Old and I mean really old flight simulators

[Matt Sdeel 46]

DOS Days - Games - Flight Simulators""

...and then.... fast forward a few decades and we have home equipment like this:

 

 

Edited February 15 by charliearon
embed video

[Penzoil3 480]

Ah, the memories. Falcon 3 was my first real flight sim. Ran on a 386 PC. I seem to remember 256k of ram, and a 100 mb hard drive. And a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive.

Edited February 15 by Penzoil3

[Mace 1,928]

No hard drive.  It was all 5 1/4" floppies. That's not very old though.   The guys using tape drives, and even punch-cards...now THAT'S old.  I worked with those guys early on.  They had a neat outlook on everything tech.

[ViperPilot 81]

I cut my Teeth and learned the Trade flying for The Rebel Alliance in X-WING by LucasArts.

Was it really a 'flight sim'? Maybe not. But we sure had loads of fun!

[SierraHotel 982]

F15 Strike Eagle on the Sinclair Spectrum 48k my very first flight sim

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/0001702/

[John Johnston 7]

First simulator was 747 on the Acorn Electron by Doctor Soft.  I think I also had 737 Simulator by Salamander Software but I think it came after the 747 one.  

747 - Acorn Electron

and

737 Simulator

Yeah - the videos are representative of gameplay and no, there were no tweaks to increase FPS or graphics settings....We certainly have come a long way.

🙂

jj

[Mike A 338]

As shown in the OP link, I used to have Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

But to get really old, although it's technically not a flight but an operational simulator, I briefly used to play RAF: The Battle of Britain by Moby Games.  It was in the early 1980s and for the Apple II.  It was a text-based game.  I didn't have an Apple II, but we had one at work, so I would sometimes spend my lunch break playing it:

 

And as for simulator hardware, there was the Link simulator:

 

Edited February 15 by Mike A
Added video

[Wildblue 245]

I remember the Link Simulator and even got the chance to try it out once when i was 9, wonderful experience back then!

Thanks for this.

Edited February 16 by Wildblue

[Mace 1,928]

On 2/15/2024 at 3:49 PM, Mike A said:

As shown in the OP link, I used to have Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

But to get really old, although it's technically not a flight but an operational simulator, I briefly used to play RAF: The Battle of Britain by Moby Games.  It was in the early 1980s and for the Apple II.  It was a text-based game.  I didn't have an Apple II, but we had one at work, so I would sometimes spend my lunch break playing it:

 

And as for simulator hardware, there was the Link simulator:

 

I had Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (we called it "SWOTL") and also Birds of Prey.

How neat.   The above text-based game, that reminds me of Wishbringer.  I can't remember the exact name.  One of the Zork spinoffs.   I never had RAF: Battle of Britain although I did have lots o' stuff for the Apple //e.

[LHookins 3,103]

I had the original Bruce Artwick flight simulator for the Apple ][ on cassette tape.  If there was any kind of problem loading the tape, the plane would take off but as soon as you were in the air you'd get a "Stolen Aircraft!" banner and the game would freeze.  Later someone was able to create a disk version that was a lot faster and more robust to load.

I bought the first Microsoft Flight Simulator before I even had a computer to run it on.  I played it at work.  At lunch, or after work, of course. 😄 

I had a surprising number of the flight sims shown, and it was exciting to see the box art again.  I still have most of them packed away.  Got lots of stories to tell, too, but that's for another day.

Hook

 

[Dominique_K 10,150]

circa 1981 purchases

 circa 1984

 

[Christopher Low 5,354]

Psion Flight Simulator for the ZX Spectrum 48k - Christmas 1982. Where have all of those years gone?

[kerosene31 349]

My first flight sim was Sierra's 3D Helicopter Sim from 1987.  I think it came along with a computer we bought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra's_3-D_Helicopter_Simulator

Later on, I played a ton of the Microprose combat sims.  I remember F15, and the F19 Stealth Fighter game. 

Anyone remember the Chuck Yeager games?  I played a lot of the Advanced Flight Trainer.  Later on there was a combat game, but I think that was in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager's_Advanced_Flight_Trainer

[Skywolf 992]

On 2/20/2024 at 10:27 AM, kerosene31 said:

My first flight sim was Sierra's 3D Helicopter Sim from 1987.  I think it came along with a computer we bought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra's_3-D_Helicopter_Simulator

Later on, I played a ton of the Microprose combat sims.  I remember F15, and the F19 Stealth Fighter game. 

Anyone remember the Chuck Yeager games?  I played a lot of the Advanced Flight Trainer.  Later on there was a combat game, but I think that was in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager's_Advanced_Flight_Trainer

Chuck Yeager's AFT is amazing.  I still have the audio cassette which came with the game.  I spend hours flying on that sim with a CGA!!! monitor.  Years later I got EGA, when the world was in VGA.  Good ole XT 4.77Mhz machine showed me chase plane views in CY AFT.  What an experience it was!!!  I don't think Gen Z kids even know what a CGA, EGA colors are lol....

Edited February 22 by Skywolf

[Dominique_K 10,150]

On 2/20/2024 at 1:08 PM, Christopher Low said:

Where have all of those years gone?

Don't ask me, I wouldn't know