Game 331: Solo Flight

I guess calling it "MicroProse Flight Simulator" would fly too close to the sun.

 

I've said this before, but I'm just not the right reviewer for this kind of game, and recalling my miserable experience with SubLOGIC's Flight Simulator, I had to mull over whether this would even be included in my MicroProse retrospective at all. Ultimately, its importance to the company's early history and anticipation of F-15 Strike Eagle's more simulation-oriented aspects (despite the former not being a combat sim) moved me to include it, but not without reservations.

Turns out that with practice, I actually got kind of okay at this game. Not great, mind you, but I managed to land the plane twice in a row on the most difficult Colorado map under the second-highest difficulty settings. I credit my relative success to a few things - a forgiving flight model, improved graphics (still with a lousy framerate, sadly), a zoomed-out perspective that helps judge runway alignment and touchdown height (while decidedly not helping to judge distances or topography), and vastly improved instrumentation, including VOR navigation and ILS landing guides.

 

Solo Flight offers three maps to traverse:

• Kansas, a flat flyover state with no obstacles except a few mountains far to the north of any points of interest.
• Washington, a Pacific state on the Ring of Fire divided by the mountainous Cascade Range.
• Colorado, a state with very complex topography of plains, plateaus, mountains, and canyons.

 

You need maps, not just for navigation, but also to determine how high you need to be flying to not crash into the ground.

 

...because most of the time the game looks like this.

Four practice modes are available, for flying under clear conditions, windy conditions, IFR conditions (i.e. flying blind on instruments alone), and landing. I spent most of my time practicing clear conditions flying and landing before attempting the real game; the Mail Run. Here, four difficulty settings may be chosen, which increase the likelihood of instrument and equipment failure as well as the frequency of adverse conditions. God help you if multiple instruments fail during IFR conditions, which is a very real possibility on the hardest mode.

In my final and most successful game, my first task was to carry mail from Aspen to Pueblo. I figured I'd fly east toward Mt. Lincoln, slip around north through Loveland Pass, and turn south at USAS Academy.

Taxiing to the east runway. Mt. Lincoln is the white triangle.

Facing east and throttled up

Takeoff!

Navigating with any degree of precision requires using the VOR readouts, which indicate the angle of orientation to two radio stations. Unfortunately, the map lines are only in 30 degree increments, so at a glance you may only be able to identify your location by the quadrilateral formed by the intersecting lines rather pinpointing the exact spot. When taking the pass between the towers, as I did, VOR navigation is pretty unhelpful; the triangulation just gives you a straight line.

My heading readout failed, VOR is of limited use here, and perspectives can be strange to judge. Is that runway distant or tiny?

Rounding Mt. Lincoln and positioned just north of Vail's airport, USAF Academy is visible to the east.

Still on course. Pueblo's airport is now visible.

As I approach, ILS helps indicate if my slope needs correction. But thanks to a rapid descent, I'm coming in much too fast.

I throttled up to gain altitude, turned around, and tried again, and this time was able to land correctly, deliver the mail, and get my heading instrument repaired.

The next goal was Denver, just up to the north, which I reached without difficulty.

A head-on approach from 1000 feet makes for an easy landing

After that, it was back to Aspen, and this is where things took a bad turn. One of the VOR indicators failed, crippling my navigation. And then, somewhere around Mt. Evans, the ground elevation very suddenly snuck up on me.

The plane climbs, but actually descends?!

 

I think I've played enough to get the idea. I didn't exactly have fun, but non-combat flight sims always had a narrow audience, which always excluded myself. CGW Magazine contrasted it with SubLOGIC's own Flight Simulator II, declaring the former to be a very good program, but FS2 to be far more comprehensive and realistic. I completely believe this.

GAB Rating: Average. Even though this isn't for me, I think I grasped enough that I can appreciate the improvements over Flight Simulator. Obviously this is hopelessly dated as a sim, but perhaps its somewhat more casual approach gives it just enough of a game factor to not be completely obsolete as one.