[leitmotiv]

Excellent post F_IV. I noticed one of the new combat add-ons for FSX has: horrors! no fighters or bombers, but does have a Me 323, and a number of German gliders, and it is all war missions of various types. The FSX add-on with fighters is for WWI and also has a "height climber" zeppelin. Navigating a 1917 "height climber" mission at high altitude from Germany to London would require incredible skill. Just coping with the winds and the blackout would be enough (will the add-on black out city lights?).

I look forward to somebody having missions with night bombers flying from the UK to targets deep in Germany. Just dealing with weather and malfunctions (not to mention finding the target in 1939-42 without the better-trained navigators and technical aids which came in 1943) would be job enough. Right, a PBY patrol would be great. North Atlantic patrol in a Coastal Command Liberator or Fw 200 or Ju 290. Radar night fighters vs bombers would be a real challenge. How about flying the Hump in C-46, C-47, or gas tanker Liberator (the father of one of my friends flew one of these "Booms," as they called them)? If you run into a JAAF fighter, you had better have a plan! Ju 52 over Crete---what a mincing machine, C-47 over Normandy, how about flying a Horsa to land right by Pegasus Bridge? I would really like this. Land a German glider on top of Eben Emael. Flying patrols out of the Aleutians---the worst flying weather in the world. Fly an Oboe equipped Mosquito precisely to drop target markers over a city. Fly an X Gerat-fitted Heinkel 111H to put incendiaries or bombs on targets covered by overcast. These would move the system away from gaming to being a real flight simulator. You would get a real education in how the systems of WWII aircraft worked.

There has to be more flying and less routine cookie cutter arcade brawling.