What is Falcon: F-16 Flight Simulator?

You'll have to be a fighter pilot at heart to enjoy Falcon-a realistic but highly complex flight simulation game from Spectrum Holobyte. With Falcon you match wits with MiG-piloting Russians, conduct bombing runs, and fly low to avoid surface-to-air missiles. But unless you have the patience to really learn the game, you’ll be lost in a morass of displays and crashes. Falcon is very much like real flight school: you must practice and you must study.

Hook your Mac to a stereo if possible and let the thundering music put you in the mood for a mission. A duty roster lists active pilots, their current ranks, and the merits they have earned. You can select one of these or type in a new name of your own. Unless you have fighter pilot experience, start as a lieutenant-you can’t crash or get shot down. At the other extreme, “full bird” colonels face deadly MiG pilots who execute sophisticated maneuvers. Even the program’s author has a hard time defeating these pilots.

Weapons include everything from Sidewinder missiles to Durandal anti-runway bombs. At the lieutenant level you are fully armed, but at other ranks you must pick and choose weapons according to your mission. Beware-you can’t always get the items you want. Falcon randomly generates the availability of weapons.

Falcon offers a choice of 12 missions, each with its own difficulty rating. Merits and medals are awarded accordingly; points are also given for shooting down enemy aircraft, successful bombing runs, and landing safely.

Buderi, Robert. (April 1988). Frustrating Fun. Macworld. (pg. 195).

Download Falcon: F-16 Flight Simulator for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 4.0 up to Mac OS 7.1

Compatibility notes

• 1 MB RAM (2 MB RAM for MultiFinder)
• Version exists that can run on 512 KB RAM

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Mini vMac