Did anybody play Warbirds? It was a massively multiplayer WWII combat flight sim I used to play for hours at a time in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Excellent flight physics, dozens and dozens of folks online at a time, divided into 4 'countries'. There were a few active duty fighter pilots that played it which made things pretty interesting if you tangled with one.  

Yeah I played the heck out of 'Aces of the Pacific' and 'Aces Over Europe'. I loved the AotP: WWII 1946 expansion that followed Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. Lotsa cool planes there like the F7F, F8F, P-80, and the Kikka. 

I picked up Il-2 a few years ago but somehow I just don't enjoy as much as the earlier games. Not sure if it's more complex or just being older I've lost my taste for flight sims. 

I used to play CFS's, F/A-18 & EF2000 - F/A-18 was the favourite by a long way, CFS's being a bit simplistic & EF2000 being the opposite. Before online gaming properly got going used to play EF2000 over Ethernet with neighbours in my block of flats - cables running up & down stairs & through letterboxes.......

I stuck with F/A-18 for quite a while until Unreal & then Unreal Tournament took over my gaming time......

I still play CFS2 and Jane's F/A-18. They run pretty well in Windows 7.

I doubt that we'll see flight sims like those again. The systems modeling in Jane's F/A-18 is phenominal.

Strangely enough, there's a very good flight sim for Android and Apple tablets called Infinite Flight. I really like the flight model on it and the price is very reasonable.

dmk

My two favorites (both ran in DOS) where Aces of the Pacific: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aces_of_the_Pacific

 

And Falcon 3.0:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(video_game_series)

 

 Both had the options to setup missions, way points and get to fight different opponents. I though the opponent AI was pretty good in both for the day.

 

Man, those were my favorite too, and after my disks wore out, I haven't played a sim since. 

I remember European Air War, I loved the Battle of Britain missions literally hosing down He-111s with an 8 gun Hurricane.

I played most of the early flightsims, Aces over the Pacific / Europe, Microsoft CFS 1-3, Janes WW2 Fighters, Red Baron, Red Baron 2, Janes Fighter Anthology, Mig Alley.

The more recent flight sims are pretty, but don't seem to grab me the way those older games did, they seem to have hit a perfect compromise between sim and arcade game.

I haven't been able to get European Airwar to run for years, will definately have to check out that link.

My two favorites (both ran in DOS) where Aces of the Pacific: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aces_of_the_Pacific

And Falcon 3.0:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(video_game_series)

 Both had the options to setup missions, way points and get to fight different opponents. I though the opponent AI was pretty good in both for the day.

I had CFS1 , 2 and 3. I really liked 3's features but didn't have enough computer. I enjoyed alot of time on CFS1 and 2. With 2 I got so good at handling the Zero that I could take on 6 Corsair at one time .....using only the cowl machine guns! lol . More often than not I'd get my  shot off but there was one time I racked up 26 Corsair shot down (with infininite ammo for those two jokes of guns in that cowl) . I haven't played flight sims now in 7 years but maybe one of these days I'll climb back in the cockpit....but that'll mean I've gotta give up modeling and that aint gonna happen for a while!!

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4148934/1/EAW140_Single_file_installatio

Where is the web site for this?  I'd like to download it also.  Thanks.

John

The only flight sim games I owned were IL-2 Sturmovik, Microsoft Pacific Theater Flight Sim, and the European Theater sim you're talking about (if that's the one I have LOL!), and Freelancer. I wished I had picked up the add-on of IL-2 called Forgotten Battles. Freelancer was the best space sim hands down. There are 2 space sims I've got my eye on called Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen. Star Citizen is one I really love to get but man, talk about a pricey tag to play online and buy ships.