Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer

Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer
Developer(s) Lerner Research
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Designer(s) Ned Lerner
Platform(s) Commodore 64, Apple II, DOS, Amstrad CPC, Tandy 1000, ZX Spectrum, Macintosh Plus, Macintosh II
Release date(s) 1987
Genre(s) Flight simulator
Mode(s) Single Player

Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer is a 1987 computer aircraft simulation game produced by Electronic Arts that was originally released as Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator. Due to a legal squabble with Microsoft over the usage of "Flight Simulator" in the name, the title was pulled from shelves and later re-released as Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer. Many copies of the original title were sold before being pulled from the shelves. Chuck Yeager served as technical consultant for the game, where his likeness and voice were prominently used.

The game allows a player to "test pilot" 14 different airplanes, including the Bell X-1, which Yeager had piloted to become the first man to exceed Mach 1.

The game is embellished by Yeager's laconic commentary: When the user crashes one plane, Yeager remarks "You really screwed the pooch on that one," or other asides.

Aircraft

Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer includes 11 real aircraft and three experimental aircraft designed by the developers. The fictional experimental aircraft were named after people who worked on the game.[1]

Real aircraft
Experimental aircraft

Reception

Game reviewers Hartley and Patricia Lesser complimented the game in their "The Role of Computers" column in Dragon #126 (1987), stating "There is so much in this game that it’s going to be quite some time before another flight simulator can offer so much performance for your buck." The reviewers gave the PC/MS-DOS version of the game 4 out of 5 stars.[2] The Lessers reviewed the Macintosh version of the game in 1988 in Dragon #140 in "The Role of Computers" column, giving that version 4 stars as well.[3] Compute! criticized the blocky graphics and sound, but noted that the simple graphics resulted in a high frame rate. It concluded that Chuck Yeager differed from other games in simulating flying high-performance experimental aircraft.[4]

The game was a big hit for EA.[5]

Legacy

This game was followed in 1989 by Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer 2.0 and in 1991 by Chuck Yeager's Air Combat.

References

  1. ↑ Jermaine, John (January 1998). "Ned Lerner and Chuck Yeager: Taking Computer Flight to New Heights". Commodore Magazine 9 (1): 69.
  2. ↑ Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia (October 1987). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (126): 82–88.
  3. ↑ Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (December 1988). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (140): 74–79.
  4. ↑ Bobo, Ervin (December 1987). "Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer". Compute!. p. 44. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
  5. ↑ Campbell, Colin (14 July 2015). "How EA lost its soul, chapter 8". Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 15 July 2015.

External links

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