Red Baron Flight & Combat Training Manual.

[Panzergranate]

Well I said that I'd post this up and I'm not the only Red Baron veteran in the top 5 in ranked team battle on the 360.... am I "Pilechef"??

Notice that the manual teached the reader basics of flying a real aircraft and air combat, not how to play the game.

Red Baron was the original flight combat simulator, back in 1990, and ran on minimal system of at least an AT 286 - 12.5 or NEAT (New Extended AT) 286 -20 or 386 SX 16..... on a 486 DX 66 it was brilliant.

All flight simulators derive from this original Dynamix game by Damon Slye.

Red Baron II was the same engine with vastly improved graphics for the Win 95 era and Red Baron III featured online 60 player dogfights, missions, etc.

In all versions the damage model was by far superior to the IL-2 titles currently available..... for instance an bullet damaged wing strut could fail many minutes after being hit. Players in burning aircraft were given the option of baling out though only German pilots had parachutes, Allied players just plummeted to their doom.

Also customising and personalising of player aircraft was allowed once serious "Ace" status was attained. My SPAD 7 and later SPAD 13 had a white fuselage, black wings and tail.

I've included the light simulator settings page just to show how much more detail it had over the current IL-2 titles..... fancy landing in gale force cross winds anyone?? Changing weather, day / nigh cycle, player navigation by compass, paper maps, storms, etc. were part of the fun (??) of flying outside of combat.

Ground target opportunities varied from moving trains, balloons, factories, rail yards, artillery batteries, etc.

Carrying bombs or "Maroon" rockets not only screwed up aircraft flight characterisics, speed, etc. but also made already dubious structural integrety of some aircraft, dropping each bomb seperately, from each wing rack, altered the balance of the aircraft..... unless one bacame hung up!!

On top of this the AI was deviously clever and in one instance my son blasted away at a Hun 2 seater, watched it apparently spin out control down into a cloud, dived through the cloud to watch the crash and it had disappeared..... on the post mission video playback the AI had pulled a ruse, corrected the spin, once in the cloud, and eluded him.

So read up and learn the black arts of air combat.