Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

By Andrew Herd (17 May 2002)

he Battle of Britain was fought in late 1940, high in the skies of southern England. At its finish, the Germans had conceded victory to the RAF, but there was a deeper psychological importance to this legendary conflict, because it was Hitler's first major military reverse. The German armies that had swept so decisively across Europe were forced to wait impotently on the northern French coast, denied the air supremacy they needed to launch an invasion of Britain. Instead, Hitler turned his sights to Russia, a disastrous error which would ultimately cost him the war.

The Battle still strikes a chord deep within the British psyche. In 1940, Britain stood alone, all its allies defeated, America still officially neutral and the victorious German armies separated from the shores of Kent by barely sixteen miles of water. The RAF was outnumbered and in the process of belatedly re-equipping, but it had the advantage of two superb aircraft, designed respectively by R. J. Mitchell and Sydney Camm - the Spitfire and the Hurricane. In many ways these two planes complemented each other: the Spitfire, fast and agile; the Hurricane, a stable gun platform that could absorb tremendous punishment. It is often forgotten that of the two, the Hurricane had the better turning performance, but whatever the merits of the planes, it was to their pilots that Britain owes its greatest debt. They are remembered as "The Few".

It was one of these few, George Martin, who gave me the first dual instruction I can ever recall, in 1969. I say dual - I was only ten and I had to sit on two cushions to see out of the Chipmunk we were flying in. I never forgot the long curving "Spitfire" approach he made, nor his tales of how, later in the war, his squadron did regular V1 duty. This involved waiting for the flying bombs to appear and then diving after them; it was just possible to catch one in a Spit if you did this. That was when the problems began, because shooting at a ton of high explosive when you are closing on it at 400 knots is no fun at all. In the end, some genius discovered that it was possible to "tip" V1s over using the wing tip of a fighter - it gives some idea of how dangerous the whole thing was that this method became popular with pilots who were skilled enough to do it.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) was founded so that the country could remember the pilots who defended it in those dark early days of the war. The flight had its roots in the annual RAF fly past which was first staged on 15th September 1945 and was traditionally led by a Spitfire or a Hurricane. In the beginning, serving aircraft were used, but by the mid-fifties only a single Hurricane was still airworthy in RAF hands and the the Spitfire was on the brink of being phased out. The RAF Historic Flight, as it was then called, was hurriedly created and the Hurricane and three Spitfires were assigned to it.

Today, the BBMF has enlarged to eleven aircraft representing a wider range of RAF roles than its original Battle of Britain focus. There are two Chipmunks, an Avro Lancaster, a Douglas Dakota, two Hurricanes and no less than five Spitfires of various marks. The flight is based at RAF Coningsby and flies regularly in displays right around the UK. These islands being as small as they are, it is surprising how often it is possible to see the flight and once every few years or so, I look up at the unmistakeable sound of a Merlin passing over and remember. So it is good to see that Just Flight are marketing this Blue Arrow FS add-on.

Minimum system requirements are a 300 MHz Pentium with 64 Mb of RAM, the recommended spec being a 450 MHz Pentium with 128 Mb of RAM and a 16 Mb graphics card. FS installs require 209 Mb, while the CFS2 eats 416 Mb of your hard disc. It is possible to install BBMF for any or all of these sims. The compact box includes a CD, an exceptionally well produced color manual, a registration card and a promotion for "Amazing Virtual Sea Monkeys." After a pause for reflection, I decided to pass on the monkeys. The panels looked appalling, anyway.

Installation was straight forward and didn't involve entry of a serial number, though the CD is copy protected. In addition to the planes, the routine installs the BBMF base at RAF Coningsby and 25 missions involving the aircraft. There is a choice of period or modern uniforms for the crews in CFS2 - in Flight Simulator only the modern ones are available. There is an option to install a screensaver as well, if you so choose. While I was waiting for the install to finish, I checked out the manual, which is superb and packed with practical information about using the sim, as well a history of the flight and all sorts of other goodies. This booklet is definitely a labor of love and unlike the majority of manuals, reading it is life-enhancing; it is interesting to speculate how it could be that Just Flight have managed to include a full color manual in this package when other developers plead costs and substitute PDF's instead.

Anyway, onto the planes. The modest system requirements give a clue about what to expect and once allowances are made for polygon counts being dictated to some extent by display considerations than aesthetics the visual models are pretty good. These are FSDS models and inevitably they aren't quite as good as the latest G-Max FS2002 planes, hence my opinion that BBMF is better purchased as a CFS2 add-on, but on the positive side, the package runs well and looks good on systems that simply can't run more recent releases. The other thing I should mention is that if launched through the custom icon provided with the program in CFS2, BBMF provides a truly immersive experience - you don't have to watch Zeros coming at you out of the sun while it is loading.

The control surfaces are animated and all the glass is transparent, but I looked in vain for rotating wheels and the prop animations could definitely be improved. The Lanc rescues the day with a majestic animation of its bomb bay doors, which crank open using the "D" key or "/" depending on which key set you favor, and you can open the passenger and cargo doors on the Dak too. The texture quality is generally very good with lots of detail, including aerials and engine graphics - initially I thought the reverse, but it turned out that a package I had installed previously had set CFS' auto performance adjustment check box to “on” in the the settings\display dialog. Unchecking this fixed the problem, although I did notice some streaking on the Dakota.

I am always being taken to task for forgetting sounds in FS reviews, despite having tied a knot in my mouse cord to remind myself. The trouble is that I spend most of my time wishing that the thirty year old Cessnas I fly didn't make so much noise, so I guess there is some deep pyschology in play here. Anyway, this time I haven't forgotten, so... er, well, what do you say about a sound set? A sound set developer sent me an example paragraph from a review as a hint, but unfortunately that applied to a jet, so I can't just plagiarise it, but I am going to do my best.

After spending a good deal of time listening to the sound, I decided that the Merlin sounds in BBMF are about as good as I have heard, capturing the peculiar resonance that makes the engine's sound so instantly identifiable. It is definitely worth while listening to the start up sequence on the Lanc as the engines cough into life and all in all, in some ways the sound is the best bit of the package. The Lancaster is truly deafening on full song, though the Dakota isn't quite as good; the samples seeming to be a little short, as I could definitely hear the effects cycling. Some idea of the noise this package pumps out can be gathered from the fact that I woke Barbara up twice during a late night mission session - and my wife sleeps like the dead.

Although the manual states that the simulations were tested by pilots from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, I have questions about some of the flight models. To be fair, these criticisms can be applied to many other CFS2 and FS aircraft, but nonetheless, they are still there. While the flight envelopes are reasonably accurate in terms of hitting the numbers given in the pilot's notes, the aircraft share some peculiar flight characteristics. The most noticeable of these can be demonstrated by banking the fighters to 45 degrees and then easing off the back pressure on the stick. Virtually without exception, the laws of physics result in a spiral dive if you do this in a real plane and students are often surprised at how much back pressure is required to keep the nose on the horizon - in fact this is a classic cause of loss of control when PPLs inadvertently find themselves in instrument conditions.

With the plane trimmed for level flight, letting go of the stick of any of the BBMF aircraft while it is in a steep turn results in the wings rolling level, any early nose drop converting into a shallow climb. If you try this with FS2000 and FS2002 planes you will find many of them exhibit the same tendency. Unfortunately, where the BBMF Dakota is concerned, this characteristic is so well developed that even shallow turns are unpleasantly hard to coordinate, which is unfortunate because it masks the fact that the rest of the Dakota flight model is pretty good (incidentally, if you do spot an FW190 on your tail while you are flying the Dak, my advice is to find a cloud and stay there until the fighter goes away). By way of contrast the Lancaster is a pussy cat and it flies perfectly, with the sort of stately handling associated with the four engined bombers of this period - leaving the impression that different people designed the flight models of these two planes. As I say, rolling out of steep turns is a common problem with FS/CFS planes and I don't think it should be too hard to fix, but it would be nice to see it gone.

Apart from this, the planes perform well in the missions and the Spitfires and Hurricanes handle very well, although the sensitivity to the elevators which was such a characteristic of the Spit isn't modelled - however the vicious accelerated stalls it was capable of are, and recovering it from a spin can take many thousands of feet. The war time pilot's notes I have state that intentional spins weren't to be attempted at less than 10,000 feet in either plane and this is as true in the sim as it was in reality. Dig deeper into the manual and you will find all the critical speeds for each plane listed, so there is no need to guess at the take-off and approach speeds - you can also find the data on the aircraft kneepads.

Moving onto the panels, the 2D versions are sophisticated by CFS2 standards. Some of the gauge work is very good indeed, particularly where the Hurricane and Spitfire are concerned. A great deal of work has clearly gone into this part of the sim, much of which will go unappreciated except by users who sit down with the manual and go through the startup sequences and watch the needles at play. Taking an example at random, the Hurricanes and the early Spits the fuel gauge have been faithfully duplicated, together with the toggle switch that allowed the pilot to briefly view the level in each tank - the rest of the time the gauges read zero, apparently for power saving purposes.

Full sets of cockpit views are supplied and where appropriate the planes have additional panels - for example the Dakota has three overhead panels and a radio stack, while the Lanc has an engineer's panel and both have "landing" panels. In general the forward looking panel bitmaps are better than the side and rear views, the Dakota being a case in point, but by way of compensation, the props are animated in the side views on the Dak and the Lancaster. For some reason the landing panel views menu items are duplicated and selecting them via the menu doesn't always clear the normal 2D panel, although to be fair the manual states that the landing panel views should be selected via the keyboard. That being said, the rear view in the Lanc is a total show stopper when you have a fighter close behind spraying you with cannon shells and I had some heart stopping moments using this view during the Peenemunde mission.

Only the Spitfires and the Hurricanes have 3D panels, which is a shame, because I liked the Chippie so much I think it deserves one too. These are CFS2 style panels, so they aren't as sophisticated as the best FS2002 panels, though they are perfectly functional and sit at the top end of the CFS2 quality scale. While the instruments work, there isn't any other animation in the virtual cockpits - but the trouble with CFS2 is that now we have all seen IL2 Sturmovik VCs, nothing will ever be the same again and CFS3 is going to have to deliver major advances in this area if the title is to keep its head above the water.

The panels feature modern radio sets, which is fine, since this is a memorial flight after all, though they look a bit out of place in the combat missions. The Dakota features an autopilot, which is visually accurate but non-operational in FS2002.

All the planes have yokes/sticks visible in the 2D view and these can be toggled off to clear the panel. The manual gives details of how to start the engines of each plane using the panels, but the rest of us can take comfort in the fact that the good old "E" key does the same job. For the truly masochistic, some of the planes have an old style wet compass available, complete with lubber line. I last saw one of these on a Tiger Moth and it scares me to death just thinking about it.

The missions are the heart of the package and they are truly excellent, ranging from a morning patrol in the Hurricane Mark II, through various Battle of Britain scenarios involving the Spitfire, to a bombing raid on Peenemunde in the Lancaster. I don't think I am overstating the case to say that BBMF is worth the purchase price for the missions alone, which rate among the best I have ever seen for pure atmosphere. With target tags turned off, flying fighters that have no rear view to speak of, you soon learn to positively identify aircraft before you shoot and never to fly straight and level. The objectives are neatly judged and easy, and though some of the mission looked easy on first sight I didn't come across a single one which qualified as a walk over.

It is difficult to say which mission was them most enjoyable, but it has to be said that seeing the massed formations of Lancasters coming into view did stir my blood a bit and the Channel Islands defence scenarios were pretty sweaty. Variation being the spice of life, the developers have thrown in a trip over the Alps in a damaged Dakota and a search and rescue trip in the Chippie during the Berlin airlift. While I didn't fly them all, the missions I did try were enjoyable and ran without problems, though I did experience a few lock ups were almost certainly due to the fact that I kept swapping in and out of CFS2 to get the screen shots.

While most of the packages I try get deleted from the hard disk in fairly short order, this one is going to stay if only so I can shoot down that formation of Dorniers over Guernsey. If I stall that Hurricane one more time trying to take out the lead plane on the first pass, I am going to eat the box BBMF was supplied in.

I guess I had better mention Coningsby, the airfield supplied as part of the package. This is very sophisticated as CFS2 sceneries go and definitely creates the right sort of atmosphere to go with the flight. Taxiing the Lancaster around parked Tornadoes makes for an interesting experience, although there were some unusually rough surfaces on the dispersal points and on some of the taxiways. The scenery is detailed and varied, although I had occasional problems with vanishing buildings and there are one or two alignment problems.

So, crunch time - the verdict. But first, before I deliver it, just take a look at that Chipmunk; I really enjoyed flying that plane. I haven't been in one since that far off day in my childhood and it did remind me quite strongly of the childhood my wife insists that I have never quite left behind me.

On the whole, I liked BBMF. It has its high and low points - the Dakota is definitely not the best of breed and its flight model could definitely do with attention. On the other hand, the Chippie is nearly perfect and I love it to death. The other planes are of very good quality by CFS2 standards, although some additional animation would do them no harm. The missions are fantastic and in these days of PDF's, the full color manual is a welcome blast from the past, so full marks to Just Flight for taking the hit on the production costs.

Who should buy BBMF? The whole object of the package is to provide a Battle of Britain experience and so every British flight simmer should be interested; but the quality of the missions makes package so attractive that all CFS2 fans ought to consider it. If you need any more excuses, a proportion of the proceeds from every sale goes towards supporting the real Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which helps to keep our memories in the sky. Now back to those Dorniers. This time I am going to try going a little wide and strafing them as I cross...