B-17 Flying Fortress

Title: B17 Flying Fortress
Author: Microprose
Released: 1991/1992 by Microprose
No. of disks: 3
HDD installable: yes, practically necessary
Lanuages: English
RAM: 1meg minimum, more is very good as the game uses disk space as RAM and the DF0 will be churning otherwise

While most 3D flight simulations are comfortable letting the player only pilot a plane a B17 flight simulation was always going to entail more. It involves having a happy team and keeping to your mission - running about your flying bus and patching it up while pausing for a sobre moment to mourn your gunner lying mangled with the radio guy. If you've seen the film Memphis Belle you can live out these beasts here.

For an early floppy disk game it allowed a wonderful amount of customisation - it almost had an RPG quality to it. Plane art and team names could be altered. A wonderfully detailed Microprose simulation (230 page Microprose manual) that also involve flying.

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, one of the most famous American planes of World War 2. Over 12,000 of the four-engined bomber were used in the European war.

Although more B-24's were used in the war, the B-17 is more romanced as the ideal bomber. The Memphis Belle was the first B-17 to survive 50 combat missions. Although well-remembered as a plane that could survive huge hits from German flak and Luftwaffe fighters, over half of the deployed B-17's were lost in combat or due to operational damage.

The B-17 put Boeing on the map, helping them to gain later superiority in the commercial aerospace industry. The B-17's bigger, younger brother was the B-29, deployed later in the war in the Japanese theater and later in the Korean War. The B-29 Superfortress was used to drop the first two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguably winning the war.

Specifications:

Country: United States of America

Manufacturer: Boeing

Designation: B-17 Flying Fortress

Type: Bomber

Service Dates: 1935 to mid-1950s

Length: 74'-9"

Wingspan: 103'-9"

Height: 19'-1"

Empty Weight: 32,720 lbs

Gross Weight: 49,500 lbs

Maximum Speed: 295 mph

Maximum Range: 1,100 miles

Maximum Altitude: 35,000 ft

Number of Crew: 10 to 12

Engine Type: Reciprocating

Engine Manufacturer: Wright

Engine Designation: R1820 x 4

Engine Horsepower: 1,200 hp