B-17 Flying Fortress by Microprose

[tanker]

You know, I find myself loading this old gem about once a week. This is a full out hard to master flight sim. I have never been able to fly the damned thing from the pilots seat, heck every control on the 100% accurate instrument panel works and you better not make a mistake or you crash. The real fun is using the realistic Norden Bombsight and manning the gun positions. The intercom chatter, engine and equipment sounds are very accurate. I have never seen 50 cal operation so accurately modelled(you can even hear to ammo belts sliding through the feed chutes). When you hit an FW,109,or 262 the damage results are a real turn on. I guess you can tell that I like this one a lot.
I am going to a Fantasy Flight Camp Nov. 21-23 to learn all about the real B17 at EAA air academy at Oshkosh WI. This is my once-in-a-Lifetime experience and my Xmas present from my wife. ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Keith Heitmann]

I have played B-17 on my old P2 system but haven't tried it on my new P4 yet, nor have I tried using a joystick on this sytem yet. The joystick has to be run through a USB port this time as my new sound card (Audigy) doesn't have game/serial port like my old Turtle Beach Montego II card did.

The one draw back on the original B-17 was the poor sound, IMHO. The engines were just a mild hum and the gunfire sounded to faint, as if I were hearing it through earplugs.

The bombsight was a major feature of that sim. It was very nicely done.

The navigation to and from the target was nicely modelled too. The better the navigator got on each mission the more accurately he could guide the plane to the target on his own. I remember making often checks on my navigator in the early missions and compairing the ground terrain visible with the navigation map to make sure I was on course.

While it wasn't animated the need to move a spare crewman through the plane to render first aid, fire suppression or to man a gun was another feature that was handled well.

The attacks by the German aicraft were also one of the best I've seen in any flight sim. They didn't just fly straight at you they made slashing attacks making it difficult to track their path with your guns. It was one of the first sims that I remember where the damaged plane didn't just blow up. German fighters would lose wings, start smoking in one or more engines, and would occassionally collide with your aircraft or another in the formation causing it to fallout and crash.

Engine fires were hairy. Putting the plane into a steep dive to blow out the fire was the only sim I can remember that modelled this. And to do it without tearing off the wings was not a simple task.

Manual landing of the aircraft was a real trick, I have to agree. It was extremely difficult with an undamaged aircraft let alone one that had battle damage. I was never too successful at landing the plane at the end of the mission either.

The small size of bomber formations limited the realism somewhat in B-17, but those old computers could not handle the added load back then.

The graphics weren't quite as good as some of the other games of its day, but the action made up for it.

I wasn't able to play B-17 II on my old P2 because of my video card wasn't up to it and it's kind of old now and I don't know if I want to invest in it. So I have no way of comparing the old to the new.

I saved all my old hack info from my days on Prodigy and have the info that allowed you to bypass the lookup code needed to start the game. I'd have to dig it out, it's been shifted around here alot since the new computer was put online.

On a similar note, I've ben keeping an eye on private effort in the UK to create a RAF night bomber sim. They are making progress and it will model aircaft such as the Lancaster, Short Stirling, Wellington, Halifax, and Mosquito and the Bf109, Fw190, Bf110, He219.