The disappointment flight sim enthusiasts and Macintosh gamers may have felt at Terminal Reality’s delay in shipping the Mac version of Fly is liable to melt away completely after they climb into the cockpit of this ultrarealistic general aviation flight simulator and go for a spin.
Impatient types (we mention this first for a reason) who want immediate takeoff need only choose their graphics, sound, and control hardware settings, then select from a list of Fly Now scenarios. Choose from five aircraft: a Cessna 172R Skyhawk (single-engine piston, a common training plane), a Piper Malibu Mirage (super-charged single engine) or Malibu Chieftain (twin), a Beech King Air (turbo prop), and a Hawker 800XP jet, and fly around one of five landmark U.S. cities. Several scenarios are wonderfully unrealistic — one permits you to land on the Golden Gate Bridge, for example — but avoiding a crash still requires some skill. You aren’t required to land at all, however — you can climb and descend at will and and take a scenic tour around, say, the Bay Area.
Fly’s true beauty and sophistication lie chiefly in the way it allows the user to control so many details. One great feature — especially important for people truly interested in honing their flying skills — is Fly’s interactive cockpit interiors, complete with functional avionics panels that let you flip switches and monitor gauges using a realistic checklist (the manual provides brief practice lists).
Fly has something for just about everyone. Tons of aircraft control options will satisfy beginners on their maiden voyage as well as advanced pilots looking to configure more challenging flights. Adjust the appearance of the cockpit, stretching it to provide a realistic change of perspective when you scroll, or choose a mini cockpit window containing only the essential six-pack of gauges. Practice a step-by-step startup procedure, or simply click “E” to start the plane automatically. Radios complicate flight, but eventually serve as a pilot’s life-line. You have the option to use VOR and NDB (common navigational facilities) and create way-points that enable the GPS (Global Positioning System) to determine your position anywhere in the world.
Fly’s Air Traffic Control functions for communicating with controlled airports are fairly simplistic. Pilots cannot request touch-and-gos (repeat landings), exercise detailed instrument approaches, or use Flight Service Stations to their full potential. But it’s nice to have a built-in system, and the real sectional charts, though a little difficult to read onscreen, can determine communication frequencies in addition to offering other important information. Though add-ons like Squawkbox provide more extensive ATC capabilities than other simulators, participating controllers and pilots often take away from the realism of the sim by abusing regulations and just goofing around. (We, of course, admit to having some fun doing loops in the middle of Manhattan and admiring the city upside-down before we, uh, executed a safe approach into JFK.)
Other options include Dynamic Scenery, which creates other ground and air traffic; Detect Collisions, which solidifies buildings and other structures so you can’t fly through them (as if); and Gyro Drift, which makes gyroscopic instruments reflect realistic precession tendencies. Pilots can also place themselves in icing conditions and experiment with pitch and power settings and emergency procedures. Fly also lets you play Mother Nature: You can make winds variable at any velocity from 0 to 50 miles per hour (unfortunately it doesn’t measure in knots), and set a peak level for gusts. The program can also adjust volumetric cloud cover (by altitude and formation), visibility, precipitation, and precipitation intensity.
The coolest weather feature, however, allows you to import actual METAR reports (Aviation Routine Weather Reports — blame the French for the acronym) from the National Weather Service. When you fly within 140 miles of a station, conditions change to reflect the actual weather report in the METAR you imported. The program does not include any practice instrument approach charts, nor can you (obviously) experience real-life physical disorientation in a simulator. However, the ability to lower visibility and create multiple cloud layers should still prove useful for people seeking instrument training.
Fly’s Flight Planner, used in conjunction with GPS (a feature unique to Fly), extends the program’s capabilities to a higher level. You can create a flight plan, choosing from over 9,500 airports world-wide. Arrange a flight from Nuuk Godthab, Greenland, to Pago Pago, American Samoa, and you’ll immediately see it charted on the world map (and get a quick geography refresher course — though naturally we already knew where Pago Pago was). You can also set departure and arrival times. Fly sends all of this information to the GPS. From the Flight Planner screen, you can access the Setup Aircraft screen, where you’ll find V-speeds (aircraft control speeds), rpm, and engine specs for whichever aircraft you’re taking up. To a limited extent, you can also adjust your aircraft’s weight and balance.
One feature unique to Fly is the alternate view camera. Take a look at your pitch attitude from outside the aircraft, or get a bird’s-eye view of an uncoordinated stall evolving into a tailspin. The scalable sateflite scenery provides good resolution even at low altitudes, making the quality of terrain detail remarkable. Of course, increasing detail decreases your system performance. A 3D accelerator card is obviously a definite plus — our blue-and-white G3’s Rage 128 card gave us good results. The quality graphics combined with engine, ATC, and weather sounds make Fly truly exciting.
To get the most out of simulation, you need to use hardware with realistic functionality. While Fly allows you to assign the x and y axes, rudder, mixture, trim, and throttle to particular controls on the joystick or input device you’re using, you can only activate flaps (essential for controlled landings) with key commands or the mouse. This is awkward — and a surprising omission. You do, however, have the option to redefine key assignments, so you can personalize your control set to some extent, though the default commands are fairly intuitive and easy to remember. Unless you plan to pilot from the right seat of the plane, you may want to consider controlling the x and y axes with your left hand and the throttle and trim settings with your right, as you would in a real airplane.
The Fly manual devotes only a sixth of its bulk to operational instruction; the rest covers flying basics. The text is not outstanding, but it’s adequate — and happily a keyboard control chart provides easy answers and shortcuts.
Though Fly has a multiplayer option, it plainly isn’t traditional gaming software — it’s designed for realistic flight simulation, so Quake 3 Arena and airborne military combat devotees should look elsewhere. Despite its limitations, Fly has several almost ineriiaustible aspects. It is hard to imagine a simulator ever taking the place of real flight — but for a relatively small price, gamers willing to choke down a bit of technical information can enjoy multiplayer scenarios, novice pilots can nail some basic procedures, and experienced pilots can travel the world in instrument conditions without mortgaging their house. Not bad, not bad at all.
Morgan, Jenifer. (January 2000). Fly!. MacAddict. (pgs. 54-55).
Terminal Reality
Games
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2014-12-30 / 
2023-12-20 / 
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FLY_1_0.sit
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