Introduction:

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings."  These words, quoted from Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr. famous poem "High Flight", have been the true description of the feeling of flight throughout the world.  As Flight Simulation programs have become more advanced, they have allowed us to reach heights unimaginable by many.

Abacus Fighter Pilot, the latest offering from Abacus Publishing, brings to the table four famous military aircraft in over 88 different schemes, teasing the normal simulator pilot in expanding their virtual dream of flight.  The base aircraft in the package, F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and F/A-18 Hornet, represent four of the most recognizable and admirable aircraft of our time.

Being an avid simulator fan, especially involving military aircraft, I was very excited upon receipt of this package.  However my pleasure soon turned to disappointment as I delved deeper into the package. Though the conceptual idea of providing these aircraft in a large package is a great idea, it soon becomes apparent that the package may not appeal to sophisticated armchair pilots, or to amateur pilots looking for a change of venue.

Preflight Check (Installation & Documentation):

The documentation consists of single, two-sided, 5x8 installation card.  Installation was a breeze.  Just insert the CD-ROM, start the setup program and install into your simulator's default directory.  If you have FS2002 or FSCOF installed in a directory other than their normal default, you can browse to that directory and install the program.  Installation took approximately 6 minutes on my machine.  The files on the CD uncompress to over 1.5gb of hard drive space.  Installing on a 1ghz to 2ghz machine will run from 10-15 minutes.  Once installed, a readme file is available, listing the various aircraft and schemes.

Referenced in the readme file is Special Animation Features.  Ensure you read this section to be able to activate special animations which, unfortunately, are not listed in either the readme file or in the documentation.  All four aircraft feature basic animations, of which, the USAF F-15 and F-16 models provides nice eye-candy.  One nice addition, however, is the inclusion of a Fighter Pilot Aircraft Information PDF that features histories, specifications, and pictures regarding the four aircraft represented in the package.  This is a very detailed file that follows along the same format presented in Abacus' Flight Deck III program.

Exterior Inspection (Aircraft Visualizations):

The aircraft graphics do not break new ground.  They are very basic in nature.  Many of the paint schemes appear to have a common theme which gives a "cut and paint" feeling to them.  As you move around the aircraft there are minor bleed-thru flaws, but not so evident as to take away from the model.  The textures involved in the models do take frame rate hits.  I normally keep my frame rates adjusted at 25 fps and noticed that whenever the models, especially the USAF models were near clouds or major land areas, I would take significant hits in frame rates.  However, this problem may not be indicative to all machines but could cause minor irritation in baseline machines.

As stated, all 85 paint schemes are representative to their true-life counterparts.  The pseudo-pilots located in the F-14, F-15 and F-16 virtual cockpits turn their heads as you move the rudder, which provides a nice realism to the overall aircraft.  The F-15 and F-16 models also include starter unit graphics, and flight pins complete with flags (the flags do not move when the wind blows, however).  All aircraft have various animations from ladders extending to canopies opening.  However, as mentioned earlier regarding special animations, you will have to go through key presses mentioned in order to see which model does what animations.

All aircraft include a nice afterburner effect when you place the aircraft in full throttle and other nice animations.  As you move into the cockpit, the graphic backgrounds are also basic in nature.  Shifting to the virtual cockpits, I was pleasantly surprised, especially in viewing the USAF models.  In the F-16 model, however, there is a rose-colored hue to the glass of the virtual cockpit which makes looking outside at night very difficult. This visualization problem exists in both FS2002 and FSCOF.  Other issues that have been addressed to Abacus include serious exterior lighting problems involving the F-14, F-16. and F/A-18 models.  Completing my walk around, it was time to "kick the tires and light the fires."

F-15 closed canopy	F-15 open canopy	F/A-18 afterburner visual

Interior Inspection (Aircraft Panels):

There are 5 basic panel layouts in Fighter Pilot.  As the pictures show below, they are unique to each basic model in the set.  Working through the cockpits can be a chore as there are many instances to where finding a particular button or function was hit or miss. In the F/A-18 models there were two cockpits, one for the basic version, and one for the Blue Angel version.  The Blue Angel version was very functional and a lot cleaner.  One problem with all the panels was the HUD (Heads Up Display) system.  It was very difficult to read in both FS2002 and FSCOF.  The HUDS occasionally blink and blank out the speed and altitude readouts.  When moving to the Virtual Cockpits, the same problem with the HUDS existed as well.

The cockpits overall, except for the F/A-18 Blue Angel version give the basic instrumentation.  However, experienced FS pilots will be under whelmed by their functionality and appearance.  In some cases, the panel gauges are so unreadable that they almost make the panel useless to use.  For people who may have vision deficiencies, it could cause more frustration in trying to comprehend what information the gauges are trying to convey.

F-14 cockpit	F-14 virtual cockpit	F-15 cockpit	F-15 virtual cockpit	F-16 cockpit
F-16 virtual cockpit	F-18 cockpit	F-18 virtual cockpit	F-18 Blue Angels cockpit	F-18 Blue Angels virtual cockpit

Test System

Engine Startup and Take Off: As I started the engines, I could hear the whine of the engines as they were coming alive.  I was very impressed with the engine sounds which very believable and sound wonderful.  As the engines come online, there is even that familiar puff of black smoke from the engine exhausts as the turbines come online.  As you see below, the engine exhaust vanes (turkey feathers as they are called) are animated as well for all models. As I took off in each aircraft I did a 45 to 60 degree nose up climb in which each aircraft climbed flawlessly takeoff roll, the engines do throttle up quickly, but were very responsive.  The Navy models appeared.  After leveling, I went through a series of basic maneuvers from a 90 degree angle of bank 360 degree turn to slow speed to high speed transition. Engine exhaust vanes closed Engine exhaust vanes open   All aircraft performed well, except that the Navy models seemed a bit slower to respond to control input, whereas the USAF models were sometimes too responsive.  Overall, the flight models are good and were nice to fly.

Dell Dimension 8250 Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 512mb Ram ATI Radeon 9600XT 128mb Video Card 160GB Hard drive 21"Viewsonic Monitor Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Audio Card Thrustmaster Afterburner II joystick w/throttle WindowsXP   Flight Test Time: 20.0 hours

Cruise and Landing:

After playing in the sunshine, I brought the aircraft in for their landings.  For the F-14 and F/A-18 models, I did landings at land-based facilities, and onboard aircraft carriers using Abacus' FS Flight Deck III.   I was very impressed with the slow speed aircraft handling characteristics of both of these aircraft.  The Hornet airfile characteristics may be too good, as at one point, I slowed to 95 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS) and still maintained good control without stalling.  For the F-15 and F-16 models, I also landed at the home airfields represented in the packages with no problems.  All autopilot functions, if so inclined to use, worked fine.  There is a small bug regarding be able to change radio and navigational radio frequencies, but this is being addressed as well.

F/A-18 Hornet landing	F-14 Tomcat landing

Summary:

• Basic documentation extremely weak.
• Textures not optimized and paint schemes and graphics break no new ground.
• Lighting visuals are extremely buggy and have major flaws.
• Minor texture model flaws and bleed throughs.
• Panels are below average in design and functionality.