Are there any current flight sims for the F/A-18?
 

Hi all,

I've just ordered the board/card-driven game 'Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Ops' based on the reviews at board-game geek.

Anyway, it has sparked an interest in a current flight sim which features the F/A-18. In Lock On it seems to be AI only and I haven't found any others.

Thanks if you can help!


Flying Nutcase

Why would anyone want to fly an F/A-18 when you can fly one of these: ;)
http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/a...__22_18_19.jpg

Much simpler. No radar. No missiles. No throttle! (mixture and blip switch only). Fly-by-wire (steel cables). All-moving tail surfaces. Fail-safe undercarriage retraction mechanism (none at all). State-of-the-art variable geometry wings (i.e. wing-warping for roll control, and collapsing entirely to indicate an over-G situation). :rolleyes:

Admittedly, the rate of climb is best measured in furlongs per fortnight, but it has an excellent all-round view, and the most advanced weaponry of its time.

Sorry, off-topic I know. In answer to your question, I don't know of any F/A-18 sim. Lock On seems to be the only half-decent sim in recent years covering modern combat aircraft. Too complex for my liking anyway.

You might check out ebay the Jane's F/A-18 is still floating around. It has been modified a great deal over the past couple years. Carrier Ops are awesome in this app.

http://tsh.war-fighters.net/ for excellent addons to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxqulkDNv7A

http://www.simhq.com/_air5/air_166a.html

Thanks guys. I've gone with Lock On and will have to settle for the F-15 and A-10. They'll do just fine. :-)

PS Andy: A very persuasive argument there, lol, and I must admit to not having tried Rise of Flight, but I will when the time is right. I had no intention of flying modern jets until I bumped into the apparently pretty engaging 'Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Ops', after finding 'Downtown: The Airwar Over Hanoi' unavailable.

It'll be an interesting experience after pretty much only flying a Stuka G-1/2 tank-buster in recent times, lol.

S!

I'm living in hope of the F/A-18 being the next plane in the DCS series.

Good luck with lock on!

Cheers Skoshi.

Thanks for the link Bongo. That looks like a really tight study sim. What an amazing cockpit. :-)

Is there an ETA for a release of that? I have a friend at uni who worked on Hornets in the Finnish Airforce and he keeps going on about how he's waiting for that but has no idea when it's going to be released. But I came to this thread to post that, so you just beat me too it :D

I think Falcon BMS has an FA/18 Pit and carrier ops too.

it will be years yet, it's always the way with these independent developers, but I will be happy to bet it will be out before fighter ops.

Some of the smart lads have done a F18 skin for the F-15 in Lockon, and other aircraft. Read about it on the DCS forum about a year ago, it was almost finished at that time. Main forum address below:

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/

Kups, on their website they say that they're at the 80% mark. DCS A-10 would be a good study sim in the meantime. Amazing really:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9oI8u1gLp4

Cheers both! Would be good to see that come out, but it's nice to see the rise in study sims at the moment. Unfortunately they're all about aircraft that I'm not too interested in (although Seven G certainly has my eye). If someone ever did one about a Hunter or any other Cold War RAF job (or even later, I'd still be all over a Tornado sim if it were made) I'd be all over it like a shot though, but I suppose there's not too much of a market for that sort of thing unfortunately, so the modern ones will have to do.

If you like hunters theres an option, not much of a 'study' sim, the developers describe it themselves as a sim 'lite', but the Strike fighters series is alot of fun....shame the 2 series has no multiplayer.

http://www.thirdwire.com/

Ahh brilliant, thanks for the heads up! I'll have a look in to that. I've been waiting for a Hunter combat sim for a long time. There's supposed to be one in the works for the Il2 1956 mod, but with CloD around it's hard to tell what original Il2 projects will ever see the light of day any more. That, and since CloD and RoF I find it difficult to go back to the older, 'simpler' sims. The Il2 cockpits and terrain particularly just look naff now and it just lacks the 'feel' of CloD (when it's working right), so much so that even my beloved Tempest can't bring me back. I think I'll just have to either settle for Meteor's in Korea (if the Korean expansion for CloD ever gets out, and if Meteor's were ever going to be included) for my early jet fix unless someone comes out with something that rivals CloD with visuals and feeling. Until then at least a Tempest for CloD to go tearing up France in would suffice.

Still, a bit more back on topic with study sims in mind, given the relatively large amount of Hunters still flying it really wouldn't be too hard to make a study sim, or even a sim as detailed as CloD, on one, but I suppose since they never saw any combat that wasn't seriously lop sided in their favour it's not anything the average sim flyer is concerned about I suppose, and given the fact that the market is already small enough...

...it just means I have to win the lottery then build my own :grin:

Its for FSX but its exceptionally well done:

http://www.vrsimulations.com/FA18EFSX.htm

http://www.vrsimulations.com/tacpack.htm