiency levels, but overall, we all struggled quite a bit under nighttime conditions. About the Author Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and the co-founder of Skyward ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

Sightseeing Simulator still hasn't found its legs I really, really wanted this to be a positively enjoyable review to write. God, I wanted it. I also wanted to be defiant in the face of negativity—this game is still recording a solid “Mixed” review state on Steam, and it always seems kind of easy to get lost in the plague of (justified, so far as I could tell) post-launch frustration. Maybe I should have still listened… I put this purchase off while waiting for the bugs to get ironed out. I admittedly approached its oncoming release with a little bitterness, as I had counted on MSFS2020 to be something of a persistent game, receiving updates to that particular engine and giving us a long-lived, well-supported simulator into the late decade. I can’t recall if that was promised for the game, but regardless, it probably shouldn’t have surprised me for a company that infamously made the statement that Windows 10 would be their “last operating system”. I saved the money and took the plunge on the $199.99USD “Aviator” package. The reason for this teetered on the double-edged sword promise that the insane installation and update cadence of MSFS2020 would be abandoned to offload significantly more of the simulator’s processing to the cloud. This of course again required a persistent internet connection. When the game was announced I was still running a DSL modem, so I questioned whether I could run this game despite my desktop’s aged but still respectable powerhouse specs. Which, for reference: CPU : AMD Ryzen 7900X RAM : 32GB DDR5-6000 SSD : PCIe 4.0 2x2 NVMe 2TB, 2GB DDR4 DRAM Cache GPU : Reference model AMD Radeon 6950XT Monitor : QD-OLED panel, 1440p resolution, 240Hz refresh rate So understand that I was not approaching this with a slouch machine. In all honesty, the raw performance was well utilized. Thankfully I was “forced” into a 1Gbps cable connection over a Wi-Fi7 connection just before the end of last year, so I felt that any fears about saturating my circuit with streaming requirements would be alleviated by the time I dropped the cash on this purchase. The game download from Steam was actually delightfully brief compared to the slog that was MSFS2024. This single side-by-side screenshot of the AppData folders should say it all:   MSFS2020 on the left, MSFS2024 on the right. This is entirely thanks to the revised server-side storage and streaming feature that was the catalyst of the disastrous first-day (First-week? First-month?) launch. One of the first things I looked up was whether or not there was some downplayed or undocumented feature that would allow for a full download for offline play, but the immediate consensus across the internet shot that down. As a Gran Turismo player as well, I quickly resigned myself to the fate of single-player experiences at the twilight of the first quarter of the 21st century. No love lost on this, honestly, and I greatly appreciate the space savings. Though my heart goes out to a world that still has not had the promise of broadband internet delivery fulfilled. I cannot emphasize how frustrating the continuous updates for MSFS2020 are. A Steam commenter summed it up succinctly: “Most of my 47 hours on this game are downloading updates from Microsoft”. It made me feel somewhat vindicated as that’s my experience as well. It got bad enough, often enough that I simply would lose the desire to play the game by the time the download had finally completed. I can happily state that MSFS2024 makes ENORMOUS strides to alleviate this, and I have gladly opened and closed the game several times since download without having to suffer through that slog.  That said, first installation still asks for a fair amount of your time, and startup still takes a minute or two each time regardless of installation status. This also extends to in-engine loading. There are 10-second cutscenes in Career Mode that feel like they take an eternity to load as information is gathered and cached from game servers. As time went on, I went from impressed at the improvement to questioning whether some of that old loading time was simply distributed across the rest of the game. But there were harbingers to come on that first boot. Before I even made it to the character creator screen I received a “safe mode” error that insisted that I start the game in a safe mode rather than normal; it’s the same error you get in MSFS2020 if the game crashes. I popped and eyebrow at this—it was just a button press to have the game start in normal mode, but it was not something I wanted to see with the multitude of reported issues firmly in the back of my mind. I then was forced to sign-in to my Microsoft Account.   I seem to recall this requirement being in MSFS2020 as well, though I don’t recall if it’s still a fairly recent requirement. But it’s another frustrating requirement in an age where I’ve already signed in to a dozen other services already. The first boot loading screen that you will see every time you start the game is a cruel, gorgeous teaser for what’s to come. It’s simply a rehash of one of the pre-release trailers, but especially on a high-resolution OLED monitor, it’s still breathtaking to realize that this is in-game footage. And those images are fulfilled promises. It’s literally me, fr fr. The first thing the game asks of you following graphics optimization is to create a character for Career Mode. The creator is limited in scope and the speech generator is unintentionally hilarious, as in this age of LLM’s the game still maintains a recognizable albeit updated version of the MSFS2020 “text-to-speech” generator for all spoken lines in the game. What gave me the heartiest chuckle was the customized default avatar. The main menu is a variation on the MSFS2020 menu; something I appreciate since I praise product consistency. The first thing I did is went into options and upped the graphics to “ultra” wherever the option existed. I knew I wasn’t going to meet the PCMR-mandated 60FPS, but it’s a slow-paced flight sim at it’s core, and aiming for 30FPS was all I really needed. As I perused the options, I did note the statistics for current data consumption, hovering just over 116MB. I hadn’t even gone in-game yet. This was a very poignant demonstration of the bandwidth requirements that were about to rear their head. My first inclination was to jump right into free flight. After a moderate loading time, I was greeted with the aircraft selection screen, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that my jaw dropped at how gorgeous the aircraft model looked. Wow. I admit that I’m not too much of a gamer outside some niche interests, but I suspect this might be my first real experience with ray/path tracing outside of benchmarks, and man does it shine. I know that I said that the loading video was as promised, but it’s still somewhat incredible to see it pop like this. I put myself on runway 35R at KAPA; my home turf. It was at that point I made that “wow” a vocalized one. Now I am not sure why this screenshot came out so badly saturated, and I’m not sure if it’s something the game is forcing to change, but try to imagine it without what seems like looking at it without a bad sun glare. Now, understand that when I say KAPA is my home turf, I mean it. I have touch-and-go’d both 35R/L and 17R/L more times than I can recall in a Cessna 172, and this is the first time that MSFS managed to make me actually feel back on that asphalt. In some ways it was better since I wasn’t breathing in nauseous 100LL from the Lycoming as I sat for run-up.  The map data they promised REALLY pays off here. This is truly the first time that I feel that I could actually navigate by landmark. It simplified navigation so much, I realized that I could probably truly aviate for the first time in this franchise, if it wasn’t for the distraction of the sightseeing I was doing. I can see your house from here. It was so effective that I successfully took off, pattern-ed, navigated towards the foothills, and came back to cleanly land all with just a keyboard, which is something I hadn’t really had any success with in the past. The whole time I was able to successfully navigate using familiar roads and landmarks, with the resolution and reflections so tight I could read the text of the Best Buy sign at the nearby mall. I really felt like I just needed to concentrate on my six-pack of instruments to successfully fly, and I didn’t need to put my eyes on the compass once. Although the QoL feature of providing in-game pointers to nearby airports in your field of vision helps you with your bearings quite a bit. Upon shutting down the aircraft after a quick taxi to the tarmac, I used the free-roaming camera to continue my admiration of the scenery at the airport. As I maneuvered to the flight line, I noticed… an issue. …huh. Why do I get a feeling something’s about to go wrong… But let’s be fair—MSFS2020, and heck, even previous incarnations of the simulator have had a similar issue present itself. Yes, perhaps it’s disappointing that we’re seeing upgraded generations of these types of glitches rear their ugly heads, but I’ll acknowledge the complexity of the engine as designed. We’ll move on for now. After the quick flight, I took an inventory of the included aircraft as part of the Aviator package and was thrilled to see so many options, including my previously mentioned precious analog instrumented Cessna 172 and the late-and-great An-225. I took my time to simply admire some of the aircraft in the viewer, to continue to take in these graphics. I actually have praise for this; the MSFS flight model has sort of pinnacled for what’s available, and really you need just maintain it and improve the graphics fidelity going forward. Normally I might be more critical about a lack of improvements to the model, but in this case, particularly with how casual a flyer I am, I don’t think it needs to be a priority. But it was at this point I wanted to jump into what Asobo/Microsoft really wanted to emphasize with this release: Career Mode. It was at this point reality came crashing down. Remember those loading times that I told you about; man what a slog that started to become here. After picking an airport of my choice to start my journey with; in this case a small airstrip in Everitt, Colorado (which until now I had thought was a private airfield), the load times just to get to a 15-second cutscene made me wonder what the heck was coming through from those servers and whether I was being throttled by the far side. It’s somewhat interesting to realize that the mode is working with dynamic data and it’s rather impressive that it can pull off the ability to run the first mission from an airfield and area of your choice, but that impatience started to kick in. Rush me through my preflight, will you?! After meeting Mr. Whalen here, I took off for my first flight, which was actually a simple tutorial that oddly pressured me to skip my otherwise fairly accurate preflight walkaround for my G1000 Skyhawk. Additionally, strangely enough my instructor gave me orders to start the plane from cold, but didn’t offer guidance on how to do so. Thankfully the 172 is simple to start up; masters on, set mixture to full, turn the key, and pull mixture back, but for what is clearly presented as a mandatory in-game-disguised tutorial, it felt incomplete. It’s possible that this is because I set the game’s physics/difficulty to “realistic”, but I don’t think that should have affected a very real need for instrument guidance. After flying through virtual boxes and struggling to make it to 7800 feet, the tutorial ends and the game presents you with a decision tree/mission progression menu for the continuance of your new career, demonstrating the options for where you might be able to take your interests. I then subsequently selected the option to start mission two and… crash to desktop. Oh no. I immediately started the game up again, and forced my way through the myriad of loading screens again. I went back to career mode where it thankfully saved my progress, and I managed to make it into the second mission without incident this time, but the issues were starting to stack. I then went back to free flight to play around with the DA62, one of my favorite GA aircraft and this time connected my Thrustmaster T.1600 so I could have a more engaging flight experience. I’d like to revisit that screenshot over the wing of the DA62 I put above. You see this? You know what happened right after I took this screenshot? Yep, game crash. My frustration was peaking. I again navigated to launch the game and noticed my time played and got significantly more irritated. I know that I hadn’t spent that much time in the air. Easily half or more of that was spent in loading screens or option tuning. Perhaps I’m asking too much, but the veneer of alleviated loading times was starting to crack. I was getting flashbacks. I had to know if my experience was unique, so I spoke with a friend who had purchased the game on day one. He’s currently enjoying an around-the-world free flight that he’s been on and off with for several weeks now, but his statements about career mode hit hard. He experienced much the same, and he stated that Career Mode remains in a broken state, and he has completely given up on it. And honestly, so have I. What a disappointment. I know that engaging mission-centric gameplay is something that this franchise desperately needs to expand it’s demographic. I’ve had more than one conversation about MSFS with our own Aaron Mendoza here where he has stated that he prefers the customization and objective driven gameplay of DCS, and it has steered him away from MSFS as the franchise has matured. It is so critical that this feature stabilizes and is completed. But the experience of system instability in such a limited time within free flight is so damning. It’s like trying to play a Windows game in the 90’s again—that’s not a good thing, especially when combined with the added 21st-century Sword of Damocles that is high-bandwidth, online-only requirements. I can’t play this game right now. It’s been multiple months after launch and the “mixed” reviews remain accurate. It’s not worth pulling out and routing the cables for my Saitek yoke, throttles, and rudder pedals for this. In fact, I’m considering a refund. I swear I’m not trying to be petty, but in less than 90 minutes, having this kind of instability just can’t be excusable in a game that is designated a version 1.x. It’s so gorgeous, it’s so tempting, but the initial loading video infuriates me in the same way that the update loop of MSFS2020 did. It teases me into what I could be experiencing but delivers such a sub-par experience that I want to just walk away. I can’t even complete a 30-minute flight without a crash, which defeats so much of the purpose of what I’m willing to acknowledge is a glorified sightseeing tour in many respects. Now is not the time. But after this long, I don’t know when the time will be. Don’t waste your money on the Aviator version of this game. Don’t bother with the Deluxe version. In fact, just don’t. Don’t put up with the frustrations for should be a semi-professional flight training tool. I guess we’ll see if a revisit in 2026 makes a difference. Writer T.J. "Millie" Archer T.J. "Millie" Archer is Life-long realist and aviation enthusiast. Once the co-founding Administrator of the Electrosphere.info English Ace Combat Database. In the present day he is freelance, roving the internet in search of the latest aviation news and entertainment. [ Read Profile ]

Thoughts on the latest update for this F-14A focused world For the past year or so, my interest in VRChat aviation has been leaning towards Player versus Environment (PVE) experiences. Human players working together to defeat non-player controlled units while flying combat aircraft. Similar to the missions you would find in arcade flight games like Frontiers Reach, Ace Combat and Nuclear Option. In comparison to Player versus Player Worlds (PVP), there are very few PVE worlds. Today I am happy to say that a new one has joined my list! On October 5th, 2024, F-14A Tomcat - Naval Interceptor by VTail64 received its first major update since the public launch on December 23, 2023. While there were minor updates for quality of life and bug fixes, update 1.2.0 brings a notable addition and a chance to write about the new experience. This update world is available to play now , so go and try it yourself! I have a few thoughts on this update I'd like to discuss. FLIGHT This was discussed in our first article about this world months ago, but as someone that frequently flies the F-14A/B Tomcat in Digital Combat Simulator World, I feel like I want to give a bit more detail. I strongly believe that world creator VTail64 has one of the best flight models in VRChat developed for the F-14 Tomcat. From the player-pilot level, knowledge from the DCS representation of the Tomcat translates extremely well to this representation of the aircraft. Maneuvering speeds, approach angles, engine response, optional manual wing sweep, wings ripping from the aircraft if airframe overstressed - even the intensity and a volume of how the aircraft shakes during high AoA maneuvers at low speeds - it is spot on. The detail of the flight model is there, though its creator has made minor compromises to make the aircraft a bit more accessible. During combat, these compromises are hard to see. Not a complaint. VTail's representation of the F-14A still feels somewhat underpowered, just as the early iterations of the real aircraft was, with airspeed and energy management being the deciding factor in combat. Players more skilled with their aircraft, with a deeper understanding of how to properly maneuver the F-14A will stand out. The option to simply increase thrust to full afterburner and power through any disadvantageous position is not viable most of the time. Though, high speeds and hard maneuvering are extremely useful against the newest threat in the airspace. F-14A taxies into The Point. SAM THREAT The signature feature brought by update 1.2.0 is the inclusion of non-player controlled AI surface-to-air missile (SAM) units. The inclusion of a SAM threat to a world like this one is interesting. Like a majority of its counterparts, F-14A Tomcat Naval Interceptor seems perfect for being a dedicated PVP experience. The aircraft carrier players spawn on is complimented by a Enemy Airfield with REDFOR aircraft, letting players split into teams on their own or choose to engage in a battle royale. For PVP to happen, it would need to be a large block of uninterrupted air space. A SAM site using its longer attack range to constantly disrupt the traditional VRChat aviation PVP battles could be a major experience spoiler if not done correctly. This picture of the Enemy Airfield also acts as a teleport. When clicked players are teleported to the airfield. The geography of the world was configured correctly to separate the PVP and PVE experiences. To the north is a large island with smaller islands which host the SAM sites scattered across them. Behind the north islands is a mainland which has been placed outside of the player accessible area. To the south is the Enemy Airfield where REDFOR aircraft are kept. Between each land mass is the Aircraft Carrier where players/BLUFOR spawn. This effectively splits both PVP and PVE areas. Example of SAM site. The SAM unit used is visually similar to a MIM-23 HAWK missile system. The SAM Sites come in slightly different flavors like a bare bones setup of a supply vehicle supporting a single M192 missile trailer or a more complex configuration using multiple support vehicles. This version of the HAWK has been tuned to fit the world nicely with its real world theoretical range intentionally reduced to make it more of a short-range system. With exact distances being hard to measure at this time, let's say its range is short enough to visibly see most of the missile launches the moment they happen - which is easier said than done. Night time evasion with chaff and hard maneuvering. The missiles are about as fast as you would expect them to be, leaving aircrews with only seconds to identify, countermeasure and evade the incoming missiles. This is where highspeed and hard maneuvering come in. The missiles can be outmaneuvered, but only if players are actively dumping chaff and using well timed high-G maneuvers to force the missile to fly by. Though this leaves players at lower energy states, susceptible to counterattacks. The SAM sites do not instantly launch on players, but do track them as they approach, eventually gaining missile lock and launching when players enter their effective range. Currently SAM sites attack all aircraft that enter their range. For aircrews working together, this opens up the ability to use tried and true original anti-SAM tactics dating back to the 1960s. Having one aircraft intentionally fly at high altitude, drawing missile fire to itself while a lower altitude aircraft sneaks up on the distracted SAM site. Counterattacking a SAM site. VTail 's F-14A now features a radar warning receiver (RWR) - which continues to be rather uncommon in VRChat aviation - helping players find and defend against the SAM sites. Though with only the RWR at the Tomcat's disposal, that is still not an easy task. And really, it should not be. The F-14A Tomcat is definitely not a purpose built air defense suppression platform with standoff air-to-ground weapons designed to combat SAM threats. At this time, update 1.2.0 does not have unguided bombs or other air-to-ground weapons available to the Tomcats. Players will need to use the aircraft's internal 20mm cannon to destroy the SAM sites after approaching them and evading their attacks. The terrain of the island defended by the HAWK sites is made of hills and valleys that daring players can use to fight against the SAMs by terrain masking. As things are now, the surface-to-air missile sites are a fun challenge. In a strange way, I almost do not want a dedicated air defense suppression aircraft to be added to the world just to make players have the thrill of facing down missiles head on. That's just an odd personal preference though. That aside, the inclusion of surface-to-air missiles to the world has been handled well and is one of the better presentations of air defenses I've seen in quite a few PVE worlds. View of a SAM moments from impact. MAIN MENU, OPTIMIZATION F-14A Tomcat Naval Interceptor having a launch menu on par with a full fledged game is impressive. There are things in this menu I honestly wish were in a few other flight games and simulators. Upon joining the world a title screen offers the option to quickly adjust general graphics quality settings and turn on tutorials for the aircraft if needed. When in the Ready Room, the common spawn point of the world, the board on the western wall showing the title screen of the world has a detailed menu. There players can access tutorials, adjust controls, access unique features like photo mode, instrument tutorials, in-game dial menu visibility and graphics settings; to name a few. In particular, the graphics settings are well done. Outside of the overall graphics settings for VRChat, specific settings for clouds, lens flare, aircraft culling, post processing, sun shadows, etc. can be independently adjusted with text and picture explanations to inform players about what they are adjusting and how that will change their experience. Because this menu is in the enclosed Ready Room, it is out of necessity that preview pictures should demonstrate what the outside world will look like. But in practice, it made me wish a few other complicated flight simulators would have a similar ability from their menu screens before loading into a flight. The extended graphics settings let players optimize for quality or frame rate. With there being so many variables that could effect the player experience, including their own hardware limitations, the depth of customization further ensures a positive flying experience. TRAINING TOOLS I'd like to express appreciation in particular for two In-Game Tool options that people familiar with aircraft in general or experienced with the Sacc Flight system used for VRChat aviation would probably never use. There has always been a universal tutorial for desktop or VR touch controls in VRChat aviation; they are available in the prefab just about every flight world uses. Few creators bring tutorial or training tools directly into the cockpits of the aircraft. With the F-14A being an analog heavy cockpit, it can be hard for players new to aviation or unfamiliar with reading clusters of instruments to learn. Generally people are given all vital altitude, speed and weapon information in the heads up display object provided by the prefab. They appear on every fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft seen in VRChat. Custom made cockpits with realistic, working instruments is less common. Activating "Digital Dials" replaces instrument gauge faces with digital displays showing solid numbers for speed, altitude, etc. This is a good starting point for brand new players. Digital Dials. The next option, "Instrument Guide" can be used as the next step in learning. When more comfortable with flying the aircraft, players can disable Digital Dials to show the original aircraft cockpit but then enable the Instrument Guide to have visible labels on high priority instruments. This lets them learn how to read the original instruments correctly. Instrument Guide. Eventually all of these guides can be turned off, letting players enjoy the unassisted cockpit experience. You have to appreciate the ability to teach people about aviation even when others are not around. What may seem like a simple update has a decent amount of depth when looking closer. Though the time between the release of F-14A Tomcat Naval Interceptor and the first major update was quite long, the quality of this update more than makes up for it. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza   Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers.

It is a new year! The turn of the year often brings new players to Digital Combat Simulator World for the first time ever. Whether that is because of last holiday's sales or trying something new, some of these players might feel a bit intimidated by the amount of money that some of the official modules cost. Some of them cost as much as an AAA game. There is nothing to fear, though, as we have prepared a small guide to show that you do not need money to get the full DCS experience! ORIGINAL POST : 01/07/2023 - UPDATED : 01/08/2025 DCS SHINES WITH FREE COMMUNITY MODS For those that are not willing to commit 40 to 60 USD on a single module without knowing if they even have the mindset needed for a simulation game such as DCS World, there always is the option that got me started in DCS: the modding community. Modern mods are no longer just re-skins of official modules, but fully-fledged modules that are available for free for everyone to enjoy. These go all the way from prop aircraft, training jets, light attack aircraft, full-on attack aircraft and even utility helicopters! That means that no matter what you want to learn or do in DCS before buying a module, it will be possible to get started without spending a single dime on the game. They are extremely easy to install and all of these come with newcomer-friendly installation instructions! To enjoy these to the fullest you might need a flight stick, but I know that a lot of people fly in DCS with standard gamepads and do just as well as some who have complex HOTAS setups. OV-10A Bronco by Split Air To get started, the first aircraft I would recommend anyone to try would be Split Air's OV-10A Bronco. This aircraft is the easiest one to fly and would allow you to gain all the fundamentals of flight without any of the drawbacks. It is also great fun to do missions with it due to its small but versatile arsenal. Sk60B by BAAS Dynamics The next one you should try after you feel confortable with the Bronco is the Sk60B by BAAS Dynamics. It is the best jet trainer at the moment, period. It allows you to get a proper jet experience with a fully-clickable cockpit that is both entertaining and educational. Furthermore, it is an awesome aircraft with a very interesting story behind it. Its 3D model and textures have nothing to envy from official modules. Additionally, It has some very lethal weapons available, so you are sure to have a blast with it. A-4E-C Skyhawk by Community A-4 Developer Team Once you have tried the Sk60B, you will have the need to fly something a bit faster and a bit more exciting. That is where the A-4E by the Community A-4 Developer Team comes into the picture. This is a full-on module with no strings attached. It has been built and improved upon for the best part of four years now, which shows how dedicated the team are. This mod gives you a fully-clickable, fully-featured 1970s attack aircraft. It has a wonderful air to ground radar and the capability to carry some extremely unique weapons exclusive to it. F-4B/C Phantom II by VSN Once you are accustomed to the rigors of jet combat, it is time to go supersonic. In 2023, a mod released that we have not only invested a lot of time on, but also one that we have included in many of our missions. This extremely capable fighter is no other than VSN's F-4B/C Phantom II mod, an appetizer for the upcoming Heatblur F-4E module. This mod is also standalone, which means you do not need any other module, official or not, to use it. We highly recommend this mod to everyone! It might not be full fidelity like the A-4E, but it is sufficiently good for almost everything you would want it to do. It has a fully-functioning radar and unique weapon systems! T-45C Goshawk by VNAO If what you want to train for more modern aircraft to see if you like the more modern playstyle with screens and buttons, then VNAO's T-45C Goshawk is for you. This recreation of the venerable Goshawk is quite the mod, boasting a very detailed, fully-clickable cockpit with most of its systems modeled. This aircraft is the best one to try if what you want to buy is the Hornet or even other modern aircraft like the Tomcat or the F-16C! The only detail is that it only carries training weapons, so do not expect to do any serious combat in this aircraft. UH-60L Blackhawk by H-60 Project Team If fixed-wing aircraft are not to your liking, then do I have a treat for you! The UH-60L by the H-60 Project team. This helicopter is the best way to get into rotary wing aircraft in DCS. It is a modern helicopter with all the amenities, including a full-on stability augmentation system, HMD, etc. It is fast and agile for what it is. I might be a bit biased as I am the texture artist for the Black Hawk, but I sincerely recommend this to everyone that might have even a passing interest in helicopters! YOU DON'T NEED MONEY TO ENJOY DCS I hope that this small list of wonderful mods serves as a window into DCS World and its amazing modding community. If you try them out and like them, then you can be sure that DCS is something that you will truly enjoy for years to come. So why not try them out? They are all free and accessible to everyone, no questions asked. 2025 is the year to get into DCS. I hope I see you in the virtual skies somewhere. UPCOMING DCS WORLD MODS IN 2025! AH-1G Cobra by Violent Nomad This mod has been in the works for quite a while now, and to say that it looks promising would be an understatement. Its developer, Nomad, is a hardworking individual that has been extremely open with his community about the progress he has made towards the completion of this mod. It would be the first standalone attack helicopter mod in DCS World, and one that fits perfectly with the Vietnam-era assets that we have in-game, and also the F-4E! In the last half of 2024 the AH-1G mod showed off its continued progress with a series of videos from the project's YouTube channel . Development is to the point that there are now videos of entire training missions that would be included with the module on release. Things are looking great so far. The most recent video about the mod shows off some of the cold start procedure and some neat features that this mod will have on release: Dassault / Donnier Alpha Jet by Split Air Brought to you by the Split Air team, the developers of the OV-10A Bronco and other excellent mods, the Alpha Jet is setting itself to be one of the best mods available for the game upon its release. The external model is extremely detailed. As at least January 8th, 2025, the exterior model is 98% complete, with the interior model also quite advanced. The external flight model has been getting positive responses from source material experts that include former pilots of the aircraft. Several instruments are already interactive, base textures are nearly complete, and there is much more in active development. Seeing how detailed the flight model was for the OV-10A Bronco, we expect it to fly just as good as any of their other mods. Look forward to this trainer/light attack aircraft! About the Author Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and the co-founder of Skyward ever since. Twitter | Discord : Cubeboy

As a franchise, Ace Combat has been critical to my development as an aviation enthusiast. It made me realize, after having liked AC04, that liking planes wasn't just a phase. It made me realize I was always going to yearn for the skies, to look to connect to the heavens at a deeper level. I first played Ace Combat 4, as mentioned previously, and it blew my mind with its engaging gameplay and surprisingly deep story. A story of a boy and an Ace, and the ways that war affects life within a small town. Despite me not grasping the subtle details as a child, AC04 still left a palpable impact in my perception of gaming as a genre as a kid. Now, when I got my hands on Ace Combat 5, things were a bit different. I loved the new 3D cutscenes and some of the lovable characters like Captain Bartlett, I will probably never forget how much I enjoyed the intro cutscene with the cockpit camera shots and the close-ups of the Phantom. Putting that aside, I did feel like the story was a bit off. Unlike with 04, all the events that the story told me, and all the cutscenes were about the Squadron I played as and with the protagonist at the center of it. That made the game feel different to me, at least in the way I engaged with it. I felt like everything happened around me, as if I was an anime protagonist. Thinking back on that made me realize something that I also felt as a kid back then: AC04 and AC5 are polar opposites. Both games can be qualified as power fantasies that let you play out your wildest fighter pilot fantasies, which was already the norm for the franchise. But just how they are very similar in gameplay, their stories are quite the opposite. Ace Combat 4's story is not about you as the player, the Storyteller is the protagonist and your rival, Yellow 13, has as much screen time as him. It is not a story about Mobius 1, or centered on him, but a reflection of life during wartime for combatants and civilians alike. On the contrary, we have Ace Combat 5's sole focus on Wardog/Razgriz and how these pilots single-handedly changed the outcome of the war with their skill. It felt as if I was watching an anime, which by itself is not bad. Everything turned around Razgriz, the President and, to a lesser degree, about Belka's involvement in all of this. It wouldn't be until I replayed 5 after having finished Zero that I actually started understanding these hints to a greater lore Credit: Warlock1281 @ Ace Combat Wiki It is a game that, upon release, could have left some wondering about the mysteries of the universe and the forces that moved it. Likewise, it also established the new setting for AC as a whole, Strangereal, and the factions that ruled over it. Even though the characters felt corny from time to time, and their actions and emotions felt very exaggerated, it is clear that 5 was made with the possibility of expanding the universe in the future. It planted the seeds of what Ace Combat would be, and the identity it would take on in the future. While I personally believe that AC04's story is the best that the franchise has ever put up, it is undeniable that AC5 played a crucial role in shaping the franchise. Was this good for the franchise? Could AC have gone a different route had they stuck to the older storytelling formula? I will leave those questions for you to ponder. For now, fly safe and stay safe out there! About the Author Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and the co-founder of Skyward ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) proudly retains its open modding environment from its FSX predecessor, which produced excellent third-party add-ons that increased the simulator’s long shelf life. The IndiaFoxtEcho MB-339A is a stellar example of that expandability and offers, like it’s lead-in fighter trainer namesake presents, a great entry-level opportunity for high-speed acrobatic flight within the Microsoft Flight Simulator experience. DISCLAIMER: We were given a review copy of this expansion by IndiaFoxtEcho themselves, which we appreciate very much. Even then, they gave us complete creative freedom over this review and the opinions that will be written are our own. OVERVIEW The module includes two variants of the aircraft: The standard LIFT MB-339A, and the acrobatic oriented MB-339PAN—performance to the casual player might not be noticeable despite the change in fuel load and weight and balance, though the PAN does not include further liveries beyond that of only operator, the 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico , where its wing tanks have been accurately removed and replaced with a pair of smoke generators on mid-wing hardpoints. The cockpit has received an alteration, removing the gunsight and placing more emphasis with orientation on your heads-down instrumentation. MB-339A in the colors of the 61° Stormo The MB-339A is, as mentioned, a Lead-In Fighter Trainer produced by Aermacchi. The aircraft’s history is told in a quick brief within the specifications available in Hangar mode, and the loading screens will present you with quick single-sentence facts about the trainer. Delightfully well-detailed and presented with a generous selection of liveries, the MB-339 presents a picture-perfect representation of the trainer. I however unapologetically choose to fly in standard grey because I’m vanilla like that. Several of the liveries available for the trainer. DEVOTION TO DETAIL It is hard not to want to admire it in Hangar view for extended periods of time. It can’t be shown in a screenshot, but the movement of the pilot and copilot’s heads is a nice touch of detail. Sneaking a peek into the engine bay reveals a fully modeled stator—the devotion to ensure that every angle is authentic is greatly appreciated. The 4K-quality texturing does the aircraft the justice it deserves, with sharp clarity even in the densely-written caution markings prominently featured below the instructor’s seating position. Speaking of detail, you may want to sequester yourself in hangar mode for a bit anyway—getting familiar with the cockpit is a must. COCKPIT FAMILIARIZATION AND PROCEDURES I’m a simple flyer—I’m used to uncomplicated, straight forward cockpit designs in my simulators. I derive pleasure from simply hovering over a town in a DA42 or a C172. I even broke the bank and shelled out for the Deluxe edition of this game just so I could have a C172 with steam-gauges, since that is how I trained in reality. This results in my need to ID and manipulate flight systems using mouse-clicks. Yes, keybindings are always available, but it removes from the tactility and authenticity of the control. So when I want to unlock the parking brake, I search for it and click it from the cockpit, no matter what the aircraft may be, rather than just pressing a simple button. The open, user-friendly cockpits of the C172 or DA42 allow that no matter your skill level—the MB-339, not as much. The MB-339’s cockpit is a much more cramped affair, offering a mix between the simplicity of a turboprop and the complexity of a commuter jet. What’s most noticeable is how much more of a head swivel I need to identify each of my systems and ensure I can get to them. The parking brake might be open and visible just above my left knee, but the flap controls are well-hidden behind the throttle. Control density also presents a challenge—trying to manipulate those flap-controls by mouse click might instead see you unlock the canopy in mid-flight—thank goodness flight speeds in a trainer like this are manageably low. But that’s also what makes it fun for flyers like me. It sounds complicated, but it actually increases that feeling of authenticity that I want to pursue, and authentic it is. Unlike even a fair portion of the built-in modules provided by Microsoft, the MB-339 models operation of a significantly higher portion of the flight controls for the pilot. The developers of the 787 might think the de-icer isn’t important for your casual MS sim pilot, but the MB-339 generously gives me control over both the de-icer and the pitot heat. But most importantly, when I decide I want to take off from Alpha Ramp at KAPA from a dead stop, I can poke my way through the controls to go from static airframe to functioning machine in short time thanks to the legible and well-labeled English controls. Not to say that poking through controls is an easy affair. It took me a few tries to get everything started in the right order, and this is also where I found the most noticeable glitch in the sound design—should you keep the throttle at idle during power on, the aircraft will run through a foley of its engine spooling, but will then abruptly cut out. Should you start the aircraft with throttle full and parking brake engaged as designed, you likely won’t hear this cut off, since the sound of the engine operating as designed will mask the transition. Honestly, a minor gripe in an otherwise solid showing thus far. FLIGHT TEST AND FLIGHT MODELING So, with our aircraft powered on, flight systems and control surfaces tested and checked out, and engine humming along nicely, let’s go flying. To provide disclosure for my experience, my flight control system consists of a Saitek X52 Pro HOTAS (pre-Logitech buyout) and a set of Saitek Pro Rudder Pedals, tuned to my desired resistance. Taking off from 17L for a full 10,000 feet of asphalt, I’m able to reference the documentation provided with the module to tune my rotation speed with flaps set to take-off position and I’m in the air and climbing rapidly in about half the length of the runway. My sights are set on a loop around Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA and back again to KAPA, testing control response along the way. As I reach 8000 feet, the sun blinds me as I level out thanks to the non-foldable mirrors; what a frustratingly accurate detail. The roll-rate of the aircraft in its lightened fuel-state and lack of weight on its hardpoints is fast and tight, and when you’re used to flying lighter civilian aircraft it’s a refreshing echo of how it feels to jut around in an Extra 300, but at much higher speeds. The trainer is extremely stable. Trying to induce a departure is almost an exercise in futility at any speed. The MB-339 will gladly give you the room to recover yourself if you give it the altitude. Turn rates are modest, as they should be: 15 seconds in a full 360 with a loss of about 1500 feet from 11,000 starting. But the responsiveness of the aircraft cannot be understated. Low-speed flying in MB-339 feels like a dream. Once you’re in the air, your flight envelope feels limitless. It was effortless to follow major roads and highways through town at just 5800 ASL with just minor course adjustments. After some fun, we return back to our departure point—this is where things get tricky. I won’t mince words—I had major trouble landing this thing. At the relatively high required speeds and, more importantly, very short undercarriage, it wasn’t until the fourth try of hitting the deck that I successfully came to a full stop. But once you’re on the ground, the brakes are wonderfully responsive and will slow you to a manageable taxi speed within what feels less than its spec'd distance of 1500 feet. CONCLUSIONS So—why the MB339? There are a number of add-on aircraft available out there—certainly ones promising more performance, more pizzazz, more popularity. The reason is simple: download those and find out why you should have downloaded this in the first place. The MB-339 as produced by IndiaFoxtEcho is a fast, forgivable cruiser that works as the lead-in fighter trainer it is. It’s a pleasure to look at, and a pleasure to fly. It is not out of place in the MSFS environment by any means. It feels like a native add-on and flies true. My thanks to IndiaFoxtEcho for the review copy of their product and a delightful introduction to higher performance. About the Writer T.J. "Millie" Archer A Life-long realist and aviation enthusiast. Once the co-founding Administrator of the Electrosphere.info English Ace Combat Database. In the present day he is freelance, roving the internet in search of the latest aviation news and entertainment.  Read Staff Profile .

A day one interview for this turn-based tactical air combat title On October 30th, 2024,  Scramble: Battle of Britain  released into early access. Ever since I first heard about the game, it took me a little while to sit back and fully wrap my head around the concept: turn based air combat. When you envision air combat, you think about a flurry of aircraft climbing, diving and turning endlessly in the sky. The humans flying them engaged in dizzying, spinning combat where decisions made in a moment could result in death seconds later. Imagining air combat pausing and playing seems foreign, but my time with the Steam Next Fest demo convinced me that the concept is viable and quite enticing.  Something World War II is remembered for is the massive amount of sustained air combat on all fronts. The Battle of Britain, in particular, stands out because it was the first large-scale military campaign fought only by air forces. This is the historical setting that Scramble presents its tactical dogfighting game. When thinking of Slitherine games, names like Warhammer 40k, Starship Troopers and Field of Glory: Kingdoms come to mind. Turn based or real time strategy games are arguably what they are known for, so seeing a turn based tactical dogfighting game in their catalog is very interesting but not completely unthinkable.  Shortly before the release of Scramble, Aaron Mendoza with Skyward Flight Media reached out to Slitherine for an interview with   Jon Coughlin , months after his Flight Sim Expo 2024   presentation . Thanks joining me for an interview during the early access launch rush. I appreciate you making the time. Please introduce yourself. I'm Jon Coughlin, the lead developer on Scramble. I joined Slitherine four years ago as the lead programmer for Scramble and I have been the lead developer for the past two and a half years. Scramble has a rather unusual concept for this genre of games. How did the concept for this game start?  The original Scramble prototype was developed by James Carey with the goal of making aerial dogfighting accessible to players who may not be interested in picking up a real-time flight simulation like War Thunder. "Turn-based Dogfight" was the conceptual kernel that I believe he always had in mind, but he wanted Scramble to have the action and fluidity that video games are excellent at facilitating.  There have been turn-based dogfighting games before, but almost all of them discretize flight into chunks of maneuvers: half a loop, quarter roll. Scramble has always been interested in allowing players to pilot the airplane, so we simulate flight dynamics and we ask players to control aircraft in an analog control space; the result is 3D dogfights that map pretty well onto the chaos and tactics of their real-time counterparts.  There is inspiration from lots of turn-based games: the board game Star Wars: X-Wing has a similar analog play space that helped validate the concept, and the video games Toribash and Frozen Synapse were discussion points I remember from early in the project.  The pitch that has solidified throughout development is "an authentic dogfighting experience without the situational awareness or reflex constraints of real-time flight games." We want our player stories to mimic WWII pilot memoirs, and in that sense Scramble is more focused on the essence of piloting and machinery and the themes of the Battle of Britain than the historical replication or raw performance numbers of our modeled airplanes.  Supermarine Spitfires diving onto Messerschmitt 110s. What were some of the largest hurdles to overcome during development?  It took us a long time to dial in the airplane controls. Flying airplanes can be hard, and maintaining orientation in 3D space can be hard, and in Scramble we ask you to do both but to also lock your airplane controls for the entirety of a turn: two and a half seconds. When flying an airplane in real-time, inputting a little bit of right roll will tilt your plane a little to the right. In Scramble, inputting a little bit of right roll will tilt your plane to the right for 2.3 seconds, and at the end of that time you might be upside down, so any additional control inputs you make might be inverted, and we were finding players got disoriented quickly.  We are shipping Scramble with a default control scheme called the Turn/Climb Assist; it couples pitch, roll, and yaw into two control axes: Turn and Climb. Under the hood, your Turn and Climb inputs are still being converted to pitch/roll/yaw, but this assist gets you 90% of the uncoupled control authority in a scheme that anybody can pick up and play. If you want your airplane to climb to the right you move your stick to climb/right and the coupling ensures that your airplane does what your brain expects.  The hardest technical hurdle has been the rewindable nature of Scramble. One core gameplay mechanic has always been the ability to rewind Scramble turns and matches at any moment to analyze and to see action you may have missed while the simulation executed. When we made the choice to make every gameplay feature of Scramble fully rewindable we also signed up for every gameplay feature to take 2x or 3x the development time. We have slowly built an architecture that is cutting development time of new features down, but there's a reason most video games only play forwards . Low speed reversal to firing solution. During my time with the Steam Next Fest June 2024 demo, my own mindset shifted quite a bit. While playing, I started viewing air combat more as a series of actions rather than a single event. I think the level of flight simulation in Scramble is overlooked because of the focus on the turn-based gameplay. How detailed is the flight model in game?  I think "a series of actions" actually maps directly onto the concept of the OODA loop, which I believe is still used to teach dogfighting tactics around the world. I think that every turn of Scramble is functionally a forced iteration of the OODA loop. There is no time pressure in Scramble, so if we carry that analogy forward Scramble nullifies the OODA loop discrepancy between players, but if you play Scramble with a turn-timer (probably a mechanic that will become optional for multiplayer matches) you are suddenly right back into OODA loop theory.  In terms of flight modeling depth, Scramble is a flight simulation with aerodynamics coefficients, asymmetry, multiple types of drag forces, phenomena like stall and control stiffening. Every damaged component an airframe accrues manipulates its overall flight envelope. We have subsystems like radiators and fuel tanks that feed your engines. These things can leak, explode, catch fire, and if your radiator dies your engine will become damaged as well.  Machinery is one of our design pillars. We want the airplanes to feel and behave like machines. Even the pilots behave like machines; tired pilots black out easier, blackout is dependent on the amount of blood in a pilot's head, and that blood decreases under positive G and increases under negative G.  We will be increasing the depth of our aerodynamics, damage modeling, and pilot physiology throughout Early Access, but we have a rich set of mechanics right now, and I think that everyone who picks Scramble up and invests a couple hours starts to connect with the fact that there is a solid simulation underpinning the gameplay.   Successful opening strike that cripples two Messerschmitt 109s. Would players that have experience with combat flight games/simulators find that their knowledge of tactics translates well into Scramble?  Having experience with real-time flight games should complement your tactical competence in Scramble, but I think that Scramble is a much more tactical game than almost any real-time flight sim delivers. In real-time games you can't escape the impact reflexes and coordination have on performance, and you can't escape the disorientation and quick decision-making that lead toward the study of concepts like the OODA loop.  I think a lot of real-time flight sim pilots might be surprised to find out that their tactics are actually underdeveloped. Scramble is all tactics, and I actually think that combat flight sim fans might play some Scramble and develop some better tactics and see this enhance their performance in the real-time games.  At a minimum, playing a lot of Scramble has taught me to stop chasing enemies for prolonged turns when I fly in IL-2. It's also taught me to roll way more to keep myself unpredictable, rather than trying to purely outturn an enemy on my tail. Those are obvious lessons when you read them as text, but Scramble gives you so much time to analyze your maneuvers that I think those tactical lessons sink in more than they ever will playing a real-time game.  Scramble is a dogfighting classroom. At the end of each sortie is a result screen that grades players actions with a five star system rating system. The graded categories include “Aircraft Shot Down”, “Aircraft Damaged”, "Pilots Survived" and" Bombers Deterred". Are there ways to get a high rating without shooting down every aircraft? We rely on the attrition theme to drive our scoring mechanics, so we harshly penalize the player for losing airplanes, and we brutally punish the player for losing pilots. Your top priority should be to bring your pilots and airplanes home healthy. You'll always max your score by killing everything in the sky and keeping your airplanes pristine, but you can still score very high by keeping your aircraft clean and downing a small number of enemies.  There is so much gameplay left to be implemented throughout Early Access that scoring will continue to get tweaked up to our v1.0 launch, but we will always try to reinforce the theme of attrition in our scores.  Post-sortie scoring screen example. While I do think the Instant Action, Mission and Random match modes were a good way to introduce people to the concept of the game, Squadron Leader seems to be the defining game mode. What are the dev team’s thoughts on how this game mode has turned out?  Players will notice that Squadron Leader is a separate button from Campaign, which is greyed out. Squadron Leader is not the Channel Defense Campaign feature. The campaign is still in development, and we will exit Early Access and consider Scramble: Battle of Britain v1.0 when our Channel Defense Campaign is complete, but Squadron Leader is a lightweight game mode where we are exploring the systems that will make up the building blocks of our campaign: squadron management, pilot health and wellness, permadeath, chaining missions together, pilot traits, and more. Squadron Leader (SQL) is a permadeath game mode where the player manages a set roster of 12 pilots for up to 30 days of dogfights. Each day is split into four time slots in which a section of 1-3 pilots must scramble, and the dogfights are randomly generated with aircraft type, count, and advantage; bouncing a flight of two Stukas is a great draw, and being bounced by six enemy fighters is trouble.  A lone RAF Spitfire outnumbered, attempting to escape. Every pilot in SQL is generated with a name, portrait, nationality, health and stamina, and up to three unique pilot traits.  Pilots deplete stamina throughout each dogfight and pilots with low stamina have lowered G-tolerance, which has a big impact on their survivability. Pilots maintain stamina levels between dogfights unless they are sent on leave, so flying multiple sorties in a day will quickly exhaust your pilots and make them vulnerable.  Pilots who receive damage in matches or bail out of their airplanes must spend multiple days in the infirmary, and pilots killed in a dogfight remain dead for the duration of your SQL run.  Squadron Leader pilot and section management. Pilot Traits provide positive and negative performance modifications that impact airplane control, gun effectiveness, G-tolerance, aircraft defense, frequency of subcomponent failures, and more. Some traits are passive, and some traits activate in narrow situations like while tailing an enemy or when under fire. Pilot traits dramatically change the core Scramble dogfighting experience and they quickly became our favorite way to play Scramble internally.  We are very pleased with the Squadron Leader game mode right now. This is another feature that will continue to broaden and deepen in scope throughout Early Access, but at the state of EA launch I think it's the definitive way to play Scramble: Battle of Britain; it's the game mode that most delivers on the Attrition theme I keep ranting about. Scramble does not seem to have a story driven single player, but it does not feel like it needs one with the setting of The Battle of Britain being self-explanatory. Was a traditional character driven story for the campaign considered?  The Channel Defense Campaign will put you in the role of Squadron Leader throughout the full Battle of Britain, and you will manage your pilots at a deeper level than what we have in the existing Squadron Leader game mode. The Battle of Britain will have a meta narrative flow to it, but we don't expect it to be story-driven in the sense of written narrative content. Pilots will have more life to them, and they will grow and change throughout the battle. They may get into trouble while on leave, and they will bond or feud throughout the course of the campaign. I'm going to mention pilot memoirs again here because we want the player story of the Channel Defense campaign to mimic the stories of the different famous squadrons of the RAF that you can read in books. But the stories of your squadrons will be told more through mechanics and player choice than through raw dialog.  It is great hearing more detail about The Channel Defense Campaign beyond the short description provided a few months ago. Thank you for that. The Royal Air Force pilots that players manage during their campaigns have unique character traits that can change gameplay. Do the opposing pilots also have traits players do not know about?  Luftwaffe pilots will eventually have character traits as well. At the time of Early Access launch, we only apply character traits to RAF pilots in the SQL game mode, but all of these mechanics are new and we are bringing them online and adjusting balance slowly; Early Access will see lots of new pilot traits, mechanics, balance adjustments, and expansion to the scope of dogfighting gameplay.  Damaged Messerschmitt 109 moments before pilot bail out. In Squadron Leader, I wonder if it is not wise to take on every fight the player is presented with. Does leaving an unfavorable battle without fighting have a negative impact? Leaving a dogfight healthy is always a viable tactic. Squadron Leader doesn't really penalize you harshly for making that choice right now, but soon we will build in some more SQL scoring metrics that track your points and stars per mission, so you will find the most success in the SQL game mode by maximizing enemy losses and minimizing player losses and maximizing squadron longevity. Early Access gives us the space and playerbase to balance those metrics through playtesting, which we would never have the bandwidth for as such a small development team behind the scenes.  I am sure you have read this joke online, but I’d like to ask it on record. Have you heard people describe this game as playable TacView before? Do you have any comments on that? "Playable TacView" is one of my elevator pitches to people who already enjoy DCS or IL-2. In real-time dogfighting games you have to do all sorts of post-processing to analyze your performance and tactics in hindsight. Scramble has the analysis tools built-in. You are analyzing tactics every single turn. You can analyze the tactics of a match live, while you play.  When streaming Scramble live, your natural inclination is to hop into the review phase and dissect your performance the way people have been doing in debrief videos for real-time games for decades.  Tactical Mode examples. We have an isometric diorama view that we call "Tactical Mode" that allows you to more quickly rotate and translate the dogfight airspace, and it's not coincidental that the tools are inspired by the TacView program that players are already familiar with.  Once again, thank you for taking time to give some insight into Scramble during this busy time. Congratulations on its release! Scramble: Battle of Britain is out now, available on Steam. Next week, Skyward Flight Media will be releasing an in-depth review of the early access launch version of the game. Look forward to it!  Four ship of RAF Spitfires. About the Interviewer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

It is clear that the current situation within DCS World, its community and developers is a bit weird. It is the first time in years that, even after seeing all of these announcements made during the annual "202X and Beyond" video, I have not felt excitement for anything showcased during its run. Quite the opposite, I feel worried about the future of DCS. I should feel excited, shouldn't I? We got confirmation on the full fidelity F-15C module, a lot of teaser content on the dynamic campaign mode and more awesome video of upcoming modules like the Eurofighter, Hellcat, Super Saber, etc. These are reasons to be excited, things to look forward to, but yet, here I am. Unenthusiastic and Stoic about it all. The elephant in the room, at least to me, was the announcement of the full-fidelity F-35A module by Eagle Dynamics. This is an aircraft I never expected to be introduced to DCS in any official manner, hell, it is the butt of the joke for the modding community because of how many teams have tried making it. To say the F-35 is a challenge to tackle would be an understatement. Why start development of two new, complex modules on top of the pile of already unfinished, early access ones that are available for purchase right now? I understand that these are not being worked on by the same teams, but it does feel like they are spreading their resources a bit too thin between all of these projects. Additionally, the classified nature of this bird means that there will most likely be no official exchange of information between the USAF/Lockheed Martin and ED, even less any sort of sharing of information regarding its specific systems and the inner workings of the aircraft. The developers clarified that it will be made with publicly available information on the aircraft from trade shows and SME feedback. My main gripe with the DCS F-35A is that they are calling it a "full-fidelity" module. In the past, the term "full-fidelity" meant that the aircraft was modeled as close as possible to the real one, including most if not all of its systems modeled (ITAR allowing) within a fully realized clickable cockpit. Something like that is more than understandable for old Cold War aircraft and legacy 4th generation fighters like the F-15C. But calling this F-35A "full-fidelity" is misleading for the users. Full fidelity shouldn't just mean clickable and with systems made through OSINT. Were it to be marketed as "Clickable" or anything along those lines, I would not mind in the slightest. But it cannot be compared to aircraft like Heatblur's magnificent F-4E, or Polychop's unfortunate miracle, the OH-58D. ADDITIONAL RECENT ISSUES SURROUNDING DCS Speaking of Polychop, it is very unfortunate that most of its labor force seems to have resigned or been fired. Most details are unknown but from comments made by known developers such as Kinkku, with whom I worked with on the DCS UH-60L mod, we can infer that some of the most talented people over at the studio have left. This situation is an internal one within Polychop themselves, and does not seem to be related to anything done by ED, nor does it have relation with the other elephant in the room: the RAZBAM situation. Both ED and RAZBAM have made contradictory statements regarding the status of the ongoing debacle both entities have, and about the future of RAZBAM's modules in DCS. ED's community managers have stated that they could take over and maintain the modules even after a hypothetical departure from the developer. RAZBAM denies that claim, as seen on the screencap below. Comment made by ED's Community Manager, NineLine, on the forums. Official comment by RAZBAM on their Discord server. It has now been almost a year since this situatiuon began, and most members of the community are tired of seeing both sides contradict each other in public statements. MY HOPES So, what now? Am I going to stop playing DCS just because the water's muddy and the future is not looking as bright as it could? No, I am not. I will still play it, but I won't be the faithful supporter that I used to be. Let's see where this year takes us, who knows? Things could improve. I will just be here for the ride, and I will make sure to share my opinions on future DCS happenings here at Skyward. Fly High, Fly Safe. About the Author Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and the co-founder of Skyward ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

A sudden interview with an unexpected programmer At Skies' Edge is a bolt from the blue flight arcade game that seemingly came out of nowhere in May 2023. After months of playing every single update and writing a few articles , I found myself with more questions than answers. Because it has a hard to track its development history, Skyward Flight Media reached out to its developer, Mackerel Sky, who turned out to be a very interesting fish. Thanks so much for accepting my interview request. Your project has been something of a mystery to me. I have a lot of questions. Thanks for reaching out for this interview! My name is Mackerel Sky. By day I am a fish, but sometimes at night I turn into something that could be vaguely construed as a programmer-like lifeform. At Skies' Edge is also a mystery to me and hopefully this interview gives me an opportunity to think about what I'm planning for the future. Mackerel Sky (self-portrait, 2023). How did you become a fan of flight games/simulators? I’ve always loved aviation and flight – as a kid I was always getting my long-suffering mother to draw me pictures of airliners, jet fighters and bombers so I guess gravitating towards flight games was an inevitability. Eventually I got my hands on a PlayStation 2 with Ace Combat 5 on it – I couldn’t understand a word of English at the time but it clicked eventually and I've been playing this stuff ever since. I stick very closely to the flight arcade end of things, as I’m only here to see cool planes going fast and exploding things. When did you start considering developing your own games? If we’re talking being involved in games generally, I guess you would have to start with Vector Thrust . I was in high school when that was being smashed out and did some of the draft writing and many, many aircraft descriptions for that game. There’s also Project Sandwall as well, but we’ll talk about that later on. I wouldn’t really count these as “developing” anything. I would say I only really started looking at gamedev towards the latter half of my university days, so I guess that would have been about 3 or 4 years ago. Around the time somebody said I wasn't going to be successful if I kept playing or being involved with videogames. I overreacted a little and started looking up tutorials a few days later. My programming experience also has paid dividends at my day job, so I guess in a small way I proved them wrong. That being said, I’m definitely more of a 2D artist than a programmer, so my first project, designed to teach myself C# was a little pixel-art platformer called Sable Hearts . It eventually grew way too big and taught me some valuable lessons in scope creep. You could say ASE is actually my second project. At Skies’ Edge has a hard to track development history. From what I could dig up, everything can be traced back to something called Project Sandwall. What was it? Project Sandwall was the working name for a flight arcade engine thing developed by another student. I signed up to do a lot of the things I did on Vector Thrust. My memory is really bad so I don't recall much - but the gist is that we tried to turn it into an actual game, got hit with the cold reality of game development (using a custom engine, no less) and eventually we both kind of lost interest in the project – other interests, jobs and priorities came up and things ended quietly. For me especially, I learned that having just a vision won't get you anywhere - you really need the skills to back it up. When Project Sandwall ended, were any of the builds saved? Any assets saved? I think I have a build of it floating around, but it needed an active server to connect to. I commissioned a few 3D ground assets that I stuck into ASE- for example, the AA gun, APC and airfield models are all leftovers from Project Sandwall. Around the same time in 2017-2018, Project Wingman was in early active development. Did you ever consider joining their team after Sandwall ended? There was not much interaction between us off the top of my head. I went straight into the complex and varied kinds of work that fish do after my degree and didn’t really have enough time to dedicate to much of anything for many years, so it never crossed my head. At Skies’ Edge had a public demo release on May 1st, 2023. That is about a six-year window between projects. What work did you do to get a new project ready? How long did it take? The gap is about 6 years, but I reckon I spent about 3 years doing nothing, and 3 years slowly learning to program and working on Sable Hearts . You could say that the itch to return to the flight action genre struck maybe February or March 2023, and I took a hiatus on the platformer to play around with some flight sim projects made publicly available. I eventually thought back to my days on Project Sandwall and decided to see if I could modify Lunetis’s OperationZero project to fix some bugs and have it function more like how I would have envisioned the final flight model and HUD to be. About a month into screwing with it, a buddy in a community I frequent was moaning about the lack of PC flight games and how new projects get announced and die quickly (like Project Sandwall, I guess). I posted some videos, making very clear that I was going to go back to Sable Hearts once I got bored, but was promptly dogpiled and very heavily encouraged to finish what would turn into v0.01a, so I got permission from Lunetis to keep using his codebase, and by May I had something I felt was presentable. ASE is firmly a flight arcade title, but it has some notable aspects of its flight model that I think make it standout compared to its contemporaries. Is there anything you are proud of with the way aircraft handle in this game? I wouldn’t say I’m particularly proud of anything flight-model wise, but I did want to try to distinguish ASE from Ace Combat and Project Wingman . Aircraft have a set ACM (Air Combat Maneuvering) speed range where they’re most agile. Instead of complex physics calculations, I use a graph that allows me to directly define maneuvering ability as a function of speed. This allows me to set areas of high and low performance very easily for different aircraft. The manual throttle system is designed to help players find and stay in ACM speeds more easily. I’m actually most satisfied by the throttle controls, which allow you to instantly jump to full or minimum power by double tapping accelerate or brake. Where aircraft are capable of supermaneuvrability, double tap and holding brake deactivates the limiter, and releasing it restores the regular flight model. I think it’s really intuitive to use in combat, and I’m planning to enhance the visual and audio feedback for these actions further down the line. Aircraft weapon loadouts are notoriously hard for flight arcade games. There is always the risk of providing too many options and too much ammunition to players, to the point it throws off gameplay. How did you settle on ASE’s method of handling weapon selection? I will be honest here and say I really haven’t done much work on this apart from getting the basic skeleton of things up and running. Currently, ASE uses a hardpoint based system where aircraft can mount any weapon in their inventory to a hardpoint strong enough to support that weapon’s weight. I have the following weight categories: Light, Medium, Heavy, Super Heavy. Hardpoints can support multiple categories of weapon weights and also can have specific weapons banned from them if they need to. Multi-lock and multi-launch is dictated by the weapon itself. Weapon selection was a topic of detailed and passionate debate during the early design stages of ASE v0.01a and v0.02a, and I still haven't decided on how I'm going to handle the final version of it. I will also need to take into consideration how the rest of the game is going to be designed, like how many units are going to be in the map and how weapons perform. This is really only a placeholder system until I figure out what I really want. I’d like a system that allows a selection of multiple weapons but is balanced enough to encourage players to select the right aircraft and loadout for the job. I appreciate that in the flavor text for aircraft and weapons, there are mentions of countries and manufacturers. Is there a possible world and lore expansion planned? ASE kind of fell out of the blue and I haven’t done any work on this at all. I briefly considered going back to what I wrote for Project Sandwall, but I took a look and it was pretty disgusting edgy teenager slop, so I pulled out some names to use and then deleted the rest. The names will also probably eventually be replaced, but I did want to show that this was eventually going to have a story. If there is anything I’ve learned over time, it’s best not to be creative until you know what your foundation is. So I’m holding off on doing any detailed planning until I know exactly how ASE will function mechanically, but I do want to create a campaign, and I have an overall vision of how the game will feel and the background of the lore/world. The tone of the story will be hopeful. My vague idea is to explore the challenges and conflicts involved in rebuilding a world that was taken to the brink of mutually assured destruction. This game used Operation Maverick / Operation Zero by Lunetis as a base. Has your recent months of game development pushed your skills farther? I guess you can say that I'm developing my skills - the vast majority of what I touch or add now is new, which is good for learning, not so good for actually making something work. As things progress, they'll also get more complex, so development may slow down as I work through what I need to do. I'm also conscious that Lunetis has done a lot of the hard work for me, which is great in that I don't have to worry about that stuff but also concerning because I wouldn't know how to reconstruct things like the flight model or mission structure from scratch. The five missions that are currently available represent what is possible with this game. But these are not something solely produced out of the project from Lunetis. The development blog for update 0.05a discusses new AI management processes and a mission manager system. Why are these two updates so important? Could this lead to larger developments in the long term? Lunetis’s Operation series were tightly scoped, highly tailored projects designed to replicate specific scenarios as closely as possible given the resources available to them. In particular, the code behind the mission manager and AI are custom written for those scenarios, where the player is the only allied unit on the map and must destroy some targets. However, ASE is not scoped as small as Operation. This has meant that the AI and mission manager need to be upgraded to be more flexible and respond to changing situations on the battlefield. Before 0.05a, I had done a bit of work to the AI and mission managers to bash them into something that could go beyond their Operation implementations, but quickly realised that this was a bandage solution that was inefficient and inflexible, so I had to step back and really smash out a framework that could give the AI enough flexibility that it could be placed in any mission and still execute its objectives correctly. Fundamentally the core of the AI hasn't changed, it's just now able to better interact with the mission manager to support a wider range of objectives, allowing me to make much more complex scenarios without having to custom-code anything specific like in Operation. Importantly, the AI and mission manager are modular and expandable, so if I need a new behaviour, I can write it up, integrate it with the framework and don't need to change anything else. The game has a handful of updates since the demo was released. Some of them have been pretty substantial. When the demo dropped, what was your original plan? Did the reception of ASE change your plan? After being told to finish v0.01a, my plan was to drop it and then go back to Sable Hearts . I was not prepared for the demo to be picked up and shared amongst a lot of people, which really picked up after Skyward FM found and posted about it. The attention definitely played a factor in convincing me to keep going and people gave me a lot of encouragement. Around the same time, Sable Hearts was quickly swept away in the never-ending flood of 2D pixel art platformers, and to be honest a platformer was not the best medium to tell the story I wanted to for that game. These two factors combined to push me to keep going on ASE, and I’ll go as far as I can since I’ve still got that guiding vision in my head. I'll admit, Sable Hearts is the story I really want to tell, and I'm keeping it in the back of my mind for when I'm skilled enough to do it justice, just as how I’ve done for Project Sandwall. …Ouroboros?! Uh-oh. Sounds like the indie dev cycle! Haha! Today, do you consider yourself a game developer or is this something you do as a pastime? I am just a fish who has been lucky enough to enjoy a particularly good work life balance, and I have a number of other work, education, and social commitments outside of ASE. Game development is just a hobby to me – something I did half out of spite and half to learn a new skill. I’m not sure if I would do it full time, and it’s part of the reason why I won’t work on the art or story until I know what ASE is capable of. I don’t want to get people’s hopes up or spend any money unless it’s ready for it. I appreciate your time in clarifying a lot of this. Personally, I find myself enjoying At Skies’ Edge quite a bit for what it is. Thank you very much for this interview. Thanks for inviting me to talk about ASE. I've been told to include some behind the scenes screenshots for this interview but they're all quite boring to look at. I've added in some previews of what's coming next in 0.06a to help spice things up. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

ORIGINALLY POSTED: 07/31/2021 MINOR EDITS: 12/16/2023 In a simulator known for its 4th Generation fighters, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) combat and advanced sensors, there are only a couple of birds that stray from this. To me, one of the best ones that I have had the pleasure to enjoy for quite a while is the F-86F Sabre! This module is quite old by now, but it does not mean that it is useless. It is a module that has its own place and one that offers, alongside its rival the MiG-15, one of the unique combat experiences in the sim. FROM AN ENTIRE DIFFERENT ERA, BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE SIMULATOR Everything about the Sabre is old school, from its design to the actual module. Even the backed-in shadows in the cockpit belong to a previous era of DCS, one that did not even have the Eagle Dynamics Graphical Engine (EDGE) and all the fancy technology that we have become so used to with modern day DCS. In that regard, it is like a time capsule as to what DCS once was, and I say that with the best intent possible. Does this mean that the Sabre is not detailed or lacks that DCS quality to it all? Not in the slightest. It could just stand to benefit from a visual upgrade down the line. Cockpit design is pretty straight forward , important switches are within reach at all times, and they follow a natural flow that allows you to be mission ready in no time. It is a very, very simple bird in its operation, and there aren't really any notable quirks that make it feel unique. It is unique when it comes to comparing it to other birds of its era, though. The MiG-15 is a bit more complex in its operation, but it is still rather simple. There is no other way to describe it. That's the nature of these aircraft , since they are a product of their era. Jet propulsion was relatively new and there were not any advanced systems as we know them now, so the avionics are very straight forward. It was you, your aircraft, and the sky. Here are some of the shots of the cockpit so you can see when I say that it would benefit from a visual upgrade: THE GOLDEN ERA OF AIR COMBAT So we come to the actual point of the Sabre and the reason why I find the bird so appealing. There is no better aircraft to dogfight with in DCS, period. This is just pure, unadulterated air combat in its purest form. If what you like is the sense of losing yourself while keeping your eyes on your enemy, twisting and turning until one comes out victorious; then this module is what you should get day-one in DCS. It's just you, your guns and your enemy. These birds are surprisingly fast and incredibly agile , agile enough to out turn even some modern fighters that have flight computers and stability augmentation when its pilot fights intelligently. Just know your limits and do not engage in scenarios where you know you will be at a disadvantage, and manage your energy. When it comes to weapons, it does not have that many. It has just enough so that it could be considered a ground attack platform, and not even a very flexible one. Which is understandable, seeing as that's how aircraft design philosophy was at the time. WEAPONRY M3 MACHINE GUNS x6 These are your main weapon. Lots of ammo, but lacking in armor penetration and damage overall. They can feel rather weak, as some aircraft seem to just eat your bullets away with no significant damage taken. Thankfully, you have six of these! AIM-9B SIDEWINDER Practically worthless against anything that is maneuvering, these missiles are better used for big targets such as bombers. They are easily spoofed by flares or the sun. HVAR ROCKETS Nothing out of the ordinary here, these are your average HVARs. It can carry 12 of these! M64 AND M117 BOMBS Only two of these, but if your aim is true, you will kill whatever it is you aimed at. Guaranteed! OVERVIEW CONCLUSIONS What this module is a homage to unaltered and pure piloting. A module which can only be enjoyed if what you want is to struggle your way through a fight with very limited aid from your aircraft or instruments. Thanks to Kosmos for doing the photoshoot with me! It is a lovely module and one that I recommend to everyone out there to try at least once. If there only would be more servers which ran missions dedicated to this style of fighting, that would strengthen my recommendation even more. But for that to happen, the entire DCS community would have to shift interests, something I do not see happening. About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as a writer and content manager ever since. Twitter | Discord : Cubeboy

The event has also arranged hotel, airfare, and car rental discounts to make it easy for everyone to participate! Media Partnership Confirmed 2025! Skyward Flight Media has been confirmed as a media partner for FlightSimExpo 2025. This is our fifth year of media partnership for the expo. Our organization covered the event as online only attendees in 2021 and 2024, but attended the event in person in 2023. See all of our past content from FSExpo here . In 2025 we have one representative confirmed attending the event in person with others possibly in attendance. Press Release: Registration Open! Attendee registration is now open for FlightSimExpo 2025, held June 27-29 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. Use flightsimexpo.com/register to secure the best rates. After welcoming more than 2,400 attendees to Las Vegas earlier this year, one of the world’s largest dedicated flight simulation events is headed to New England! The convention will feature developers, non-profits, virtual airlines, air traffic control demos, seminars, product announcements, off-site activities and tours, and much more. The 2025 event kicks off with #FSExpoFriday , an afternoon of product updates and announcements from flight simulation’s biggest developers. Later that evening, all attendees are invited to a welcome reception, while FSA Captains have the option to attend the FlightSimExpo Banquet, featuring dinner and prizes. On Saturday and Sunday, attendees get access to an 85,000+ square foot exhibit hall with hands-on demos of flight simulation hardware and software. Speaker stages will feature how-to seminars and educational discussions sourced from the community. An ‘Entire Event’ registration includes all seminars, exhibit hall access on Saturday and Sunday, a free drink at Friday’s Welcome Reception, coffee and tea on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and exclusive access to post-event seminar recordings. All this starts at just $50, for the first 250 FSA Captains to register. Entire Event pricing for non-members is $80 USD, with Weekend or Online-Only options available too.   Airline, Hotel, and Car Rental Discounts Discounted hotel rooms and airfare deals from Delta, United, Southwest, and codeshare partners are available now. Make your travel plans early to take advantage of great rates. Find the details at flightsimexpo.com/travel . Sponsor and Exhibit at FlightSimExpo 2025 FlightSimExpo welcomes software developers, hardware vendors, communities, and other flight simulation organizations to participate as sponsors, exhibitors, and speakers. Details on getting involved are available at flightsimexpo.com/partner . An initial list of sponsors and exhibitors will be shared in March 2025. “We’ve made it super easy for flight sim devs of all sizes to participate in FlightSimExpo,” says co-founder Evan Reiter. “Turnkey solutions, part-time exhibit booths, and larger opportunities are all available. The community wants to meet you! Look through our 2025 Partner Overview, speak to other devs who’ve attended, or reach out to me for more information.” About FlightSimExpo. FlightSimExpo is one of the world’s largest flight simulation conventions. The event has welcomed more than 7,500 attendees to events in Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego, and Houston since 2018. FlightSimExpo is produced by Flight Simulation Association, a community-driven organization of developers, simmers, and real-world pilots working to make it easier to get started in home flight simulation. Join the community today—free—at flightsimassociation.com for resources, learning content, webinars, and discounts on top add-ons and simulation hardware.

Two games from the Macross series let stubborn fighter jocks fly fixed-wing fighters against futuristic transforming robots. F-14 Tomcats entering battle (Macross Zero). Macross is a long-running anime series that features robots that can transform into fixed-wing fighters. Whether you know them from the original show in 1982, the overseas adaptation known as Robotech, or the recent stint of official Macross movies appearing in theaters in 2022, it is hard to deny the appeal of a futuristic as a robot that transforms into a high-speed fighter jet. A somewhat well known scene from Macross Zero, a prequel OVA to the original series, shows F-14 Tomcats in a close-range dogfight with MiG-29 Fulcrums. This decently done scene leads to the F-14s being decimated by one of the first operational models of the transforming robots, formally known as "variable fighters." The entire opening of Macross Zero was designed to show how variable fighters could easily defeat even high-performance fixed-wing fighters. The point was to show how this new technology being used by humanity makes what we believe are our most advanced machines obsolete. But let the record show that one of the Tomcats almost got a gun kill on one fancy variable fighter! Among Macross fans, that is a point that is regularly brought up when talking about that scene. It is this train of thought that led me to write this article. Two Macross games from the PlayStation Portable allow fixed-wing fighter jocks to keep stubbornly flying their atmospheric fighters. Macross Ultimate Frontier (2009) and Macross Triangle Frontier (2011) are games that compile single-player campaigns based on the various Macross OVAs, TV shows, and movies with original missions and online multiplayer functionality. Their inclusion also brings some of the vehicles seen in Macross Zero, like the F-14 Tomcat (Type-14) and MiG-29 Fulcrum (Type 29). It's important to note that these are "atmospheric" fighters, i.e., they need some atmosphere to operate in. Any mission set in space will not let players select these aircraft. Still, oddly enough, it is possible to fly missions that happen inside massive spaceships - the technicality being that they do have an atmosphere. The inability to use these aircraft in space missions means a pure play-through of each single-player campaign with earthbound fixed-wing fighters is impossible. You won't be engaging in space combat with your F-14 - this isn't Airforce Delta Strike - but you could turn and burn in a MiG-29 on a planet halfway across the Milky Way Galaxy in the year 2059. Flying inside a space cruiser. What could go wrong? Players will be fighting against variable fighters with energy defense systems, alien bioweapons with laser cannons on their backs, and even a semi-mythical weapon left behind by the creators of the human race. That's a lot for a humble twin-engined jet fighter to deal with. Now, of course, none of the Macross games are flight simulators. You could say they barely qualify as a flight arcade since the games are built around the premise that players will be transforming their vehicles between multiple configurations. Hovering like a helicopter while firing a cannon or being in a humanoid form while taking cover behind terrain is two-thirds of the gameplay. MiG-29 flying past four alien mechs. Players can enable Real Flight Controls to get a more traditional heads-up display and flight controls you'd expect from a flight arcade title. Still, the game is clearly designed to utilize the capabilities of variable fighters Macross has staked its identity on. The only way a fixed-wing fighter-focused playthrough could be done is by modifying their performance with in-game tuning points. An emphasis on aircraft top speed, acceleration, missile striking distance, and missile power is needed to get through the middle levels of each campaign. When enemies can instantly come to a stop by transforming, then fire at a player's jet while remaining inside its turn radius, players will quickly learn that hit-and-run slashing attacks will be their greatest asset. I discussed this in much more detail in an article about Real Flight Controls in Macross Games , see that for more information. MiG-29 investigating a space ship. The F-14s and MiG-29s have no energy weapons, energy shielding, the ability to destroy missiles in flight, or anything similar to the future technology they are up against. Missile barrages, cannons, chaff, flares, and high speed are their primary weapons. Though a "special move" called the V-Formation can be activated, it's nothing more than calling in two NPC wingmen to increase firepower by having all three aircraft attack the same target. Formation of F-14s evading a Macross-class warship. Frankly, bringing fighter jets from pre-alien space war Earth to battle neck snappingly fast aliens somewhere across the galaxy can be as frustrating as you think it would be. Patiently dashing in and gradually chipping away at enemies and investing every hardware tuning point you get can feel like a deep grind. But on the other hand, you can't help but chuckle whenever you find victory in these absurd situations. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

Have you ever been in a rate fight with two MiG-21s welded together at the wings? I have. It might seem odd to review this series with its middle installment, but it may be the one that I can be the least biased about. Airforce Delta--known as Deadly Skies in Europe--was Konami’s answer to Namco’s Ace Combat. Before Project Wingman--before HAWX--there was Airforce Delta. I want to be blunt about this; It’s a competent answer, despite some of its lackluster presentation. This series gets mixed reactions at best, trash-talked at worst. I won’t deny that it flat rips off Ace Combat at points, but it brings enough to the table to carve out much of its own character. So let’s start with the game that has the least character to beleaguered-ly make my point! No really, that "twin Fishbed" exists. Airforce Delta Storm is the sequel to its progenitor on the Dreamcast and it effectively takes the formula that the original game developed and builds a new strategic movement system and a semi-realistic flight model into it. Developed for the original Xbox as a launch title, anecdotally, locating a copy was difficult for a time due to its release proximity to September 11th, 2001. Airforce Delta Storm was not the only game that disappeared from American shelves at this time—many other flight games were removed on a voluntary basis by retailers at recommendation by the United States government. As OG Xbox consoles become rarer, we should be so lucky that this game is part of the Xbox 360’s backwards compatibility library with minimal issues. You will run into sound and music issues at times, where both will fail to play, but they will pick up upon the next action screen. In fact, the Xbox 360 has a distinct advantage to the experience of this game; Airforce Delta has the rare ability to remap virtually all controls. Three control configurations are available for your flight experience: Novice —this is a familiar bank-to-turn setting that mirrors that of the novice controls of Ace Combat Expert —As traditional as it can get for a flight shooter game, granting you all six degrees of freedom. Ace – Similar to expert, but assigns a separate function button to the airbrake and holding throttle inputs like that of a traditional aircraft thrust lever. I reviewed this game using the Expert control set, emulated on the Xbox 360. To try to grant myself an accelerated re-acquaintance with the controls, I remapped the controller to mimic Ace Combat 7’s button layout the best I could. The infuriating insistence on all of these flight games to arbitrarily swap the gun and missile around the lettered buttons can create an exercise in patience and frustration. That said, about a quarter of the way into the game, latent brain programming tried to take over and I found myself starting missions with the Y button held firm—this correlates to the acceleration key in the default control layout. The first mission sets you up for the lackluster story and unintentionally humorous narrative. The over-the-top presentation of the narrator and your fellow pilots (whom you will only see in cutscenes) is almost meme worthy. Taking place during a resource war between your Allied Forces and the they’re-bad-because-we-say-so United Forces, your haves take on the surprisingly well equipped have-nots in a near-future world war set in an unnamed fictional continent with just-as-fictional regional landmarks serving as your mission areas. Sitting pretty in an A-7, your afterburner-less attack plane is tasked with destroying a landing force escorted by a lackluster naval and air contingent amidst a backdrop that has more shades of brown than a SCAR 17S. However intrigue does exist here: The aircraft models are gorgeous for their time, exceeding that of the game’s PS2 contemporaries. If it wasn’t for the lack of passive anti-aliasing provided by a CRT television I feel these models could stand up to modern scrutiny by more discerning eyes. Lighting is showcased here, with reflections off your aircraft from the setting sun feeling reasonably natural. Engaging in dogfights with the miniscule fighter escort on map exposes a use of aircraft that we still rarely see exhibited in this genre, like the FC-1, which DCS players may recognize as their coveted “Jeff”. The A-4 is versioned “V”, and getting a close pass to it forces you to double take its unusual planform. You already know you’re in for something a little different than previous fair. Then you’ll realize that you can’t use the right control stick for view swivel and start sweating bullets that you can’t eye-follow your targets. You’ll get used to it, honestly. But you’ll also notice a lack of threats on the map. This is something Airforce Delta suffered from early on. I can’t help but wonder if development was inspired more by flight simulators, where reality would dictate significantly less density of air power deployment. However, I theorize this is also a holdover from the original game for a different reason—But that will wait for a review of that misunderstood Dreamcast staple. Regardless, this in some ways might be a big reason this game fails to garner support by wider audiences. Airforce Delta Storm is not as fast paced as its contemporaries. Like mentioned, attacking a target takes a little more deliberation and snap-decisions for opportunities require something of a target chain. All in, this means that missions are also somewhat short, with a lot of passive flow to target areas. A mission accomplished state is accompanied with little fanfare. This follows with a replay that executes camera movement like that of a flight documentary from the 1990’s, and I love it. Replays are something of an also-ran feature of flight combat games, but they continue to be included and innovated. However, Airforce Delta’s system remains the most mature. The camera angles feel natural, like another aircraft is taking the shots. It flows well, it focuses on the right events at the right times, and I don’t feel another game has paralleled it since. In fact, reviews of this game have in the past praised the replay system in particular as a strong suit of the game, and I’m glad it got the love it deserved. Sure, we have more options for free-view now and todays free camera mods can afford gorgeous still shots, but Airforce Delta’s views make me feel like I could take what I’m given and live showcase an aircraft perfectly with it. Which I might very well do at some point. Time will tell. The most frustrating part about the replay feature will be your need to skip the replay each time you execute any mission. Airforce Delta Storm elects to use a semi-realistic flight scheme. Borrowing a term Ace Combat 6 used to describe the simple control scheme of Ace Combat 2, the aircraft that you use experience significant “recoil” upon control input, much like a real aircraft would. You can’t just point your nose like Ace Combat, you have to really drag yourself through turns. Acceleration and deceleration are arcade-traditional but thanks to the control layout using push button controls there’s no potentiomers in use, meaning you’re effectively accelerating to full throttle or braking fully with a set linear progression. Combined together you have an aircraft that actually follows realistic physics maybe a little too much for the comfort of the casual player. Maximum speeds are dictated by altitude and power—it is a chore to break Mach 1 at surface level. Your aircraft has an optimal maneuvering zone between 250-450 knots or so, where turn rates are optimal. There’s no accelerating during turns here—you bleed speed quickly in some of the early-tier fighters, and God help you if you try to climb after an extended pursuit. Thanks to this form of flight control, you will find that you will need to think more strategically to attack enemy units, allowing yourself more space for strafing and forcing more advanced maneuvers in pursuits, since both instantaneous and sustained turn rates comes into play. This discipline starts to loosen up with more advanced aircraft, to the point that aircraft possessing the highest mobility have such low recoil that they very nearly mimic the handling of the original Airforce Delta. These advanced aircraft are easier to come by than you think. Within the first ten missions you can go from A-7, to F-5, to F-4, to F-14, to F-15E and already be well into mid to mid-high tier performance. The performance difference between aircraft can be almost wildly noticeable and manage to give each fighter a distinct character despite lack of such modern amenities like special weapons—you’re stuck with a limitless cannon and a magazine of missiles that varies depending on the fighter, with more advanced fighters granting more ammo. Moving from mission-to-mission is setup in a non-linear board-game like fashion. This is where the game starts to show some real innovation. You start at an airbase where you can select primary missions, purchase new aircraft, alter your game settings, or simply take off. Selecting a mission briefs you on your objective, you select and aircraft and then hit the map. Here you will see multiple branching paths and two sizes of red dots, representing territory. Small dots can be permanently taken, and red dots can be temporarily taken. Advancing past this enemy territory requires completing a short, randomly generated mission (of about six missions or so, dependent on the geographical terrain the mission is set on) to take the territory. Holding temporary territory starts a countdown based on the amount of “turns” you take on the map. This is where the range stat on your aircraft comes into play. For example, if you have a range stat of 1 each movement you make on the map deducts 1 from the countdown on the temporary territory you took. If you have a range stat of 2, it deducts 1 from the range counter for every 2 moves you make, etc. This strategic gameplay enables unique mission ideas, such as “wandering” missions, where a need to intercept bombers or an ace enemy pilot has you chasing the force around the map. Range takes another part here. Bombers may be “slow” in so far as you can catch up to them using an aircraft with a low range of 1 or 2, while fighters may be “fast” and require you to use an aircraft with a high range stat of 4. You will get frustrated very quickly as the enemy moves a space for every space you move, making catching them nearly impossible. They’ll fly right over expiring enemy territory too, forcing you into another mini mission. This demonstrates another feature—ammo conservation. Your ammo counts are set upon take off from base, and each mission you conduct before landing again saves your missile deductions. There have been many a time when I’ve finally made it to the primary mission only to realize I have too few missiles to fight this effectively. Your gun’s got a punch, but dogfighting with it can be difficult. The nuances of the strategic map system can be frustrating, no doubt, but the innovation is appreciated. In fact, it creates something of a demonstration of the trade-offs of non-linear vs. linear gameplay. Even with the bland story you’re presented, the timeline of cut scenes is so butchered thanks to the gameplay that it’s hard to follow what’s happening. The overarching atmosphere of the game is presented in a mixture of subdued and high-strung music and a somewhat dank and bleak UI. The sound effects aren’t much to write home about, though the noise balance of the background to missile hit and enemy destruction can be sort of satisfying. The music is heavily synthesized, though less so than its predecessor. It doesn’t come off as unique or as strong as it did in its Dreamcast outing, even as it uses reinterpretations of those old songs, with the most poignant example being an interpretation of Home Air Defense used for Battle of Castalia Sea. The first mission’s music is a strong original outing, but the quality dips in and out as you progress through levels, sometimes being an outright assault on the ears for someone who might not be too fond of that dirty, distorted metal sound. It’s sort of unfortunate that the music takes a hit here—again, its competent, just not too memorable, and since music and gameplay really go hand in hand, I think it plays a part in what makes many missions forgettable. The UI is toned dark, with use of deep greens, blues, and browns. There is some attention to detail here I appreciate, like the different airbase portraits in the background of each different airbase menu you navigate that change depending on where you land. Backgrounds rely on geographical landscapes, which give this sense of fighting somewhere barren everywhere you go, despite the missions themselves taking place over more varied terrain than presented. It’s here however that this game fails to live up to its predecessor—terrain variation seems to be anywhere from Amazon Rainforest to American Southwest, but you never seem to fight over arctic or tundra or snow-capped mountain regions. Though given that the conflict you’re fighting heavily implies a post-global warming type environment, I’m wondering if this might be intentional. Your mission briefings are generic and lifeless, with your still-portrait command staff giving you voiceless orders to complete a mission. The portraits themselves feel very Metal Gear Solid-like, which I’m guessing is intentional given this is a first-party Konami outing. Hell, one of the portraits is a spitting image of Solid Snake. But I’ve come all this way without addressing the elephant in the room, which I teased a bit in the tactical gameplay section: Original aircraft. This game is packed with them. Like, crazy packed with them. The PAL version of the game has 80 aircraft in total, with nearly half of them being fully original, fictional variations on real aircraft, never-produced aircraft concepts, or parody aircraft based on Konami properties. In fact, aircraft diversity is probably one of the greatest selling points of this game. Once you unlock the MiG-21II FishbedZwei, you’ll find yourself immersed in a rabbit hole wondering just how crazy these things are going to get. In fact, the “real” aircraft selection set is sort of mediocre. Many of the aircraft are just family variants. However, this is one of the only Japanese-produced flight games that had the guts to include Chinese aircraft, like the aforementioned FC-1 (known more commonly today as the JF-17) and the J-10A. There are also some other welcome obscurities, such as the IAI Lavi and the EMD variant of the X-32. The manual even teases that the X-32 apparently won the JSF competition in this universe, resulting in the completed fighter we see here. But the tiers of original designs just make you come back for more. Look no further than the Su-23U “Furnace” a tri-engined monster of an aircraft that clearly has Cold War design considerations, but has no basis in an actual known aircraft. These aircraft vary in improbability, from the F-18S AiraCobra II—effectively an F/A-18E with all-moving canards, to the XF/A-27 Pleadius, which is what happens when John Boyd gets his hands on the F-22 and declares that it “NEEDS LESS WING LOADING” and injects it with four of the 26 genome sequences of the MiG-29. Despite the overall weirdness and some feelings of “OC donut steel” that they put off, I can’t help but adore the creativity. The fact that the manual even fleshes out fictional histories of some of the aircraft is icing on the cake. Perhaps the most unfortunate part of this from my North American perspective is that we’re short on aircraft this side of the Atlantic. As I previously mentioned, there are 80 aircraft available in the PAL version of the game. The NTSC version knocks this down to just 74. Perhaps not a big loss, but I lament not being able to use the S-55 Flanker-O or the Super Entendard. Looking back at Airforce Delta Storm today is a mixed bag, just as it was back then. It arrived amongst a sea of flight shooters at the time, and was clearly developed as a showcase for the Xbox’s graphical fidelity. In this, it succeeds. It also succeeds in creating a functional game filled with potential. But it’s not for everyone. Airforce Delta Storm was not as major a hit as its rival at the time, and how could it be? Just two months prior, the PlayStation 2 would receive Ace Combat 04, arguably the most important game that franchise could hope to have. Side-by-side, Airforce Delta Storm couldn’t stand a chance—Ace Combat 04 was a shining star in a genre of mediocrity at the time. But for those of us that still had to make a choice in the waning console wars, we went with what we had, and we played it, dammit! Airforce Delta Storm was my path, and I don’t regret it. The reason I want to emphasize that this game is worth a second look is because it is still well built and polished for the most part. It lacks much of the jank that games like Lethal Skies or Top Gun: Combat Zones would bring, despite their greater feature set in the former, or name recognition of the latter. It tried its best to start distancing itself from its Ace Combat influence, and was built by a team that clearly had some passion for the genre and for aviation. It’s eccentrics are subtle, but they’re there, and they’d lead into that same team “Project FUNK”, to pull out all the stops and go off the rails into a sequel built for the system rival that was too far ahead of its time to be appreciated. Airforce Delta Storm might be something of a footnote, but to me it’s an important one. It holds a personal historical weight for me as well: If it wasn’t for Airforce Delta Storm, I’d have never played Ace Combat 04. And, well… it’s easy to see where that led me. About the Writer T.J. "Millie" Archer A Life-long realist and aviation enthusiast. Once the co-founding Administrator of the Electrosphere.info English Ace Combat Database. In the present day he is freelance, roving the internet in search of the latest aviation news and entertainment.  Read Staff Profile .

The first day of the New Year is here. Skyward flight Media is forming considerable plans for 2025. With ideas being written up and multipart meetings on the horizon, a part of looking forward to the future is taking a look at the past. For Skyward, 2024 was a time of continuing our established way of operations while gradually increasing our reach. Here are a few releases that exemplify some of the content we put out this year. YAWMAN ARROW REVIEW February 3rd, 2024 Our big hardware review of the year was for the Arrow handheld flight controller by Yawman LLC. After meeting the team and trying a prototype at Flight Sim Expo 2023, ongoing communication led to an early mass production unit being sent to Skyward Flight Media before the Arrow was released for public sale. Though designed for mid to high fidelity flight simulators, the USB interface of this controller made it possible to remap its buttons and axes for any new or old game that would recognize it. This review stands as one of our most in-depth hardware reviews thus far. FSE 2024: AI Enhanced Flight June 22nd, 2024 The widespread use of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives is here. How it would be incorporated into flight Simulation was something I was unsure of. I half-expected its implementation to just fly aircraft on behalf of the Humans playing the simulator. Which would be, for the lack of a better term, "Cringe". However, companies presenting at FSE 2024 offered their AI products as an enhancement to flight, rather than a replacement for the minutiae of aviation operations. With AI providing multi-language air traffic control, ground control, radio chatter and even flight instruction, it seems like the era of enhanced solo flight simulation is here. DCS Syria COIN February 11th, 2024 The first Skyward Flight Media original mission created for Digital Combat Simulator. This scenario is an example of how our in house mission editors now have high level skills, but it also represents a turning point in Skyward's content creation. With this mission's release, even more complex content has been planned, with development well underway. No Punch: DCS World's Disappointing Explosives August 7th, 2024 An important article this year, as we finally got a bit tired of the way explosives work in vanilla DCS and wanted to bring some attention to this issue. After all, how fun can bombing a target really be when a Humvee two feet from the 500lb bomb explosion comes out unharmed? Review: DCS OH-6A Cayuse by Tobsen & Eightball May 1st, 2024 Out of all the reviews written last year, the most important one was the Cayuse. This little bird that could is the most impressive mod released for DCS World this year, and one that not only left me speechless, but also revived my faith in proper mods being done for the only combat sim on the market. The Current State of DCS World and its Community April 27th, 2024 Speaking of the only modern combat sim in the market, we also shared our genuine opinions about the state of DCS World and its community and some of the drama that surrounded it in early 2024. The fact that a lot of what was said still rings true starting 2025 should be an indication that this article has aged like fine wine.

For months, my copy of VTOL VR sat there on my SSD, unattended and unloved. I struggled to find any motivation to boot it up since I was not really in the mood to play it alone, at least until my friend and fellow Skyward creator, Hueman, got his first VR headset. As it is kind of typical in our friend group, he was immediately bombarded with VR games to give him the best shot at enjoying his time in VR, one of which was VTOL VR. This finally gave me an excuse to revisit this game with a clear mind, and now with a larger group of friends to fly alongside me. We all assembled the past two days to have fun in the game, but I never expected to have such a good time with it, especially considering my previous stagnation with the game. DAY 1: MULTI-CREW TIME The first session was sort of an impromptu one, and I wanted to do something different that I just couldn't do by myself. That is why I proposed to Hueman to do some multi-crew flights with two aircraft, the AH-94 and the T-45. The sessions started very rough, as it was the first time in months that I had touched VTOL VR. I had to readjust myself to the controls, while trying to teach some of the basics of the AH-94 gunner seat to Hue. He ended up figuring out most of it himself for the sole reason that I already kind of had enough trying to teach myself the pilot seat of the helicopter to myself. After a couple of suboptimal flights, half of which we flew with one engine because I rushed the startup, we learned the hard way that we needed more people for the mission we were engaging. We only managed to get some of the objectives done, and the last couple of objectives were impossible with our current level of proficiency. View from Hueman's perspective. That is why we switched to the T-45, a simpler and more familiar aircraft. In my initial review, I found this plane to be a lovely experience in VR and an excellent way to teach your friends to do anything you need to do in VTOL VR. Much of this experience did transfer through even after months of disuse, but we still struggled a bit because of my poor weapon choices for the missions we were tackling. At the end of the day, we had spent hours flying and getting things done. I had a blast with Hue and he did too. This would wrap up the first day of flying. DAY 2 AND 3: BIG MISSION, MADE BETTER WITH FRIENDS For the second and third days, we had some of our friends show up to the session. This made it possible to tackle some bigger multiplayer CO-OP missions that were just unreasonable to do alone. We did two sessions of the same mission, but with different parameters and people. Important bonding time between members of SkywardFM. This mission was one of the biggest ones included with the base game, and has a lot of potential to do many types of tasks and objectives. From air-to-air, air-to-ground, SEAD and anti-ship, this mission has a bit of everything. RibbonBlue, as expected, decided to get on the EF-24 and fly for us as a dedicated SEAD and Electronic Warfare aircraft. He suppressed as many as possible, allowing us to get insanely close to some of the more difficult objectives, such as the enemy fleet. He also, surprisingly, focused himself on jamming the enemies' radar warning receivers, but what does this mean? In simple terms, he made it so that if he had focused on that enemy aircraft, that pilot couldn't even know that they were being shot at until the last seconds before impact. This came in handy more times than I'd like to admit. The others, including me, dedicated ourselves to all other miscellaneous objectives. I personally made it my mission to annihilate all known enemy air defenses and the enemy fleet with the F-45, this game's equivalent to the F-35 Lightning II. I did this with both Sournetic, another member of Skyward's team, Hueman and Wyvern613. We did a lot over both sessions, and had a blast. So much happened that it would be here typing all day if I were to recount every sortie, but a couple of the highlights from my sides were: sinking three quarters of the enemy fleet with anti-radiation missiles, downing three out of four enemy stealth aircraft while engaging solo with one wing after Sour was shot down, doing SEAD the old way by engaging the emplacements with the gun while defeating missiles kinetically, etc. IF YOU OWN VR, PLEASE GO PLAY VTOL VR I am not joking when I say that I fell in love with this game all over again over the span of a week. Our friend group is now planning future sessions and Hueman, as expected, is now engaging with the game's mission editor to create custom terrain and missions for the group to fly to. This is to say, expect more VTOL VR content in the future! About the creator: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

New Airfields, Heliports, Dynamic Spawns and more The latest update for our first publicly downloadable original mission for Digital Combat Simulator is now available. This update takes advantage of major improvements on the mission editor side to enhance player experience and fixes to minor errors that arose between updates to the simulator itself. Version 1.6 Changelog Fixed position of certain static objects (corner sandbags and HESCO barriers) which had been broken by a DCS update. Repositioned some ground units to reflect map changes (for example, certain REDFOR units which were supposed to be in rooftops where buildings were moved). New airfields and heliports included in Syria Map have been made BLUFOR where applicable (inside BLUFOR-controlled territory) for refueling and rearming. Airfields used for spawns now have Dynamic Spawns enabled. Dynamic Spawns offer a more "casual" experience in this mission as aircraft types and loadouts are not restricted. Due to the inclusion of dynamic spawns, the number of "fixed" slots in the main airfields has been greatly reduced, freeing up parking slots for the dynamic slots to use. Thanks to the dynamic spawns, it is also now possible to remove the dedicated Su-34, Su-24M and Tornado IDS mod slots. Download Get the latest version of the mission from our Google Drive : About the Mission Syria COIN  is a cooperative multiplayer mission by Skyward Flight Media's lead Digital Combat Simulator World mission creator, Caio D. "Hueman" Barreto .  This mission was designed as a lower-intensity operation to allow the effective use of lower-performance aircraft such as the A-29B Super Tucano, OV-10 Bronco, and less advanced attack helicopters such as the Hind.   Likewise, the mission is centered around these aircraft - though faster and more capable aircraft are available, these are stationed in airbases further away from the operational areas. This is done to encourage the use of low-performance aircraft while still allowing those who desire to play high-performance aircraft to enjoy this mission. Learn about this mission, its detailed story, kneeboards and more on the official webpage .

Development update for the next Skyward Original Mission for Digital Combat Simulator Development of the second publicly available Skyward original mission for Digital Combat Simulator World is well under way. A preview is in order! Unlike the expansive, counterinsurgency focused Skyward Syria COIN mission , our upcoming mission is a smaller, high intensity, Cold War era experience generically set in a 1971 - 1979 technology limit. Near complete build of Mount Sabana Military Base. Mission Setting 'Sabana Strike' is set on the free to download Marianas map for Digital Combat Simulator World. Not tied to any historic event or inspired by current events, it has a minimal setting to provide context for the mission. Mount Sabana Military Base is the heart of enemy operations on Rota Island. This large base houses most of the logistics and support facilities for the forces that occupy the island. Barracks, warehouses, vehicle storage, administrative offices, heliports and more. There are also satellite facilities for the base, including road checkpoints, observation points and early warning radar station. Early Warning Radar station outside of the main base. Recently, new construction of a facility to support mobile Scud tactical ballistic missile launchers has been confirmed. Deployment of this missile system puts the allied forces in Andersen Air Force Base in danger of being struck by ballistic missiles, as their current land based air defenses are unable to intercept this new threat. Pre-emptive air strikes against this under construction facility and Sabana Base itself must be made to stop this new threat and diminish the enemy's hold on the island. Classic Layered Air Defense Inspirations for how air defense is portrayed in this mission was taken from documented deployments of anti-aircraft weapons and tactics from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The island features a small, but intense layered air defense network. Rota International Airport hosts a MiG-19P fighter squadron of 10 combat capable aircraft. They patrol the airspace around the island, taking advantage of the air defenses on the island to augment their limited air-to-air capabilities. As flights are potentially lost in combat, the next flight or flights of aircraft are launched to protect the island. The entire squadron is available to be scrambled and attempt long-range interception under certain circumstances. The airport also supports transport flights that supply the enemy positions on Rota island and can support any combat aircraft that enter the area of operations from long distance. MiG-19P fighter squadron at Rota Intl Airport. A surface to air missile (SAM) site in the north-western tip of the island houses an SA-3 Goa and SA-8 Gecko making medium and high altitude attacks very difficult. The SA-3 in particular is dangerous as it has shorter range than the SA-2 Guideline, but has more reliable tracking and can rapid fire up to 12 missiles in just a few minutes. It can make short work of formations of aircraft attempting high altitude level bombing. Beneath the SAM coverage, there are large air defense positions of 57mm and 100mm anti-aircraft artillery batteries able to fling explosive shells between 3.5 and 9.5 nautical miles away up to tens of thousands of feet in the air. Each position has point defenses such as manually guided or radar guided 23mm autocannons. Infrared guided missile threats do exist on the island, but are dispersed and usually near high priority targets. F-5E-3 Tiger II pressing through anti-aircraft fire. "One Pass" Sabana Strike is a mission created with high-speed, low altitude fixed-wing combat sorties in mind. The goal is to give players the experience of flying at wave top or tree top level, evading multiple calibers of anti-aircraft fire with the presence of surface-to-air missiles lingering above their heads. By technology locking the era, it also limits the ability to deploy stand-off weapons like air launched cruise missiles and further push players to operate in the range of air defenses. Making multiple consecutive strikes is not encouraged as it gives air defenses across the island a chance to bring all guns to bare on players circling above the island. As such, the concept of "low, fast, one pass" or "one pass, haul ass" is at the core of this mission. I wrote an article about it on August 28th, 2024. Extras in the Details Recently, as a mission editor, I have found my "style" to be the addition of variables and minor details that change the player's experience over time or rewards players for thinking a bit more tactically. With Sabana Strike primarily happening on a single island, there are many details in a small area. Some examples in this mission are: The MiG-19P squadron uses Uncontrolled AI to have all ten aircraft existing in the mission right from the start. A daring low altitude raid against the airfield could destroy a majority of the fighter squadron while they are on the ground. A long-range communication tower is located somewhere on Rota island. Destroying it can disrupt the ability of forces on Rota island to call for reinforcements from outside the area of operations. Mount Sabana Military Base is 'alive' in the sense. As certain parts of the base take damage, infantry can spawn from certain structures, then run to occupy vehicles or deploy air defenses like MANPADS to stop ongoing attacks by players. Different combinations of destroyed vehicles or buildings cause defenders to react in certain ways. While the air defense positions are daunting because of the volume of fire they can output, attacking them directly is beneficial in reducing their ability to attack at distance. However, as these positions take damage, forces from other areas may drive or fly to reinforce them. B-52 Stratofortress bombing Mount Sabana Military Base. Release Date Sabana Strike entered consistent private testing in December 2024. It is currently in late phase testing with only minor adjustments to mission elements being implemented. The tentative release date for this mission is January 2025. Similar to the Syria COIN mission, it will be available for free download on our website and the DCS User Files. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza   Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info , the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [ Read Profile ]

A fresh DCS World experience utilizing the Kiowa in its traditional role When flying in Digital Combat Simulator these days, many of us are either Cold War cruising at low altitude or fourth generation strategizing at angels 30. One module that has soaked up much of our interest in our private sessions is the Polychop Simulations OH-58D Kiowa Warrior as flown by Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos. This responsive and nimble scout helicopter, became the catalyst for the creation and closed testing of another Skyward original Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) mission. Also a new venture with the DCS: Combined Arms expansion. Thoughts on DCS: Combined Arms For those that may not remember or have not paid attention to it, DCS: Combined Arms for Digital Combat Simulator allows players to directly control air, ground and naval forces in the simulator to varying degrees. It is not inaccurate to liken the experience to a real time strategy game, with certain elements that take the experience deeper. Players are able to drive infantry fighting vehicles into combat from first or third person view or direct cruise missiles from a Destroyer onto far off targets. Dozens of units can be commanded without players using this expansion ever loading into their favorite fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft. May 31st, 2012 pre-Alpha trailer for DCS: Combined Arms. Released on December 25th, 2012, DCS: Combined Arms did receive updates over time but nothing to the point that it could be considered a core part of the standard experience for players in this simulator in 2024. It relies on mission editors to design missions that incorporate its functionality. This is especially true for handling ground forces. When comparing the distance and time travelled between a tracked vehicle and a supersonic aircraft, preventing the land based player experience from being a three-hour drive to the action is a factor. But on the other side of the coin, frankly, this expansion is so rarely used in a considerable way for multiplayer missions, there is not a real demand for mission editors to incorporate DCS Combined Arms in a meaningful way. Kiowa Inspiration The latest mission editing effort by Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza from Skyward Flight Media started with inspiration from the OH-58D Kiowa module having a built-in compatibility with Unmanned Aerial Systems that is modeled in the simulator. Video feeds from UAS like the MQ-1 Predator or Wingloong-I can be down linked into the Kiowa's cockpit via the L2MUMS: Level 2 Manned/Unmanned System . Considering the age of DCS: Combined Arms, it is somewhat shocking to see a module from the year 2024 incorporate a part of it in a way no other aircraft in Digital Combat Simulator has as of the time of this writing. This led to the development of a new mission with the Kiowa's scouting abilities in mind, which then evolved into a rotary-wing aircraft focused mission that incorporates ground forces in a way Skyward has not attempted before. M2A2 Bradley IFVs moving to the frontline. OH-58D in the top, right background. Mission: Buckler Edge The mission known as "Buckler Edge" is designed to be a defensive mission. With allied forces defeated in a large-scale battle, the lead element of the opposing force over extended itself beyond its main forces while chasing the allied retreat. The rearguard of the allied force sees a chance to retake a town from the opposing force lead element before their reinforcements arrive to solidify their gains. Retaking the town would effectively bottleneck the incoming hostile main force in tight mountain roads, eliminating their numerical advantage. With open terrain, rolling hills, mountains and a considerable amount of forest, the complex terrain benefits attack and scout helicopters. DCS: Combined Arms is incorporated into Buckler Edge using forward operating bases built with methods discussed in our most recent mission editor article. To reward rotary-wing players for operating from forward deployed positions, these bases include forward arming and refueling facilities, portable TACAN and multiple artillery batteries. Sparse groups of ground forces available to the players also have varying degrees of JTAC capabilities. Kiowa landing at a forward operating base. OH-58D awaiting a mission at a forward operating base. A second aircraft landing in the background. F10 mission map settings are set to be strict, with neutral dot and color dot identifiers as the only visual references for locations of friendlies and enemies while players fly their aircraft. There are also no enemies displayed on the map for quick reference. Being able to spot targets, gather coordinates and pass those coordinates to other players becomes a powerful tool. This is where something like a player controlled reconnaissance asset would come in - this is where the OH-58D Kiowa can uniquely shine. Text Book Team During the initial test of Buckler Edge, "Cube" and "Ribbon-Blue" formed a text book team that is not often used in Digital Combat Simulator multiplayer servers. With no fixed-wing aircraft support during their mission, Cube in the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior provided information for ground forces controlled by Ribbon-Blue. While the Kiowa flew towards the frontline, a platoon of Bradleys were moved into blocking positions to stop an attempted eastern flank and a JTAC element of 'Humvees' maneuvered to find high value targets. Once on station, the Kiowa went right to work searching for and destroying armored personnel carriers and RPG teams concealed in the tree line of an occupied town. With the scout helicopter's limited number of anti-tank missiles expended from a safe distance, the Kiowa began gathering coordinates for other groups of hostile infantry and vehicles waiting in ambush positions. This developed into the Kiowa staying forward deployed for an extended amount of time, relying on maneuvering itself into difficult terrain to make extensive use of the sensors in its Mast Mounted Sight. Some of the locations the scout helicopter gathered information from were tailor-made for its design. Artillery preparing to commence a fire mission. Through the use of estimated GPS coordinates, map marks and a DCS specific Coordinates Converter by DCSWorld.pro, these positions were attacked by volleys of artillery fire from M109 Paladin 155mm batteries dispersed between three bases along the frontline. A highlight of its capability during the first mission play test involved the OH-58D operating kilometers behind advancing hostiles. Deep in difficult terrain, where no vehicle or groups of infantry could operate without great difficulty. As it remained in a stable hover at tree top level in a forest, its Mast Mounted Sight peered deep into the town occupied by the lead element of the invading force. The OH-58D truly in its element. While going unnoticed, the Kiowa identified a sizeable air defense position made up of multiple ZSU-57 supported by a ZSU-23-4 Shilka. It appeared to be the primary air defense position for REDFOR in that town. The Kiowa worked with artillery once again to degrade the local air defenses with many volleys of 155mm artillery shells. This would lead to major gaps in air defenses that other rotary-wing or fixed-wing assets could utilize to attack the main force. Even allowing older airframes to press deeper into enemy territory for longer periods of time. Artillery hitting air defense position as seen through Kiowa Mast Mounted Sight. Rather than ask for dedicated attacker platforms like the A-10 Thunderbolt II or Mi-24 Hind to go toe-to-toe with a prepared air defense, the lightly armed Kiowa quietly achieved the same effect through gathering data, communication and precision flying. This was an interesting experience for us that not only showed off the abilities of the OH-58D Kiowa, but also had us use Combined Arms in an integral manner we had not considered before. Expect updates and maybe a mission file in the future! Kiowa observing artillery impacts. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile

After what felt like an eternity, Project Wingman's lead developer "Arby" has finally released the promised 2.0 update for the game. This comes with a series of improvements, but at the same time it also comes with a bit of a surprise. The previously PlayStation exclusive DLC, Frontline 59, has now been released on PC for $4.99. How good is it? Does it have any issues? Let's find out together, shall we? SPOILERS AHEAD THE PLOT Being a DLC of a game that has a complete story, Frontline 59 places itself in a very interesting part of the game's timeline. It is not a prequel or a sequel, but rather it takes place in the middle of Project Wingman's plot and from the enemy's perspective. Its story starts in the aftermath of Mission 11 "Cold War", the big aerial duel between the Federation and Cascadian forces. During these battle, the Federation sustained irrecoverable losses, mostly due to the actions of Monarch, the game's main protagonist. While that is the end of this battle during the main campaign, you get to see it from the Federation side during the DLC's first mission. You get to play as Driver , designated squad leader of Unit K-9, a Federation reserve unit that was activated and rushed into service to cover the retreat of the aircraft that managed to escape the onslaught of Mission 11. As you take off, you engage mercenary pilots that are ruthlessly downing Federation cargo aircraft. The more you shoot down, the more that show up to the battle. At the very end, you get to cover the retreat of the infamous Crimson Squadron, battered and winchester (without weapons). While this mission is quite uneventful, and maybe a bit too reminiscent of Mission 11, it makes sense from a narrative standpoint. It is a direct continuation to that mission and serves as a good launch point for a standalone story, while still connecting it to the main plot. Mission 2 has K-9 squadron covering the skies over Magadan, as Cascadian forces have now launched an amphibious attack under the orders of General Faust, a new face and the main antagonist of Frontline 59. This mission mainly focuses on ground attack and anti-ship operations. The Cascadians even brought the Eminent Domain, their flagship, to aid in the landing operations. While you are unable to damage the Eminent Domain, you can damage its accompanying fleet. It is mostly composed of cruisers and LCS vessels, so they are easy to destroy without much trouble. Mission 3 has you fighting over Tseliadan, a city where a frontline has formed between the invading Cascadians and the reserve infantry and armored units from the Federation. With both sides at a stalemate, you are tasked with clearing the area from anti-air emplacements to enable a squadron of bombers to destroy and break the enemy's offensive line. This mission is very simple and the most "standard" of them all, no new gimmicks or anything along those lines. Just plain and simple ground pounding and air engagements. You will need to engage with care thanks to the enemy railguns and flak cannons, but those are easy to handle if you fly fast enough. Mission 4 leads you to what is easily the most memorable mission in the DLC: a tunnel run. You are tasked with doing a deep strike into enemy territory that aims to destroy any semblance of order within Cascadian forces by annihilating their command center directly. To do this undetected, you will have to fly through kilometers of tunnel, avoiding enemy AAA emplacements to finally emerge and catch the enemy offguard. The music choice for this mission is on point, and the visual flair of the caverns contrasting with the man-made structures inside it is very appealing. I quite love the light show you get once you come out the other end. Lasers and flak everywhere, all at the dead of night. Mission 5 has you on a full counter-attack against the now retreating Cascadian forces, which you have displaced to the same coast as Mission 2. With the Eminent Domain present and helping with evacuations, this is when General Faust comes into the fray. She refuses to evacuate and asks her forces to stay with her and push deeper into Federation territory. She abandons her post and goes AWOL along with her loyalists. Seeing this, and going against her wishes, the commander of the Eminent Domain asks for a temporary truce to allow the retreating Cascadian forces to properly evacuate to avoid further bloodshed. Federation High Command, Crystal Kingdom, denies the request and orders their forces to continue pushing against the weakened Cascadians. Mission 6 presents an interesting scenario, thanks in due to the nature of your enemy: Faust's White Fleet. She has taken command of what used to be a diplomatic fleet and transformed it into a strike force and has it headed straight towards your base. You are sent to intercept them before they reach their target. You battle her and her airships as you dodge lasers, railguns and cordium-infused munitions that light up the sky above the post-apocalyptic earth in the Arctic Circle. As you down each of her ships, including a group of elite mercenaries, you hear her become desperate. She starts talking to you about her experience, how she fought in previous wars with the Federation and that her country is no more. Once you have dealt the final blow to her Battleship, the Roosevelt, she confeses that Cascadia has now discovered technologies that might be far more powerful than even regular Cordium-infused warheads. That, if push comes to shove, the earth will be cracked open with this tech. With this, her airship explodes high above the earth and the campaign comes to an end. This campaign, while short, feels self-contained and surprisingly cohesive, which is something I was pleasantly surprised with. Since there are no cutscenes, all of this exposition has to be delivered through briefings and in-game dialogue, so you might have to pay special attention to it if you want to avoid replaying just to get the story details you missed while you were locked in. Overall, it was a pleasant experience! THE UGLY If you go to the Project Wingman discord or some other communities, it is very easy to tell that the launch of version 2.0 was not smooth. Lots of crashes and fatal errors still plague the game for certain users, and remember, this is after what was supposed to be a long overdue big-fix and improvement update to the base game. Issues also plague the DLC, from broken triggers in certain missions to the infamous bug that stops you from finishing Mission 2 if you kill targets too quickly. This bug, according to some users, was already present in the PS5 version that has been out for over a year now. The fact that that bug is still present in the current version of the PC build is astonishing. It is clear that, while they have had some QA, that these testers missed key points and did not push the edge cases that are usually reached when a build goes public. For any future releases, I hope that they focus on these key aspects of testing, since for some this has been a very lukewarm and mixed experience. Personally, I had issues with the game constantly crashing due to a very slight overclock I had on my GPU, but these issues were solved the instant I removed said overclock. This DLC was a very enjoyable experience for me, but I know it wasn't for others. Would I recommend it? If you own Project Wingman already, yes. It is cheap for the amount of content it offers, and it was a genuinely great experience to get to revisit this world after so long. About the writer Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

Did you know that your stick and rudder prowess can be used to train the next generation of autopilot? It is true, an artificial intelligence cat told me so. I came across Exosky by Elevons LLC a few weeks ago. It did not appear during a game festival, just through the usual internet crawling. I haven't written about it up until this point as I have both been wondering how to describe it and still somewhat mesmerized by it. After a sweet near-miss barrel roll past a deep space borne fresh water turtle the other night, I thought it was time. ABOUT EXOSKY Exosky is an unusual single player flight sim experience both in story and gameplay experience. Players are guided by Norton, an A.I. that was created by someone from long before the events of the game. Though the exact reason for that is unknown, even to Norton, it is known that the given name and visual design of the cat that once belonged to the long-gone creator. Norton built software to gather training data to create the ultimate A.I. pilot in the honor of his former creator who once loved to fly aircraft. To incentivize players to fly as extreme as possible for high quality data gathering, the more dangerous each flight it, the more points are gathered. Players are flying fictional drones in this simulator to further encourage flying as reckless as possible. No long-term consequences! Descriptions of the drones mention "Martian engineering" and space colonies, so the setting of the game is certainly far in the future. The drones are flown through multiple levels or "simulations" with varying atmospheres, gravities and geographies that incorporate aspects of CPUs and GPUs. You will have to see it to believe it. Each time a player loads up a level, waypoint routes are randomly generated. Each playthrough is unique. Players fly within a few meters of each waypoint to clear it and be directed to the next. Occasionally the world seed provides a path that is not physically able to be completed. I remember a few runs where a waypoint was in the center of a floating mountain. That is simple enough to fix by just reloading the level and trying it again. Each second a player is flying, their control inputs are monitored and graded for a point score. In a game where even aileron rolling gives you points, flying straight and level is safe, but it is not going to get you far on the total score board. Points are rewarded and multiplied depending on the consistency and complexity of the aerobatic maneuvers performed. Other factors like flying through clouds, different atmospheres, high speeds, ultra low altitude flight, etc., are factored into overall score. New levels are unlocked by reaching specific high scores. After a few weeks of playing on and off, I can say that I am having a good time with it so far. Being encouraged and rewarded to fly in such a dynamic way is quite a change from the types of games and simulators I am used to. Normally I would go a bit deeper into the gameplay, but for now I am going to recommend downloading the demo and trying it out. In the meantime, here are some finer details that should be noted. Flight Model Documentation The flight model struck me as rather well modeled within a few days of playing, and for good reason, apparently. Exosky comes with a documented flight model , publicly accessible on their website. This document is rather detailed, even including a sample JSON file that correlates with the explanation of the flight model. I very much enjoy seeing this type of documentation. In this case, it helps users gain a better understanding of the behind the scenes work and assist them with using the next built-in game feature. Modding Manual Even in its early state, it is possible to mod custom aircraft with custom aerodynamic values to be added to the game. However, it is not something that can easily be done in just a few minutes. The modding manual provides a step-by-step process on how to do so. The aircraft used to demonstrate this ability is the Verville-Packard R-1. In the futuristic setting of Exosky, an air racer from the year 1919 can be flown. Development I have not found a clear development timeline at this point, but some in-depth research on their Discord server , official website  and Steam page has allowed me to piece together a decent idea. May 2020 : Elevons LLC founded. April 2022 : Discord server created. June 17th, 2022 : Public pre-alpha demo for " Yesplane! ", the predecessor of Exosky. June - August 2022 : Continued development, opportunity pathfinding, concept refinement. September 11th, 2022 : New website launched, project rebranded to Exosky. Change in game concept begins. August 22nd, 2023 : Early demo for Exosky released on Discord for testing. January 23rd, 2024 : Steam page and demo released. There is talk of Exosky appearing in a game festival in early 2025, but more on that at a later date. Research for writing this article led me deeper into the details of Exosky and its developer has unveiled some other interesting details I'd love to speak to the developer about formally. More on Exosky soon! About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza   Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info , the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [ Read Profile ]

As someone that has been working on textures and art assets for many flight simulators and games over the past decade, it is clear to me that doing paint schemes for aircraft is one of the most satisfying projects one can involve oneself on. Differing greatly from humanoid models, working with planes allows you as an artist to create a completely unique piece that would be impossible to accomplish in other mediums. For me, there is a certain joy in creating both fictional designs and realistic replicas of existing aircraft. It is not just the joy of making them, which can also be a source of immense frustration depending on the case, but also a sense of accomplishment once a project is finished, and you can finally take a look at your livery in-game. Since livery creators do not have access to the models themselves and have to rely on using the built-in model viewer included with the game, making complex liveries can be an arduous task. Alignment of camouflage patterns between pieces can become a nightmare, since many of the aircraft in DCS use two or more texture files per model; but, once the stars and patterns align together, seeing that beautiful sheen on the paint of your virtual aircraft hits different. I've made countless liveries and textures throughout my career as a freelance texture artist, both with and without direct access to the models I was texturing. In all that time, nothing has hit as hard as when I saw my first bare metal livery come to life in DCS World. The shine of the different types of metal thanks to the custom roughmets plus all the small imperfections on the paint that you have to do by hand or by mixing default textures with your own was amazing, and an experience that surely sent me down the livery creation rabbi thole. Camouflage liveries are also extremely fun to make, when the models allow for their creation without much hassle. When limited to one or even two texture sheets, camo can be some of the most satisfying work one can do in an aircraft, specially when working on the alignment of patterns between sheets. Next time you are working on a livery, and you get stressed because the design is complex, or because the UVWs are terrible, remember that the results will be worth it. About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter | Discord : Cubeboy

Until now, most of our liveries have only been for western aircraft such as the F-16C Viper, Mirage 2000C, F-5E Tiger, F-14B Tomcat, etc. This changes today, thanks to Wyvern613, who has graciously collaborated with us to make two liveries for the world-famous Su-27 Flanker! These liveries come, as per usual, both in high visibility and low visibility variants. They include custom roughmets for better reflections, custom weathering and even custom afterburner effects! We hope you enjoy them. To accompany this release, we have also created an all-in-one livery pack that includes every livery we have made here over at Skyward Flight Media. This means that you will only have to download a single file to get all of our Skyward themed liveries, as well as a custom main menu theme with its own original music, courtesy of Sournetic / The Sour Knights. To download this pack or the individual liveries, head over to the Downloads page in our header, or click the button below to go straight to it: To install this pack, you will need to: Unzip the folder as a whole, not just its contents, in: USERS/USER/SAVED GAMES/DCS/MODS/AIRCRAFT If you do not have these folders, create them as necessary. If you have installed it properly, every file should be installed properly by itself. We hope you enjoy these liveries, and do not hesitate in contacting us about any issues you might find along the way. Clear skies and happy flights!

Three free to download Skyward Flight Media themed liveries for the F/A-18C Hornet in Digital Combat Simulator World. F/A-18C Hornet CAG (New) Designer : Cubeboy Release Date : 14/12/2021 F/A-18C Hornet CAG (Low Vis) Designer : Cubeboy Release Date : 14/12/2021 F/A-18C Hornet CAG (Original) Designer : Cubeboy Release Date : 14/12/2021

Last weekend, we held the last round of matches for our dogfighting tournament in VRChat, in association with the VRC Black Aces. While everything went as intended, and most competitors had a fun time, it is clear that this tournament had a different feel than the ones that came before it. Let us discuss this a bit, to see the lessons that can be learned from it. To start, I think it is necessary to give a bit of context as to how these tournaments are usually run. Before we announce the tournament, a voluntary member of the Black Aces staff will create a plane and a world. These are usually pretty straight forward, with little to no difference between creating a public world and a tournament world, which expedites development and reduces unnecessary factors. Usually, there are no gimmicks or anything along those lines for tournaments; this means free skies for the competitors, who can now use their knowledge of air combat maneuvers (ACM) and basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) to dominate the competition. This usually, as it works in any other flight related game with an emphasis in pseudo-realism, will end up in the classic two circle or one circle fight flows. While it is a crucial part of BFM theory, these fights can get extremely boring for an audience. You might as well be watching a NASCAR race at that point, if all you want to do is watch vehicles go around in circles. This is why we, as the members of staff, wanted to put a deterrent in place to avoid the amount of rate fights that could happen in the tournament. After brainstorming with some friends, we came to the conclusion that we would make an encroaching barrier system similar to those in games like Fortnite or PUBG. VTail, one of the other members of staff and a close friend of Skyward, was the one to code the system for me to implement in the world. After plenty of testing, we found some values that could work in terms of damage over time, closure rates, etc. The system ended up consisting of two phases: an initial closure phase (Phase 1) that closed in on the players from a radius of 8500 meters to a minimum of 2000 meters in the span of 80 seconds, after a 15-second delay from the start of the match had concluded. After that phase settled, a 45-second delay started ticking down for Phase 2, which had a minimum radius of 1500m, and closed in on the players in 30 seconds. These values seemed fair at the time, and so we decided to lock them for the qualifier round of the tournament. To me, as the creator of the event world and the one that carried all the responsibility for the implementation of this new system, it proved to be quite the anxious night. I watched as, match after match, the barrier proved to be a bit of a hindrance for "traditional" dogfighting techniques that would deter the rate. No extensions were possible, no rolling scissors, nothing like that. During the qualifiers, matches were determined mostly by who managed to set themselves up best during the initial merge. This is not typical of VRChat aviation tournaments, where classic BFM tends to be a bigger factor. This led me to have the realization that, in my naivety to try and attempt to mitigate the infamous rate fights, I had neutered most aspects of dogfighting that made it a bit more interesting. The impact the barrier had is especially telling by looking at the statistics of the qualifier matches, assembled by Benjamin, one of the competitors and winner of this tournament. In this table, we can see that 30% of all qualifier matches ended when someone died to the encroaching barrier, nicknamed "The Storm" by the community. This was less than optimal. The barrier values were, therefore, adjusted to try and give competitors more time in the initial closure phase to improve their experience and to lessen how much the barrier determined the results of the match. During the finals, the results were much different, with a single match that ended when someone went outside the barrier and died from it. That meant that, aside from the higher skill level of the competitors during the finals, there was a significant decrease on the impact the barrier had on the matches. Most matches were, in actuality, determined by fuel starvation and even terrain collision due to said fuel starvation. Matches were much more interesting at the beginning, but as we approached the final matches, it was clear that the barrier started acting more as a jail for the players. A jail that incentivized rate fights and nothing but rate fights. I realized that I had become the architect of my own hell, a rate fight purgatorium that lasted two whole hours. The lesson I learned was as follows: If I will implement any systems like this in the future, I will need to stress test it for months in public worlds. This implementation only gave me pain, two hours of rate fights type-pain. I am not doing that again until I can make sure none of this happens, ever again. Period. All the screenshots in the article are courtesy of VTail, thanks a lot! About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

Aggressor aircraft inspired liveries are now available! Surprise! Hueman, one of our main writers, has made free to download Skyward themed liveries for the DCS F-5E Tiger II module for Digital Combat Simulator. Note that these are also compatible with the recent Flaming Cliffs 3 F-5E Tiger II as well. This pack was originally released on December 6th, 2023 with three liveries and has a received an update on September 21st, 2024 with new Aggressor aircraft liveries. There are now eight liveries total for the aircraft available. We hope you enjoy them! F-5E Skyward Aggressor CAG Sea Blue Designer : Hueman Release Date : 9/21/2024 F-5E Skyward Aggressor Desert Designer : Hueman Release Date : 9/21/2024 F-5E Skyward Aggressor Forest Designer : Hueman Release Date : 9/21/2024 F-5E Skyward Aggressor Sea Blue Designer : Hueman Release Date : 9/21/2024 F-5E Skyward Aggressor Savanna Designer : Hueman Release Date : 9/21/2024 F-5E Skyward CAG Designer : Hueman Release Date : 12/6/2023 F-5E Skyward Low-Vis Designer : Hueman Release Date : 12/6/2023 F-5E Skyward Regular Designer : Hueman Release Date : 12/6/2023 DCS World Skyward Livery Pack We have also created an all-in-one livery pack that includes every livery we have made here over at Skyward Flight Media. This means that you will only have to download a single file to get all of our Skyward themed liveries, as well as a custom main menu theme with its own original music, courtesy of Sournetic / The Sour Knights . To install this pack, you will need to: Unzip the folder as a whole, not just its contents, in: USERS/USER/SAVED GAMES/DCS/MODS/AIRCRAFT If you do not have these folders, create them as necessary. If you have installed it properly, every file should be installed properly by itself.

More aggressor aircraft inspired liveries are now available! Surprise! Hueman, one of our main writers, and Wyvern, a friend of Skyward, have made free to download Skyward themed liveries for the MiG-29S and Su-33 respectively. The MiG-29S pack comes with 5 liveries, and the Su-33 includes two. We hope you enjoy them, they are quite the lookers! MiG-29S Skyward Airshow Livery Designer : Hueman Release Date : 10/23/2024 MiG-29S Skyward CAG Livery Designer : Hueman Release Date : 10/23/2024 MiG-29S Skyward Low Vis Livery Designer : Hueman Release Date : 10/23/2024 MiG-29S Skyward Aggressor Sea Blue Designer : Hueman Release Date : 10/23/2024 F-5E Skyward Aggressor Desert Designer : Hueman Release Date : 10/23/2024 Su-33 Skyward CAG Designer : Wyvern613 Release Date : 10/23/2024 Su-33 Skyward Low-Vis Designer : Wyvern613 Release Date : 12/6/2023 DCS World Skyward Livery Pack We have also updated the all-in-one livery pack that includes every livery we have made here over at Skyward Flight Media. This means that you will only have to download a single file to get all of our Skyward themed liveries, as well as a custom main menu theme with its own original music, courtesy of Sournetic / The Sour Knights . To install this pack, you will need to: Unzip the folder as a whole, not just its contents, in: USERS/USER/SAVED GAMES/DCS/MODS/AIRCRAFT If you do not have these folders, create them as necessary. If you have installed it properly, every file should be installed properly by itself.

When you think of DCS, you probably think of intense combat and dogfighting. Maybe even ground attack missions under extreme weather conditions, or even a surprise attack at the dead of night. While all of these are core aspects of the simulator, there is also a tamer and quieter side of DCS, and that'd be flight training. Developed by Eagle Dynamics themselves, the L-39 Albatros module focuses on said training side and maximizes it to bring players a complete package that not only serves as a great introduction to jet flight for new players, but also as a light attack platform that can bring fun to even the most veteran of players. It has now been quite a few years since this aircraft entered the DCS arena in 2016, and in that time some of the modules that occupy the same space as the Albatros have evolved and grown, others have been added in the form of free mods, while a new official one has been added to the sim: I ndiaFoxtEcho's MB-339A/PAN. Let's see how this module has matured and if it still is the most-buy trainer for DCS rookies and veterans alike. As per usual, I will be separating this review in several parts: External and internal 3D models Visual effects and sound design Flight modeling Mission capability Armament Ease of use and learning curve Its place as a trainer/light attacker in DCS Is this aircraft for you? EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL 3D MODEL The external model has certainly received some updates over the years, which is especially noticeable due to the addition of decent normalmaps. While it might look great at first, you can notice this module's age straight away by zooming in a bit and seeing that its texel density does not hold up to modern modules. This model uses a single texture sheet, when others rely on two or more to increase the perceived texel density, which has become a standard for DCS World modules. Another factor that also dates this module is the use of specular maps instead of the modern roughmets for reflections, which means that the Albatros is not using the PBR (Physical Based Rendering) tech that is DCS' standard. Just like with our MiG-19P review, this module seems to fall a bit short in terms of quality when compared to modern modules; but that doesn't mean it looks bad in any way. The only actions needed here would be to make the model shaders PBR-capable and make those PBR textures with a bigger resolution. The same criticisms can be said about both front and rear cockpits, especially with the muted colors and flat reflections. The model itself is excellent, but it is thanks to the aged texture work that this model doesn't look as good as it could. With an upgrade similar to the one done for both the Ka-50 and A-10C modules, this module could be one of the most accurate and impressive-looking modules in the game, but until that date arrives this cockpit will remain a bit dated and in a bit of a sorry state. Does it look bad? No, absolutely not. Could it look stunning with a remaster? Yes, certainly! I would certainly pay for an upgraded version of this module if it meant an improved cockpit. VISUAL AND SOUND EFFECTS Aside from the light cones coming out of the wingtip lights, this module has little to none when it comes down to special effects. No special overwing vapor, no unique engine smoke, nothing. To be honest, I was expecting this, and I am not even disappointed. This is a straight wing trainer with a non-afterburning engine, so the amount of effects that could be realistically made for it is very small. Sound-wise, the Albatros likes a bit of feedback from its engine, but its unique engine notes balance out this flaw. It is when it comes down to using the brakes that the typical whooshing of the pneumatics is not prominent and lacks force, making me question if my brakes are even working sometimes. The same applies for one crucial aspect o weapon operations with the ZA version: The pyro charges. This charges, which are used for the cocking of the internal and external guns, seem to not emit any sound whatsoever. In other aircraft with pyro charges, such as the MiG-21Bis, it is clear when a charge goes off as it sounds like a small localized explosion. This sound would be an excellent addition to the module, adding to an already decent experience. FLIGHT MODELING DISCLAIMER: This is always a tough category, as like with any other aircraft, there is a lot to take into consideration other than just the feel of the flight model. This category is the most subjective one in this article, as I do not have any real world experience with this craft. I will only base my opinion on practical experience and knowledge of practical aerodynamics and the theoretical behavior that an L-39 should have under certain scenarios. With the disclaimer out of the way, it is clear that this flight model was made with a lot of care and attention to detail. The way this aircraft stalls and the speeds at which it does are accurate enough to the real one that I have found it to be a believable experience. As I have already stated, I have never flown an Albatros, but this experience has been excellent so far. You can feel the change in lift when you drop your flaps, or the inertia the aircraft has after it has gained a substantial amount of speed. The Albatros is hard to stall, as I would expect from any trainer. It is just so easy to fly, it invites you to do cloud surfing while playing relaxing music in the background. It is an awesome plane to fly, and you should try flying it. MISSION CAPABILITIES As expected from a trainer, this aircraft does not have a large pool of missions to pull from. The L-39C variant, the basic trainer, can only carry very smaller/less practical munitions on its pylons, which limits it to serving as a pure trainer focused on VFR and IFR training, as well as basic weapon deployment exercises and flight trainer. The L-39ZA is the light attack version of the Albatros. Equipped with an integrated 23mm cannon, it has a much more diverse set of weaponry, but despite being more varied than the Charlie version, it still is not a proper ground attack platform. It can defend itself on smaller ground attack missions and counter-insurgency (COIN) assignments, but you will not survive in a contested environment. For its size, it pulls a bit above its weight. It can actually defend itself under some circumstances, but you will need to work together with other platforms to get the mission done. Remember that during your missions, and you will survive. ARMAMENT GSh-23 23mm CANNON (L-39ZA) This cannon, the same equipped on many Soviet aircraft of the era, is the main difference between the L-39C and the L-39ZA. With is small ammo pool of 180 rounds, you will need to make those shots count. R-3S AND R-60M AIR TO AIR MISSILES Surprisingly, the L-39 has access to two infrared air-to-air missiles. The R-3S is an older missile, not that capable, but the R-60M is very capable in the hands of a good pilot! PK-3 GUN PODS (L-39ZA) These gun pods are not that impressive when it comes down to penetration of armored units, especially due to its 7.62mm caliber; but it has extreme volume of fire since it has three barrels per pod. This brings the total to an astonishing 12 barrels if you equip all four pods. UB-16M S-5KO UNGUIDED ROCKETS Your typical soviet unguided rockets, they pack a punch, and you have 32 of these per pod. With a maximum of four pods, you have plenty of high explosive to share around. BOMBS From the FAB-100, OFAB-100 and SAB-100, the Albatros has more bombs available for it than you would think. They are not big, but you can certainly do some damage with them. EASE OF USE AND LEARNING CURVE I'll keep this short and to the point: this aircraft's learning curve is as smooth as a baby's butt, with one exception: the taxiing. This aircraft uses differential braking for its steering in a soviet style system, which means that you do not have individual toe brakes. You will need to rely on applying brakes with your handle and then redirecting the force with your rudder pedals. It is easy once you get used to it, or if you have already flown a Fishbed or other similar aircraft, then it will become second nature in no time. Aside from this, the Albatros is an excellent trainer that holds your hand no matter what you do to it in the air. It is great to fly, and it allows you to just express yourself in the skies but doing any maneuver you think of, exceptions apply. ITS PLACE AS A TRAINER/LIGHT ATTACKER IN DCS WORLD The Albatros is a very weird plane in DCS, as it is placed in a unique position. It is both a military and civilian aircraft, something that is reinforced by the developers with the addition of the NS430 GPS module to it. If you remove the gunsight and own the NS430, then you will be able to use it in the cockpit, civilian style. Reminiscent of the aircraft flown by the Black Diamonds or other civilian operators of the type, this system integrates GPS navigation to the Albatros, while at the same time giving you an excellent view without the intrusive presence of the gunsight. It is this mix between civilian and military that leads me to saying that the L-39 and the MB-339 stand very equal in the trainer war, since both aircraft also share this duality. The 339 has much better artwork, but both trainer are capable of combat and leisure. IS THIS AIRCRAFT FOR YOU? If what you want in a module is: An incredible flying experience. A more than decent light attacker. A training platform that will allow you to grow as a pilot, regardless of experience. An all weather platform that conquers the day and rules the night. If you don't mind: The older textures and artwork. The limited combat capabilities in an open conflict. The quirky nose wheel steering method. The optional nature of the NS430 Nav suite. If all or some of the above is what you want, then the L-39C/ZA Albatros by Eagle Dynamics is for you! About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter | Discord : Cubeboy

It is hard to believe that it has been three years since we have been on this "new" era of DCS World, the post-cloud update period. I found myself reflecting a lot about all the content that has been released, all the updates and all the controversies that have happened since then, and I thought to myself: "Why don't I talk about this for our next article?". Three years ago this game was quite different, yet still a very familiar sight. Update upon update fixing issues, adding features and delivering long-time promises in a somewhat timely manner; the main difference being that nowadays the game's population is not separated between the Open Beta and Stable versions. For good or bad, DCS has been united under a single version which, in theory, simplifies maintenance and streamlines updates. Maybe it is because of some of those changes that thousands of new players have joined since time, but it still seems that most DCS players were already there by the start of the pandemic and had the time to spare to join a new hobby. We did a two-day poll on our X/Twitter account to see when our audience joined the skies of DCS World. Most had already played DCS World by 2021, or joined before it. This is very interesting to me, since I thought more people would have joined these past three years due to the sheer amount of sales that ED has pushed to attract new players. Does this mean that DCS' population is stagnant? No, I do not believe so. I feel like it has grown, but not at the fast rate that we assumed. Our population sample was only 99 players, so we cannot assume anything from that simple size, other than that it does give us a nice visualization of this data. Another aspect that might have influenced growth, and the most warranted one, is the sheer amount of content that has been pushed in the past three years. We went from getting a module every couple of years to one every couple of months, be them maps, planes, helicopters and more. These past years have felt like a pseudo golden era for the platform, and I have been very happy to see some highly anticipated modules like Heatblur's F-4E Phantom II and even RAZBAM's F-15E get released. Speaking of the F-15E, this brings us to the other side of the conversation. These past three years have also been some of the most controversial for the platform as a whole, with the biggest one being the still ongoing situation with RAZBAM Simulations. We spoke about this situation in a previous article , but suffice it top say that this situation is still ongoing and has no signs of it having been resolved by both parties. This means that all development of RAZBAM products for DCS World is still on hold, indefinitely. On the more positive end of things, we have seen the rise of the Cold War community, mostly due to the effort of communities such as Enigma's and some others that have pushed that time period to the limit. This rise is a well deserved one, as those who have pushed for it have innovated inside the multiplayer scene and given players a completely new sandbox to play with, which is what the game needs the most. Does that mean that everyone's happy? No. We also have had some smaller controversies, but the main concern of players right now is the state of the game as of 2024. Even with all of these advances in the core engine tech and all of these releases, it is clear that there is a generalized feel of uneasiness in the community that has permeated it over the past three years. It has slowly festered and taken root in some corners and rotted people's perspectives of the game. I remain hopeful for DCS' future, but I cannot deny that I have been somewhat affected by some of the actions taken by certain parties. All we can do, as players, is vote with our wallets and hope that the people behind the awesome platform remain loyal to us, their fanbase. These last years have been a journey that, while a bit bumpy, is still trending up. I want to see this sim become even better and to give everyone a taste of combat flight that cannot be beaten by anyone else in the market. About the writer Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and writer ever since. Twitter  | Discord : Cubeboy

If you were to ask anyone that has tried DCS for a considerable amount of time in the sim, what is one of the key features of this simulator, they would most likely say that the depth of the aircraft/weapon systems and their complexity is one of the defining factors that make DCS what it is for most advanced players. This is something I wholeheartedly agreed on, at least until I flew the OV-10A mod for the first time. We reviewed this aircraft before its launch thanks to its developers, SPLIT AIR, and we noticed that not only was it one of the most interesting and unique additions to DCS World in years, but that it held the keys to an entirely different flight experience for both beginner and advanced players alike unlike anything that had been released before. As a turboprop aircraft, this small yet powerful stallion lives in a very peculiar place in the DCS "meta". Due to its max speed being barely higher than a helicopter speed record, its Goldilocks zone lies closer to the helicopters than fixed wing aircraft; something that opens many opportunities that would be unavailable for the rest of the fixed wing modules currently available in DCS World. You can use it to capture zones thanks to its Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) capabilities, as well as being able to provided proper CAS for allied troops thanks to its wide arsenal of weapons. This puts it in between a fixed wing and a rotary wing in terms of capabilities and potential, an untouched area in DCS that opens up so many scenarios for mission creators. All of this is only enhanced by this mod's incredible ability of being extremely simple to learn and fly. You can get it airborne with ease, and its weapon systems are some of the simplest ones to learn. I love that I can go from a cold start to take-off in less than 2 minutes, all while carrying a combat load and ready for battle. It is that simplicity and versatility, as well as its mission capabilities, that bring this mod to a league of its own. It's awesome and, please, do yourself a favor and download it. Not only that, but it will open your eyes to the world of low-level action in DCS World. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 08/19/2023 - SMALL REVISION: 11/06/2024 About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000s, leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities, but only started being active around the mid 2010s. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder and one of the main writers. Twitter | Discord : Cubeboy #9034

A "you get what you get" experience To this day, I have so many mixed feelings about the Air Conflicts series. When describing it to friends, I find myself saying it had good ideas and roug h implementation. Air Conflicts is a series of arcade combat flight simulators that started as a PC only release in 2006 with future games released on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 with updated re-releases on the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch. This is a rare instance where a majority of online reviews and my personal thoughts agree "below average" is a way to describe the overall experience. But there are times when I feel like I want to enjoy this series more than I do. If there is one thing I could give the series a shoutout for, its that the developers try things other game console flight titles rarely attempt. Like efforts to natively support more advanced flight control methods or features you would find in a full flight simulator. The specific feature that comes to mind is in the Air Conflicts: Double Pack (2016) for the PlayStation 4 (PS4), which provides both Air Conflict: Vietnam and Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers. These games that focused on the American involvement in the Vietnam War and the Pacific Theater of World War II were previously released on other platforms, but received various updates for their PS4 re-releases. Alongside new content, head tracking was an attention grabbing feature for me. With the PS4 not supporting software like OpenTrack or hardware like infrared head trackers, the developer's decision to utilize the PlayStation Camera is a sensible alternative. The camera itself is purpose built for the platform with facial recognition, head tracking and gesture tracking being advertised functions. It is also used alongside the console's only virtual reality headset, the PSVR, to provide external tracking by monitoring the position of light bars/light sources from the VR headset, game pad and PS Move motion controllers. Though, even with a tailor made peripheral like this, it has always been lack luster in my experience. The quality of the head tracking has consistently been laggy and overly sensitive. Even when perfectly aligned with the center of the camera, minor head movements either cause massive on screen inputs or seem to go unnoticed. A few degrees of head rotation can translate to dozens of degrees of in game input or a delayed input that turns the camera in ways your head most certainly did not move in. More often than not, this translates to unstable and somewhat unpredictable camera inputs, even when just looking straight ahead. This isn't great during a dogfight or flying at low altitude, or even just trying to take off. Going from casually glancing around to staring wistfully at the lower panels of the cockpit as terrain rushes by isn't great. Minor head motions that aren't picked up by the camera cause the player to somewhat exaggerate their head movement just to make sure the camera picks it up. This compounds the problem. With no function to re-center the camera or set axis curves, it really is a "you get what you get" experience. After having tried it a few times over the years with two different cameras, different types of lighting, different rooms and even in different houses, it's clear this isn't user error. Trying to visually track objects can become so tedious, just remembering where a target was last seen then maneuvering accordingly while looking straight forward is more effective. It's a shame that even a purpose built camera like this can struggle so badly in this application. I genuinely wanted this to function better than it did, as this would have meaningfully impacted the already somewhat troubled gameplay of the series. Air Conflicts occasionally lives in my head rent-free, wrapped up with my thoughts of what could have been and minor things I did appreciate. Now that I've discussed one aspect of it, I'm bound to discuss other parts of the series sometime in the future. Until next time! About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .

A Unique Design That Has Survived Eras of Change ORIGINAL POST: 14/11/2020 | UPDATE: 11/05/2024 With the release of the 25th Anniversary downloadable content on October 28th, 2020, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown added three more original aircraft to its roster: the ASF-X Shinden II, CFA-44 Nosferatu and the XFA-27. Like the other three original aircraft added in May, June and July of 2019, these aircraft come from past Ace Combat titles. Even among the dozens of fictional aircraft that have appeared in the Ace Combat series since 1995, the Advanced Support Fighter Experimental (ASF-X) Shinden II (Japanese: 震電Ⅱ, English Translation: Magnificent Lightning II) has a unique place in the entirety of the Ace Combat series. Its real world design concept, mechanical designer, development history, lore and appearances across the three continuities of Ace Combat truly make it stand out. Concept and Key Design Features Though this aircraft was introduced on October 25th, 2011 as downloadable content for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, the real world reasoning behind its design concept was divulged only during the Gamescom 2020 Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown DLC Overview video. As discussed by Ace Combat Brand Director Kazutoki Kono, when the ASF-X Shinden II was being designed for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (2011), the nation of Japan was not yet confirmed for the purchase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The concept behind designing the ASF-X was to create an aircraft that could realistically fulfill the role of Japan’s first state-of-the-art stealth fighter for the defense of its national borders while maintaining a degree of playfulness. To design this aircraft, the Project Aces development team worked with Shōji Kawamori as the supervisor of the mechanical design. A world famous Japanese anime creator and producer, screenwriter, visual artist, and mecha designer, Kawamori was a first for Ace Combat as a whole. All original designed aircraft come from the Project Aces team and not individuals outside of the team. Kawamori’s past mechanical designs include the Macross series, in which robots can transform into fighter jets. So naturally the ASF-X Shinden II adopted a so-called “Kawamori-ism” type of transformation to its design. Example of flight surface 'transformation'. Its forward swept wing, vertical stabilizers, horizontal stabilizers and canards incorporated variable wing geometry. These flight control surfaces can be shifted into three configurations. Its normal configuration (blue), cruise configuration for high speed flight (green) and landing/low speed flight configuration (red). During its design phase, a primary concern Kawamori had was incorporating a vertical takeoff ability. Much of this was explained in the Aces At War 2011 interview Talk Dog Fight R01 . The goal was to avoid using a large F-35B style lift-fan that would take up too much internal space. Though, seaborne operations were also considered, meaning that a twin-engine design was preferred. This resulted in an over/under engine design, similar to what is seen on the BAE English Electric Lightning . Having both engines in the standard side-by-side configuration would make VTOL difficult because of center of mass related issues, having the engines vertically stacked alleviates those problems. Furthermore the driveshafts were offset forward and backward, VTOL engine nozzles capable of directing thrust 90 degrees downward were installed on the engines and exhaust slits for the forward engine duct fan were positioned on the underside of the fuselage beneath the canards to equalize lifting forces beneath the aircraft. With the flaps lowered and the wingtips, tail section and canards rotated downward, the aircraft would then envelope its engine exhaust and utilize ground effect as much as possible while thrust is vectored downward and the aircraft begins to generate lift. Product of Attempted ‘Rebirth’ The ASF-X Shinden II was released at one of the most unusual times in Ace Combat history. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon was touted as the rebirth of the series, steering everything towards a real world Earth setting. Referred to as the Assault Horizon continuity, this break away from the longstanding fictional setting of Strangereal, the original Ace Combat world setting, had a mixed-reception from its established user base. Introducing a fictional aircraft to a real world setting was an unusual choice in 2011, though the explanation of its design concept in 2020 clears that up a bit. However, the plans for the ASF-X Shinden II went well beyond just being a downloadable aircraft for a game. The amount of support the Shinden II recieved is actually rather unusual during this time period. In support of the Assault Horizon continuity, the testing and development program of the Shinden II was the central focus of the novel Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky . That story introduced its test pilots, technical staff, the state the world was in when development began, and the politics related to the project. While further technical information is found in the Setting and Material sections of Ikaros, the next book from this era of Ace Combat went even farther. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Master File (March 2012) provided the most detailed and expansive look at a single aircraft from Ace Combat as of the time of this article’s release. Though the Aces at War 2011 and 2019 books are filled with a few pages of lore for other original, fictional aircraft designed by Project Aces, this 128 page master file was dedicated to the ASF-X Shinden and its eventual mass produced F-3 variants. Within its pages are development timelines, aircraft design explanation, weapons descriptions, aircraft system explanations, information on the export version for the Royal Navy and backstory on events not seen or mentioned in the 2011 video game or in Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky. Some of these events include brief armed conflicts with hostile factions seen in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Despite the wealth of information to support the new direction of the Ace Combat series being lead by Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, the characters, world setting and timeline of the attempted rebirth of the series was done away with and never developed further after 2013. The Shinden II Survives The life of the Shinden II continued on well after Assault Horizon’s franchise reboot failure. As it was an aircraft introduced in that game and desigined specificallly for the attempted reboot of the Ace Combat series, it had a very real chance of being set aside, like the entire Assault Horizon era was. Its next brief and unusual appearance was as a background aircraft in Mach Storm , an arcade cabinet, on-rails shooter that reused many Ace Combat assets. It appeared in a highly visible role in Ace Combat Infinity (2014 - 2018) which introduced another spin-off continuity for Ace Combat as a whole. Flown by an allied but rival squadron to the players known as the Ridgebacks. The ASF-X Shinden did not have the same amount of backstory or spotlight within Ace Combat Infinity, but its presence was well known. One of the strongest connections that kept the ASF-X relevant was its association to the pseudo mascot of Ace Combat that has appeared in multiple games and in various ways, Kei Nagase. In both the Ikaros in the Sky novel and in Ace Combat Infinity, Kei Nagase piloted this aircraft. There is also official media (pictures, desktop wallpapers, aircraft model kits) that connect this aircraft and the character. The addition of the Shinden II to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown as a downloadable content aircraft brings it back with modern, high definition graphics. It does not play a central role to the story nor is it flown by a notable character, but its inclusion makes the Shinden one of two aircraft that appeared in all three Ace Combat continuities. Notable Flight Characteristics As Ace Combat has never incorporated VTOL controls into its flight model since 1995, the aircraft’s on-paper vertical lift capabilities are not available to players. But it can utilize an interesting slow speed flight characteristics that only a handful of Ace Combat aircraft can access. This seems to have been done by the Project Aces development team in lieu of full VTOL controls. In Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, its VTOL ability inspired a maneuver for that game’s Close Range Assault system. While the Shinden II is being pursued in Dog Fight Mode, the nose of the aircraft pitches upward to begin a vertical loop. Within seconds of the maneuver starting the thrust vectored nozzles push the nose forward, cancelling the loop and positioning itself behind its pursuer. It is something similar to a mix of the Pugachev Cobra and Harrier VIFFing techniques combined. Though this maneuver cannot be recreated outside of Assault Horizon, it is an example of its unique flight abilities. Its adaptability was emphasized in an unexpected stint of combat during an endurance test flight described in the novel Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky. One of the aircraft lost its left wing near the wing root during combat, but its advanced fly-by-light flight control system and variable geometry design was able to compensate. The damaged aircraft was able to recover from the wing loss, provide support in the fight and land safely. With its namesake inspired by the Kyushu J7W Shinden, lightning has struck more than twice for the Advanced Support Fighter Experimental. It has solidified its presence in the now over two decade year old Ace Combat series in ways many of its contemporary and forerunner original design aircraft have not. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile . SOURCES [01] Timestamp: 0:56 - 4:07, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown DLC Overview | gamescom 2020; information about the Shinden II being designed with Japan not cleared to purchase the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. A “degree of playfulness” mentioned. [02] Project Nagase Blog Post 2012-05-30 03:00:00; aircraft wing configuration diagrams. [03] Aces at War 2011: Talk Dog Fight R01, Pages 72, 73 and 74. Shoji Kawamori discussing the design concept, VTOL capability and unique Ace Combat: Assault Horizon counter maneuver. [04] Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky; information about design, wing loss in combat information, ties to Kei Nagase, source of Shinden II namesake tied to Kyushu J7W. [05] Ace Combat: Assault Horizon; gameplay proof of slow speed flight characteristics, release date of DLC, unique counter maneuver described by Shoji Kawamori. [06] Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Master File: discusses of mass production version of ASF-X Shinden II, other events and conflicts from the Assault Horizon universe. [07] Mach Storm; aircraft seen on aircraft carrier deck before each level/mission.

Extended range visual identification for air-to-surface attacks Diving through a few layers of radar guided flak and anti-aircraft tracer fire always gets the blood going in Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) . Sometimes I take iron bombs on the venerable Heatblur F-14A/B Tomcat and intentionally roll into a target through air defenses. Just to dive bomb something while gambling it all. Though, exposing yourself to "the lucky BB" or catching an infrared short-range missile on the way out can be a frustrating way to end a mission. Weaving through anti-aircraft fire can be avoided by choosing to stay at high altitude and drop bombs during level flight; far outside of anti-aircraft cannon range. In fact, the F-14 Tomcat has a one-of-a-kind edge using this bomb delivery method. Overview: CCIP, CCRP The pilots of DCS are aware that the Tomcat has a well-designed Continuously Computed Impact Point (CCIP) system; also known as Computer Pilot Attack Mode specifically in the F-14. Known for its high accuracy when diving at targets from high angles, even unguided bombs like the Mark 80 series can land close enough to targets to be effective. With the CCIP visualized with a simple bomb fall line and a semi-open bombsight to designate the impact point, the aircraft's non-cluttered HUD makes bomb deployment in CCIP simple and effective. It is very possible to hit one target with one bomb per pass. The only real downside being that depending on the size of the target and how soon it was spotted by the aircrew before the attack began, the aircraft will need to dive deep into potential enemy air defenses to be as accurate as possible. Depending on your point of view, using the Continuously Computed Release Point (CCRP) bomb delivery method is a decidedly less sexy way to fight a battle. Known as Computer Target Attack Mode in the Tomcat, i t is much safer than diving through the fireworks to get the job done. Using CCRP, a specific point on the ground can be designated by the aircrew. This is done by having the Radar Intercept Officer select Computer Target Attack Mode. The pilot then uses Target Designate Switch Up (VSL HI) and DOWN (VSL LO) to move the designator diamond vertically along the bomb fall line. Once the designator diamond is over the desired area, pressing Target Designate PAL mode (Forward) will lock the designator diamond in place. No further adjustments are needed. The aircraft can then immediately press the attack or reorient itself onto the target for an attack a short time later. Without having to dive into the target to maintain visual contact, the aircraft can fly straight and level at higher altitudes. The CCRP calculates the direction and timing for bombs to be dropped onto the designated area without the aircrew needing to maintain visual. From this safe position, unguided bombs fall onto the targeted area, albeit with less accuracy than the CCIP. This inaccuracy can be made up for by deploying larger quantities of bombs or using bomb ripple settings, widening the impacted area. But with practice, this deviation can be further reduced. It should be noted that laser guided bombs can also be deployed with this method. If the laser code and location an active laser designator is communicated to the F-14, that area can be designated for more consistent laser guided bomb deployment from high altitudes. CCRP still requires the Tomcat's nose to be pointed at the target area to visually find and designate their target. At that point, it is up to the aircrew's mission planning, skill and coordination to do so without endangering themselves too much. This is also where the Tomcat's ability to visually identify targets from longer distances makes CCRP easier. Television Camera System Augmenting CCRP The AN/AXX-1 Television Camera System (TCS) mounted beneath the chin of the F-14A/B is best known for its use in the air-to-air combat arena. This early electro-optical system lets the Tomcat visually identify airborne targets at ranges many miles beyond what the human eye can see. Information sources vary on exact numbers, but identifying air targets in excess of 15 nautical miles is possible. The same extended visual range benefits apply in ground attack. During the target detection and designation phases of CCRP, the TCS is slaved to the Target Designation Diamond. As the diamond is slewed vertically, the TCS provides a visual of everything inside the diamond. Targeting a specific building or an armored vehicle can now be done from farther away. As genuinely helpful as this is, the Television Camera System is certainly no replacement for a purpose built system like a targeting pod. As a non-infrared electro-optical system, the TCS is only effective during the daytime. Depending on sun position, target position and time of day, it can be hard to spot smaller targets like vehicles. By the time they are visible, the Tomcat may be at a lower altitude, deeper within the envelope of air defenses than planned. During target designation, the TCS is very sensitive as it is a zoomed in sensor now controlled by the flight stick inputs of the pilot and the motion of slewing the designator. Heavy-handed inputs can make targeting more difficult. When using unguided bombs with CCRP the seconds before bomb delivery require that the aircraft fly straight and level to ensure the bombs strike as close to the target as possible. A minor deviation of a few degrees could translate to missing by dozens or hundreds of meters. The LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) navigation and targeting pod system is by far the best tool the F-14 can use for ground attack in DCS; no matter which type of ordinance is used. However, using CCRP with the TCS is useful when a LANTIRN is not available. It is better than not having any option at all. It can also be used without having to give up a weapon station for a targeting pod. With the popularity of the Cold War era being a constant in Digital Combat Simulator, even in mid-1970s to mid-1980s scenarios, where targeting pods are unavailable, the F-14 Tomcat would be one of the few platforms with some kind of optical system to improve their ground attack performance. It has been fun polishing up my skills on this somewhat niche ability of the F-14A/B. I can see myself using this method from time to time against concentrations of troops or structures, but definitely not for "plinking" armored vehicles one-by-one. For more detailed information and step-by-step instructions with diagrams, refer to pages 362 through 366 of Chuck Owl's guide for the F-14A/B. About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile .