General Chuck Yeager is the legendary United States test pilot who inspired the original astronauts in Tom Wolfe’s novel The Right Stuff. Now he's endorsing the latest flight simulator from Electronic Arts — the Advanced Flight Trainer (AFT). Designed to give you a test pilot’s experience of 14 different airplanes, AFT is the first 16-color flight simulator for the Macintosh II.
Pop Quizzes and Lots of Planes
When you load AFT each new calendar day, the program presents you with an airplane silhouette to identify and a question about it that you must answer — or the game quits on you. The 45-page manual provides the essential information about the planes and the format for reporting test-flight results. But if you just want to fly, the daily quiz becomes a bother.
The smorgasbord of simulations includes Spad, Sopwith Camel, Spitfire, and P-51 Mustang, which are World War I and World War II fighters; Cessna Skyhawk and Piper Cherokee, easy-to-fly domestics; X-1 and X-3 rocket planes from the history of test piloting; F-16 and F-18 fighters and an SR-71 high-altitude reconnaissance jet; and finally, two test pilot’s nightmares and one test pilot’s fantasy for mettle testing. There is optional, realistic sound for each simulation.
Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer is geared for the experienced pilot. Nevertheless, it’s also an excellent choice for a first flight simulator. AFT provides 8 basic training routines and written lessons suitable for beginners, as well as 15 advanced flight exercises, 5 airplane-racing and 6 formation-flying scenarios (there’s only one designated plane per stunt, but you can create up to three stunts using any planes). Racing begins with one opponent, with each victory adding a tougher opponent, until you are racing against four computer-generated opponents. The manual mentions a dialog box that you can use to save and play back races, but version 1.0 does not implement this feature.
Views and Displays
The world of AFT is essentially a test course of towering pyramids, massive pylons, and landing strips of various sizes. On a Mac II, color is a big help in distinguishing land mass from airspace. Unlike some simulators, the ground and all structures on it appear solid, even in black and white. To help you judge distance visually, a pattern of spheres that gets progressively larger as you descend to the ground appears on screen. Similarly, you use a trail of spheres to track maneuvers during racing and formation flying, much as you might use the stripes on a highway to keep your car on course. However, there are no airport homing signals, nor is there radar or even a map to supplement visual orientation — a serious drawback.
Keyboard commands provide a selection of views in all directions. Unfortunately, the control panel only appears when you select the cockpit view. However, there is a feature called HUD (heads-up display) that displays critical flight information on the front windscreen. The HUD is especially useful when you’re taking lessons; first you observe a maneuver, then you try to match your cursor to the trail of the programmed cursor, and finally you try the maneuver without the programmed cursor’s assistance. HUD operates with all views, but continuous access to the full control panel would be better.
AFT hits a nice medium between simplicity and realism. In its two 800K floppy disks there’s plenty of challenge. On a Mac II, you'll love the color and the smoothness of the animation. Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer clearly rates a place among top Macintosh flight simulators.
McCandless, Keith. (January 1988). Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator 1.0. Macworld. (pg. 182).
Lerner Research
Games
out of 10 (1 vote)
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cyaft.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
