Phantom flies fine

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It quickly becomes apparent, when playing Phantom Combat, Dr. Soft's latest flight simulator, why it cost the Royal Air Force more than £2,000,000 to train each of its fighter pilots.

At least, in this simulation of the F4 Phantom, a crash in the practice mode isn't fatal. You can hit the ground at over 700 knots and bounce off, although the noise of scraping metal suggests that repairs will be necessary.

Landing isn't very easy. It is possible, occasionally, after numerous attempts, and so it's very realistic. However in the alternative mode for this simulator, Operations, there is no bouncing along the ground.

Crash and that is it - you have only the one life to lose. More to the point, in the practice mode you can either fly in formation with, or practice shooting down, another aeroplane.

When operational, the other plane tries, with considerable success, to shoot you down. You do have a display to tell you where it is, which seems to be mostly behind you - not a good place for an enemy fighter to get, which is confirmed when the screen shudders.

Gunfire is hitting you, and a damage report at the bottom of the display tells you just how bad things are.

Fortunately this fighter has an ejection seat - hit the Escape key. You can save some of your score and go on.

Crash the Phantom and the game restarts. Or at least that is what the instructions tell you. My micro, with Acorn's DNFS 1.2, went into Mode 3, the disc drives started spinning and the screen locked up. Crash and you'll really crash!

Response to the controls is fabulous. If you have double joysticks, one can be made to act as the throttle, giving increased realism. The cockpit view moves smoothly, but is alas constructed from very simple wire graphics, with almost no ground detail. The instrumentation is adequate, but a pilot would really need extra pitch information on the artificial horizon.

If you like flying, this game is for you. The simulation is responsive and great fun. In fact, after Aviator, it is the best flight simulation I've seen on the BBC Micro.

Robert Elwell