Flight simulation video game

Amateur flight simulation refers to the simulation of various aspects of flight or the flight environment for purposes other than flight training or aircraft development. There is currently a significant community of simulation enthusiasts supported by several commercial software packages, as well as commercial and homebuilt hardware.

History and use

Prior to the rise of video games, Sega produced arcade games that resemble video games, but were in fact electro-mechanical games that used rear image projection in a manner similar to the ancient zoetrope to produce moving animations on a screen. One such electro-mechanical game by Sega was Jet Rocket, a crude flight simulator featuring cockpit controls that could move the player aircraft around a landscape displayed on a screen and shoot missiles onto targets that explode when hit. In 1975, Taito released a simulator video game, Interceptor, which was a crude arcade first-person combat flight simulator that involved using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two and scale in size depending on their distance to the player.

Flight simulators were among the first types of programs to be developed for early personal computers. Bruce Artwick's subLOGIC simulators were well known for the functionality they managed to get onto 8-bit machines. Key computer game technologies such as 3D graphics, online play, and modding were first showcased in combat flight simulators such as Red Baron II and European Air War. The game world in flight simulators is often based on the real world. However, they are often confined to one part of the game world by invisible boundaries. In some games, the aircraft simply halts in midair, while other games force the player to turn around. However, many games solve this boundary problem by wrapping the game world as a sphere.

Although these games strive for a great deal of realism, they often simplify or abstract certain elements to reach a wider audience. Many modern fighter aircraft have hundreds of controls, and flight simulator games usually simplify these controls drastically. Further, certain maneuvers can knock a pilot unconscious or rip their aircraft apart, but games do not always implement these concerns.

A popular type of flight simulator are combat flight simulators, which simulate combat air operations from the pilot and crew's point of view. Combat flight simulation titles are more numerous than civilian flight simulators due to variety of subject matter available and market demand.

Screenshot from FlightGear

In the early 2000s, even home entertainment flight simulators had become so realistic that after the events of September 11, 2001, some journalists and experts speculated that the hijackers might have gained enough knowledge to steer a passenger airliner from packages such as Microsoft Flight Simulator. Microsoft, while rebutting such criticisms, delayed the release of the 2002 version of its hallmark simulator to delete the World Trade Center from its New York scenery and even supplied a patch to delete the towers retroactively from earlier versions of the sim.

The advent of flight simulators as home video game entertainment has prompted many users to become "airplane designers" for these systems. As such, they may create both military or commercial airline airplanes, and they may even use names of real life airlines, as long as they don't make profits out of their designs. Many other home flight simulator users create fictional airlines, or virtual versions of real-world airlines, so called virtual airlines. These modifications to a simulation generally add to the simulation's realism and often grant a significantly expanded playing experience, with new situations and content. In some cases, a simulation is taken much further in regards to its features than was envisioned or intended by its original developers. Falcon 4.0 is an example of such modification; "modders" have created whole new warzones, along with the ability to fly hundreds of different aircraft, as opposed to the single original flyable airframe.

One way that users of flight simulation software engage is through the internet. Virtual pilots and virtual air traffic controllers take part in an online flying experience which attempts to simulate real-world aviation to a high degree. There are several networks where this sort of play is possible, the most popular ones being VATSIM and IVAO. Virtual Skies provides a low barrier of entry allowing any level member to fly or control without worrying if something goes wrong. Virtual Skies covers mainly UK & USA VATSIM and is generally regarded to have better coverage of the virtual North America and Great Britain, while IVAO's pilots and controllers generally fly and control the virtual Europe, Africa and South America. IVAO's ATC certification process is not as strict as VATSIM's, which allows for a greater number of controllers to be available, but guarantees their proficiency to a lesser degree than VATSIM. Both networks receive anywhere from 300 to 900 ATC and pilot connections, depending on the time of day.

Video game console

Much rarer but still notable are flight simulators available for various game consoles. Successful examples of these were Pilotwings, made available for the Super Nintendo, the sequel Pilotwings 64 for the Nintendo 64 and the Ace Combat series on PlayStation 1&2. While generally not as complex as PC based simulators, console flight simulators can still be enjoyable to play, though their 'simulation' status is disputed by many in the flight simulation community.

Homebuilt cockpits

Main article: Simulation cockpit

A homebuilt simulator

Often referred to as Simpits, home cockpit building is a common hobby among simulator pilots. Simpits range in complexity from a single computer, with some effort to create a permanent area for simulation, through to complete cockpit reconstruction projects utilizing multiple systems. The growth in home cockpit complexity and realism has been further fueled by the opening up of the simulation software packages with published SDKs (Software Development Kits) now common.

A homebuilt Boeing style simulator utilizing generic hardware

The push for higher realism in desktop simulation, often fueled by real pilots looking to practice cheaply at home, has led to a wide array of suppliers growing up to satisfy the demand. Hardware is available from a variety of commercial sources ranging from yokes, throttles and pedals, through to radios, lights and complete instruments. This home use hardware is rarely certified for flight training, so the hours spent practicing in the simpit will not count towards a pilot's hours. However it is widely utilized as an unofficial training aid, allowing realistic procedures practice, as well as the opportunity to complete visual or IMC approaches prior to a real world flight. This can help make a pilot's real-world flight time safer and more productive. Professional opinion is divided about how effective this home simulation can be against real world flight, and this has been a subject of debate in popular flying magazines such as 'Pilot' through 2007.

For those wishing more than a desktop simulator, replica panels are commercially available mimicking those found in a modern airliners such as a Boeing or Airbus. These panels will either fit into a real cockpit section, which some large scale home simulators are built into, or will be mounted in a home constructed cockpit frame, normally made from wood. With most modern airliners now using Glass Cockpit type displays it is relatively simple to replicate the displays in software, outputting them via multi head graphics cards or networked PCs to cheaply available LCD monitors mounted behind the panel. To the casual observer it can be hard to tell a home built static simulator and a commercial one apart.

A home built Airbus simulator cockpit

Where commercial panels or controls do not exist, simulator builders will often create their own out of wood or similar easily worked materials. Another common route for sourcing the specific hardware needed in a simulator, and one used by the commercial sector as well, is to obtain a real component from a scrapyard and convert it for PC input. Interface hardware for these home-made controls is directly available from commercial suppliers, or can be obtained by dismantling cheap joysticks or similar components and rewiring them. Some home builds will even incorporate motion platforms, although unlike commercial simulators these are normally more limited in motion, and often rely on electrical motors as opposed to hydraulics.

Beyond the hardware of home cockpits, most flight simulator software can simulate modern aircraft systems to a very high standard in addition to the basic flight dynamics, providing accurate recreations of, among others, the FMC (Flight Management Computer), autopilot and engine management systems. With additional hardware and add-in software this may be extended further, for example into a fully functional overhead panel requiring real-world check lists to be followed for engine start-up and flight with a full flight deck crew.

Space flight simulators

Main article: Space flight simulator

As space is a natural extension of airspace, space flight simulators may be treated as an extension of flight simulators' genre. There is a considerable interdependence between those two kinds of simulators, as some flight simulators feature spacecraft as an extension and some space flight simulators may feature realistic atmospheric flight simulation engines.

Home software

See also: Category:Flight simulation video games

Popular flight simulators for home computers include:

Flight and space flight simulators

• Microsoft Flight Simulator Series - its last installment (Microsoft Flight Simulator X) includes space as an area to be discovered, with a payware space shuttle add-on being also available.
• X-Plane, also includes a Space Shuttle and Mars flight simulators
• Kerbal Space Program - initially space-focused, but the addition of air-breathing engines and lift surfaces made atmospheric flight practical.

Flight simulators

• Condor: The Competition Soaring Simulator, a sailplane simulator
• GEFS-Online , a Multi-player free flight simulator built on Google-Earth plugin
• FlightGear, a free and open source flight simulator, actively maintained by a large user community.
• Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War a combat flight simulator of World War I
• YS Flight Simulation 2000, a freeware flight simulator

Space flight simulators

• Orbiter, a freeware space flight simulator, also features many types of historical & fictional addons.
• Microsoft Space Simulator
• Space Shuttle Mission 2007, includes several missions flown by space shuttle.

Flight simulators are also available on smartphones, e.g.:

• Infinite Flight, a flight simulator for iOS and Windows Phone

Arcade-style

Non-combat

• AeroWings (Dreamcast, Playstation)
• Pilotwings (series) (Super Nintendo, N64, 3DS)
• Radio Helicopter (Wii)
• SimCopter (PC)
• Take on Helicopters
• Wing Island (Wii)
• SSX (includes wingsuit flight)

Combat

• AeroWings 2: Airstrike
• IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

See also

• FlightGear
• Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War
• International Virtual Aviation Organization
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• VATSIM
• Virtual Airline
• X-Plane