Combat Flight Simulator 3 Preview - Spitfire

By Andrew Herd (25 October 2002)

hile the argument about which aircraft was the best fighter of the World War II era will never be settled, there is no question in Britain about which was the most evocative - it was the Spitfire. What makes the type so special? Well, it was neither the fastest, nor the most nimble, nor the toughest fighter to see combat and Hurricane pilots shot down more enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain; but the Spit had a combination of qualities that no other plane ever managed to match, at least in the opinion of this writer. Pilots respected the Hurricane, it was tough and it was an incredibly stable gun platform, but they loved the Spitfire. Within our family we could once count two Wing Commanders, an Air Commodore and an Air Marshal, all of whom saw active service, and whenever the name of R. J. Mitchell's classic design was mentioned, it always raised smiles and memories.

Barbara's uncle, Sir Paul Holder, won my prize for the best anecdote. A few years before his death, he told me of a postwar function he attended at an RAF station in the company of Winston Churchill. For some reason they had to walk several hundred yards in the rain and this took them within a hundred yards of the gate guardian. To Paul's mute astonishment, Churchill veered away, walked through a broad puddle in his immaculately polished shoes and continued across the wet grass, just so he could give the tired old Spitfire a pat. Then he returned and they walked on in silence.

"What was your worst moment?" the great man suddenly asked.

Paul thought for a minute - he had flown three tours in Short Stirlings and had been extremely lucky to survive the war. "We were attacked by two pairs of fighters in daylight once. I thought we had really had it then. What about you?"

Churchill stopped and looked at Paul. "When I asked Park what our reserves were and he replied that we had none. That is when I realised how much our fate depended on schoolboy pilots and on inspired aeroplanes like that one, and how often politicians count for rather less than we would like to think."

The exchange in the Group Operations Room at Uxbridge has gone down in history, thanks to Their Finest Hour, but Paul wasn't ashamed to say that watching the elderly Churchill paying homage to that Spitfire brought a lump to his throat. Churchill's style was often controversial, but he was an inspirational leader, and Paul told me that watching the old man ruin a pair of shoes walking across the grass that night brought back vividly why he had been so prepared to follow him into battle.

Paul is gone now, the sad thing being that my generation of the family learned more about his wartime career from his obituary in the Times than we could ever have guessed from talking to him. But that story has always stuck with me.

CFS3 offers a choice of two different Spitfires, a mark IXc and a mark IXe. This brings us to yet another one of my family's arguments, which is about which was the definitive mark of the Spitfire. The mark IX has a good claim to the title, not least because more were built than any other variant except the mark V, which is ironic, considering the IX was never intended to be more than a stop-gap. The mark IX was a mark V with the engine mounting and rear fuselage strengthened so that it could take the Merlin 61 engine and in the end more than 5500 were built. The first examples entered service in Spring 1942 and airframes served throughout the rest of the war. There is no doubt that it was an extremely effective aircraft, because on Christmas day 1944, Flight Lieutenant J.J. Boyle of the 411 Squadron RCAF shot down two Me 262s while flying a mark IX. The 262 might have been fast, but it was no match for the manoeuvrability of the Spit; something you can demonstrate for yourself if you set up a quick combat using CFS3.

The a,b,c and e designations postfixed to Spitfire variants often cause puzzlement and refer to the type of armament the aircraft carried. The "a" wing was fitted with 8 x 303 inch machine guns; the "b" with 2 20 mm cannon and 4 x 303s; the "c" with 4 x 20 mm cannon; and the "e" with 2 x 20 mm cannon and 2 x 0.5 inch machine guns. Further confusion occurs because although the basic wing had a span of 36 foot 10 inches, the tips could be removed and replaced with stub fairings; a process known as "clipping", which reduced the span to 32 foot 2 inches. In general, aircraft with low altitude rated engines (designated L.F.) had clipped wings, but not always, though the high altitude (H.F.) Spits kept the tips. CFS3 gives an L.F. Mk IXc and an L.F. Mk IXe, one of which has the clipped tips, which gained an extra 1 mph on the top speed and also improved the rate of roll.

The distinguishing feature of the Spitfire, apart from the sound of its engine, was its elliptical wing. Very few planes were built with this planform, where the chord varies elliptically with distance along the span, for the simple reason that however aerodynamically sound it might be, an ellipse brings some severe headaches. Structural designers want lift sources concentrated near the wing root, to reduce bending moment and to allow tapering of the spar towards the tip in order to maintain constant bending stress, and an elliptical wing upsets all their calculations.

There are a number of theoretical reasons for building planes with elliptical wings, but it was proved long ago that such a design can't achieve its aim of minimising induced drag unless it weighs virtually nothing, which accounts for its rarity. As it happens, the Spit's elliptical planform was chosen not for its visual appeal, but for the prosaic reason that there was a pressing need to increase section depth at mid-span in order to accommodate the ammunition boxes and retractible gear. So are legends born.

Setting up a flight in CFS3 is remarkably easy, once you have the program installed and the video settings set up - it is worth spending a little bit of time getting everything properly tweaked early on, because although the sim runs remarkably smoothly, there is nothing worse than hitting stuttering just as you are about to press the trigger on an elusive 262. I reviewed the software on a 1.7 Ghz PIV with 512 Mb of RAM and a 128 Mb GeForce 4 Ti 200, which allowed me to run with the sliders set to the fourth of the five clicks available - most of the time. In one to one high altitude combat in clear skies I could get away with the sliders maxed, but I suspect that low level combat would mean sacrificing some detail for speed. In practice, although the Gmax models are drop dead gorgeous, when you are in a furball you don't tend to concentrate on the reflective textures over much; so err on the side of caution once you have done a gee-whiz look around. If the sim stays fluid all the time, then you can start edging those sliders up one at a time, but remember that you can't adjust them while you are flying!

Let's go fly - but first of all, let's give some appreciation to this plane.

When Adolf Galland was asked by Goring for his opinion on the ideal fighter, his famously deadpan answer was, "Give me a squadron of Spitfires!" but for all Galland's respect for the type, the Luftwaffe never really got as much intelligence as they needed about their famous adversary. In truth, compared to an Me109g, the Spit was 16 mph slower at sea level and 6 mph slower at 22000 feet, though the British plane had a better rate of climb, was more manoeuverable and had a superior ceiling. The other advantage it had over the Messerschmidt was that it didn't have slats; while these brought considerable advantages to the German fighter, they tended to snatch in high speed turns, which was not only distracting but also knocked the aircraft off line and spoiled the pilot's aim. In addition, the 109 was tiring to fly at high speeds, lacking as it did any form of rudder trim. By comparison, at normal loads, the Spitfire was very stable and easy to fly, with generous buffet warning before the stall, at which the nose and a wing dropped relatively gently. The only other aircraft that comes in the Spitfire's class is the Mustang, but we will be lost if we start debating that...

The flight models in CFS3 are a huge improvement on the previous version and while they still give the impression that you could learn to fly a Spitfire in 20 minutes, which clearly wasn't the case in reality, they are much more realistic than they might have been. Needless to say, Microsoft haven't captured every subtlety of the aircraft and it is much easier to land than a real one (so they tell me) partly because there isn't twelve feet of cowling blocking your view on the approach.

Spitfires and many other fighters of their generation had to be landed either from a sideslip, or from a long continuous turn so that the pilot could see ahead; and taxiing involved the standard taildragger trick of weaving the nose to clear a sightline. Accidents weren't uncommon, and the outward retracting undercarriage of the Spitfire made the ground handling even more problematic by condemning it to a narrow wheel track. Even if you only do it the one time, make sure you fly an approach and landing in the Spitfire, because Microsoft have got this part just right - and it isn't easy!

Apart from the fantastic new Gmax models, a new feature of CFS3 is the ability to customise planes by adding nose art, altering spinner colors and even adding IDs. There is a wide choice of fictional RAF squadron badges, plus a slew of other national logos, including Free French and Canadian badges, so it is possible to dress a plane up to look the part for the Me 262 engagement, for example. For some reason, you can only select one letter IDs, so it isn't possible to reproduce the three letter RAF originals, but I am sure that it is only a matter of time before third party developers crack that one. Having played around with it for a while, CFS3 is the natural home for many warbirds which would previously have been developed for FS2002 - I would be interested to see what RCS Simulations do with their upcoming packages, for example. While we are on the subject, it would be great to see Blue Arrow/JustFlight's Dambusters package updated to CFS3 standard, because it would be even more enjoyable on the new version than it is in CFS2.

There is a wide selection of air bases available in CFS3, spread over five countries: the UK, Belgium, France, Holland and Germany. I counted over 70 airfields in the UK alone, so there should be enough for anyone. Whether the layouts are accurate or not is another thing entirely, generic buildings are certainly much in evidence and I didn't spot many of the classic triangular runway layouts that so date British airfields of the period. But the ground visuals are a vast improvement on CFS2 and there is plenty of opportunities for enhancements. CFS3 offers far more to third party developers than its predecessors ever did and I am sure we will see some impressive scenery add-ons - Duxford and Biggin Hill being obvious choices. Oh, and before I forget, CFS3 has dinky little AI vehicles that are incredibly satisfying to shoot up on low passes, providing you don't hit all the AutoGen surrounding them. I had a hard time weaving through the trees a couple of times.

As Mad Max hinted earlier on, Microsoft have gone to considerable lengths to stop cheating online, which will hopefully stop kids stooging around in hacked planes, though why people find that kind of thing fulfilling, I have no idea. An improved damage model puts paid to tricks like extending a click of flap in combat - you can do more damage to your own plane than the enemy if you ignore the limit speeds. A text line warns you of approaching stalls, but apart from that you are on your own in flight, unless you enable autorudder and automixture and choose the easy flight model. By way of compensation, the online manual has been greatly extended and includes sections on performance and tactics for each aircraft, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. There is a long section on combat manoeuvering, which is required reading, since going around in tight circles ain't a good option any more.

I still haven't quite got to grips with the tactical display, which makes it a cinch to select ground targets but kind of tough to select planes. But the only way to play this game is to switch off all the extras and fly it the way it was meant to be - using your eyes to spot the enemy. Sure, you will spend time chasing your own wingmen, and the enemy can be frustratingly hard to spot, but that is how it was in reality. It is unbelievable how well aircraft blend into the sky and they just vanish against the ground in the real world.

The virtual cockpit reigns supreme in CFS3, the only concession being that you can use the scroll lock key to restrict it to eight fixed views - panning around in combat being a no-no, unless you have perfect three-dimensional memory and can fly forward while looking backward. The payback is that you can't adjust anything in the cockpit by clicking on it and interaction with the panels is restricted to the keyboard and joystick; which means that a lot of the features of the planes is lost. On a real mark IX, the propellor speed control was interconnected with the throttle control, though this could be overridden if necessary - but if you fly the CFS3 plane, all of this is hidden from the player, as is the necessity for manually changing the supercharger gearing setting if normal climbing power (2850 rpm and +12 boost) is being used rather than full combat power. Okay, so most users just want to charge furiously around the skies blasting each other, but there was an opportunity here to recreate cockpits in fine detail and Microsoft seem to have passed it by. Maybe in CFS4?

The sound is the weakest part of CFS3. Having listened to many real Merlins over the years and having been treated to some excellent FS2002 sound sets from third party developers, hearing the roar of Rolls Royce's best reduced to an anaemic background chunter was disappointing, but it didn't detract from the action, especially when I was trashing 262s at Angels 15. They aren't that easy to hit, by the way; old J.J. must have had his wits about him.

So how does CFS3 compare to IL2? I am sure that there will be as many opinions on this as there are people to voice them, but cracking game though it is, I have always found IL2 just a little two dimensional, chiefly because of the way it has been so brutally (and effectively) organised for seamless air combat. The CFS3 team have clearly spent a lot of time using IL2 and I am sure that the majority of readers will notice a faint resemblence between the two, but where CFS3 scores is that it offers virtually infinite opportunities for expansion and the terrain and scenery is much more realistic. Faced with the glorious skies of the Ubisoft game, Microsoft have thrown away CFS2's sky altogether and have dealt in a set that puts FS2002 to shame, with all the strengths and none of the peculiarities of the latter game's clouds. This is one of the places where CFS3 takes the initiative and exploits the capabilities of modern graphics cards to the full - having just bought a GeForce4 I can honestly say that it is worth making the investment. The IL2 planes may be wonderful to look at, but their CFS3 counterparts are better and anyone who makes a dawn flight had better take some time out to admire the lighting effects on their aircraft, because they are something to see. I can tell that the IL2 people won't leave CFS3 unchallenged.

Am I enjoying CFS3? Yes, I am, in case you haven't worked it out already. CFS2 was OKish, but this version blows its predecessor away and while I have a few niggles here and there, it delivers the goods, and how. There is a fantastic range of planes to choose from, and while it is disappointing that bombers are under-represented, given the feature which allows you to swap to gunner positions, I am sure that the third party developers are already burning the midnight oil to fill the gap. We can look forward to some fantastic expansion packs over the next couple of years, but even if you can only afford the base CFS3 package, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Next - the Mosquito.

Combat Flight Simulator 3 Preview Part 1