Plane Simulator Games

Could Be the Gift Answer You Are Looking for

Gift giving can be a very stressful affair. Battling crowds and looking for that one special,  meaningful present for a loved one can give you a major headache. Giving something that is meaningful to another person can be hit or miss.  What do you get the pilot in your life?

Plane simulator games may be the perfect answer that will save you from that cheesy gift with an airplane stuck on it. Which would you rather give? A set of coasters painted to look like various gauges or a plane simulator game that they will spend hours on perfecting their skills?

Plane Simulator Games Make Great Gifts

Do you know someone that talks about airplanes or dreams of flying? If so, then a plane simulator may be just the ticket to that perfect gift. Sure, you could give books on flying or airplanes. But, after a read or two they will just sit on the shelf. The gift of a plane simulator to someone wanting to get into flying would surely make their day.  It not only shows your support of their flying enthusiasm, but it shows that you want them to follow through on their dream.

Perhaps, you know someone who has already gone through the training to be a pilot. Giving plane simulator games as gifts means you are giving the gift of safety to a novice pilot. Pilots in flight must make the correct decision when something bad happens. Using plane simulator games, pilots can train themselves to have the proper response should that problem arise in a real flight. There is no better place to learn more about flying than in the cockpit of a flight simulator.

Experienced Pilots Will Love Simulators

But, what if the pilot you know has thousands of hours in the seat of an aircraft? How does giving a flight simulator game help them when he has surely trained countless hours for anything it could throw at him or her?  Beyond the obvious, there is no such thing as being too prepared for an emergency. A Plane simulator game allows pilots to revive a love of flight. Perhaps the pilot you know flies for an airline. His or her flights are strictly controlled by regulation and rules. Playing plane simulator games will allow them to perform things that they would never be able to do in real life.

Go Down Memory Lane with a Simulator

What if the pilot in your life has long been retired? Do you still catch them at times looking skyward with a far off look from time to time? That spark of adventure is still there, they want to take to the skies again. Giving them a plane simulator allows them to relive past glories. Wither it was in the skies above a battle field, or just taking the 3pm flight from St. Louis to New York. There would be no better gift than the gift that lets them in the wild blue once again.

Young or old, experienced or green as new wood, plane simulator games are a gift that any pilot can appreciate. No matter the area of their expertise, there is a plane simulator game that will make their face light up with delight when they pull back the wrapping paper. With many different types to choose from, no matter the area your pilot specializes in, there is a flight sim for him or her.  In no time, you can find the perfect gift to allow them to fly the virtual skies.

Combat Flight Simulation

How to Survive

How to survive combat flight simulation is probably one of the biggest questions when approaching the game. People, ahem-pilots are always thinking kill, kill, kill, but really it is a question of survival that should be crossing their minds.

Combat Flight Simulation Game Survival Tips

In my years online I have probably built and maintained somewhere in the neighborhood of a 20:1 kill ratio. This means that for every time I was “killed” I had most likely killed 20 other players along the way. That’s not the most impressive I have ever seen, but it’s not too shabby. In the meantime I have trained literally hundreds of pilots with varying degrees of success.

ACM – Air Combat Maneuvering

The first thing I tell every new pilot is to find a resource on ACM; Air Combat Maneuvering. This will give you standard textbook maneuvers used by the real pilots. Learn them, learn how to apply them.

Start with the simple ones and work your way into some of the more complicated maneuvers in either a practice arena or offline in your favorite combat flight simulation game. Got ‘em down? Are your wings snapping over?  Is your nose responding with military precision? Good, now do them ugly.

Think about this, if you were a boxer, which is better, to telegraph your punches before hand or keep your opponent guessing? Flying with the precision of an airshow jock will get you killed. Mix it up and do it dirty, it will keep them guessing.

SA – Situational Awareness

Another thing to consider is SA; Situational Awareness. There is a reason most combat flight simulation games display the type of aircraft you are going against. That reason is to help you evaluate their performance envelopes. A BF-109 for example can out turn a P-51 in most games.

If you are in the ‘Stang you’d better start thinking of a way to get the heck out of there. If you are in the 109 you will need to try and bait the P-51 into a turn fight or what’s called and “E” (for energy) fight and make sure he doesn’t have an escape vector available to him.

Situational awareness goes beyond that. Knowing where your opponent is and what else is in “your air” will keep you from turning into stray bullets being thrown around by your opponent’s wing man.  So know you space, who’s in it and how you can get out.

Escape Plan

Getting out brings me back to that escape vector thing I mentioned earlier. Always have an escape plan. This is how you land kills. Without it, you could be pushing a bad position and push it too far. I didn’t get my kill ratio by going up and killing 20 pilots and then landing.  I got it by knowing when to bug out and how. The instinctual thing to do is to head 180 degrees away from the plane you are trying to get away from. This is bogus. 90 degrees works well, 78 works better. He will be looking for you dead behind him, bug out and watch what he does.

Fuel and Ammo

The final factor is your fuel and ammo. Keep track of them; losing either in enemy territory is a death sentence. Reserve at least 25% of your ammo for the return trip home and keep your fuel with about 5-10%.

Getting Home

Getting home after a mission is your top priority in a combat flight simulation. You might score 15 kills in a hop but if you don’t land them, you’ve accomplished half of what you could have.