mentat@juniper.uucp (Robert Dorsett) (08/31/88)
Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator is the latest in a long line of simulators
for the Mac:
Mac Challenger (space shuttle landing simulation)
Fokker Tri-Plane Simulator (Fokker simulation)
Orbiter (space shuttle full flight regime simulation)
Microsoft Flight Simulator (Sopwith Camel, C-182, Learjet 35)
Falcon, Spectrum Holobyte (F-16; I hear the multi-user version's released)
Yeager AFT, Electronic Arts
Essentially, AFT is a "flying" simulator. The geographic database
is a never-never land of very wide runways, buildings, mountains, and
strange spheres. There is only one database, but it is comparatively larger
than Falcon's (it does, however, "loop around" after one leaves the world,
much like the old Sublogic A2-FS1 did).
Aircraft types simulated:
Cessna 172
Piper Cherokee
Spad
Sopwith Camel
Spitfire
P-51
F-16
F-18
SR-71
X-1
X-3
XNL-16
XPG-12
XRH-4
One can only wonder why there is no F-20 mode. :-)
The instrument panel changes from aircraft to aircraft. All of the jets
share a common instrument panel, which has three levers (flaps, gear, and
brakes), a mach indicator (just mach, no airspeed), artificial horizon,
altimeter, and instantaneous vertical airspeed indicator. There are three
additional formats available for the more primitive airplanes, ranging from
the very primitive camel/spad to the ornate Spitfire/P-51 to the clean,
flat displays on the Piper and Cessna. All modes, except the Spad and
Camel, do not incorporate engine instruments. The non-jet aircraft
all have more conventional airspeed indicators instead of mach indicators.
All aircraft apparently fly on limitless fuel. All aircraft incorporate a
very primitive heads-up display, which only shows trim tab positions, lever
selection (gear, flaps, brakes), and a "flight path" indicator (a stationary
crosshair).
There are not, as I have mentioned, any engine instruments that are "worth"
anything. Even the ones that appear are only indexed to what throttle set-
ting has been chosen. The throttle is "set" by pressing a key on
the keyboard, from 0 to 9. There is an instantaneous jump to that setting,
with no spooling up or spooling down (this is obvious with the RPM guage,
less obvious in the modes which don't have it). Once the setting is entered,
the airplane will start to accelerate or decelerate. There is no way to
turn off the engine for a power-out landing; this makes slowing down some air-
craft (such as the SR-71) quite tricky.
There are also no navigational aids, apart from a tape compass display
(very pretty, but difficult to fly on specific headings). It's quite easy
to get lost in, say, the SR-71 mode, where one can top Mach 2.3 without
any effort. Granted, there are many runways to land at, but there is a
natural inclination for users to want to land at HOME BASE. It is possible
to "cheat" by taking a "tower" view of the airplane, then turning around
and flying such that the tower is looking at the airplane's nose. Eventually,
the airplane will run across the airport.
The flight characteristics of each airplane seem to be well done. Changing
an airplane results in more than just a cosmetic panel switch: there are
radically different engine and flight characteristics. On the Cessna, for
example, it is nearly impossible to do a loop. The Cherokee is very dif-
ficult to stall. The F-16 and F-18 practically jump off the ground, while
the smaller aircraft require a longer takeoff roll. Only a pilot who has
flown the more advanced aircraft can comment as to their *realism*, but the
more primitive airplanes fly convincingly. One particularly refreshing
feature is positive pitch with descent, a bug that has never been
fixed in MS-Flight. The "smoothest" airplanes are the World War II sim-
ulations, the Spitfire and the P-51.
Some of the airplanes (particularly the XRH-4) have a nice effect that I've
missed sorely on past simulators: gradual acceleration. Nothing beats the
feeling of seeing a runway end rushing towards you, regardless of whether
one is trying to take off or slow down before ending up in the mud.
Unfortunately, the simulator doesn't make good on its threat: one can land
anywhere without any penalty. This includes going off the runway.
The animation is well done, and flight characteristics seem to be done in
real-time. The simulator feels sluggish on a Mac Plus, although I've
heard that it runs well on a Mac II. It is, however, possible to think
ahead far enough to derive some satisfaction from it all. For some reason,
the flight displays all refresh at the same time (2-3 times a second).
There are numerous gimmicks that attempt to give the display perspective.
Shading is used for a variety of objects (spheres, pyramids, squares).
Also, as one gets lower, small spheres appear in a rectangular matrix on the
ground, and enlarge. This is quite effective. There are numerous objects
sticking out of the ground, such as mountains (pyramids), buildings, "trees,"
etc.
The one fault I can find with the out-the-window views is that of the
runways: they look fat and short. For me, at least, this ruins a great deal
of the 'feel.' I have attempted to measure the runway lengths and
widths by taxiing at slow speeds across them. The results were that they
are about 14,000 feet long and 2500 feet wide.
There are not very many features: there are three menus, "File," "Missions,"
and "Options." There is only a Quit option in the File menu (no way to
save positions, not that you'd want to). The Options menu mainly consists
of an item which affects the performance of the simulator itself, namely in
the type of bitmap copying routine is used. The Missions menu contains
features such as an introductory flight, a test mode (which lets the user
fly all the airplanes in a number of start configurations), a racing mode, a
formation flying mode, and a flight instruction mode. The instruction mode
is the only unique feature; it teaches the user how to take off, land, do
certain acrobatics, etc. Most of these modes take advantage of the cursor
position on the screen. The relative cursor position indicates control
surface position. The computer merely generates a small box, which the
user is expected to keep his mouse in. It is thus possible to learn certain
maneuvers by tracking the box. A small window at the bottom provides
text commentary, such as when to apply additional engine power. If the user
wishes to "take the controls" at any point, he simply presses a key on the
keyboard.
The keyboard is extensively used. All levers, for example, are controlled
by keyboard input. The throttle is hardwired to the number keys. Views
from the cockpit are all clustered on the left hand side (a design flaw,
for my pre-Plus keyboard, is that the view keys are on the left side, while
the zoom keys are on the right side). There are side views, bottom views,
top views, map views, tower views, and spotter plane views. There are four
trim keys; I've not yet managed to get the elevator trim to work properly.
The rudder trim quite definitely works.
When the user screws up, usually on landing, a big picture of Chuck Yeager
appears and a verbal comment:
"A mortar shot if I ever saw one."
"I don't even KNOW you."
"That's a sorry way to land an airplane."
"You sure bought the farm on that one." (only for spectacular crashes)
Such messages are rare, since nearly every airplane is a cinch to land.
Unfortunately, when one DOES do a perfect landing, old Chuck is silent. There
are no "congratulatory" modes.
There are strange quirks in the simulator. For example, on startup, while
the airplane is still in the hangar, brakes on, engine on idle, it is pos-
sible to manipulate the attitude of all of the airplane types by moving the
mouse. This is quite disorienting. It is also fatal when the user attempts
to taxi by using the mouse: it normally results in a heavy roll, which, it
seems, destroys the main gear.
Another strange fault is that the "instruction" modes all take place in one of
the light airplanes (the Cessna). For aircraft in which one'd REALLY need
help with, such as with the SR-71, which requires the user to think ahead
about five minutes of what the airplane is doing, there is no coaching.
There are no "violent" modes in AFT: this is a "flying" simulator, done for
the fun of it. It excels in nearly every way that its predecessor, Falcon,
failed. But it has none of Falcon's features, most notably the nice HUD.
It also lacks nearly every frill that one might desire, from winds to a "hood"
feature. It lacks the crispness of Fokker's control, which would take a good
deal of the fun away from non-pilot users. For what it offers, and what it
sells for ($49.95), it is not worth the money. But it's still a lot more fun
than Falcon, mainly due to the obvious care that has been taken in producing
a clean, bug-free product which, although rudimentary, "works." I have not
used AFT with the Mac II, but it's reputed to be very smooth. If so,
AFT is an effective competitor in the "fun" category.
Mac simulators peaked with Microsoft Flight Simulator. They have become
increasingly sluggish and crude ever since. And there is no indication that
Sublogic is going to ever correct its numerous database and flight bugs in
the Microsoft package. Despite this, MS-Flight remains the most complex
and most ambitious "real" simulator. At least for a while.
Robert Dorsett University of Texas at Austin
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UUCP: {ames,utah-cs,uunet}!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!juniper!mentatgleicher@REDNECK.PC.CS.CMU.EDU (Michael Gleicher) (08/31/88)
I also like AFT. It does run in color on the Mac II (just 16 color, but its still color). As far as I know few other games do this (and no other flight simulator I know of, please correct me if I'm wrong). Although some of the dashboards are nice, the lack function. I find it real hard to fly the spad through the slalom race because of the lack of an attitude indicator. The slalom race and the reno race, while fun on the IBM PC, are too tough on the mac. The mac also doesn't have the neat analysis of the "follow me mode" available on the PC. (it shows 3 plots of plane position, 1 per axis, with a line for ideal and for yours). Still, its a lot of fun. Michael Lee Gleicher gleicher@cs.cmu.edu (-: Of course I believe Carnegie Mellon University 5610 Elmer St. Apt 10 (-: in miracles, Pittsburgh, PA 15232 (-: its my job.