Harper's Air Combat

It's 1990, and Harper Software has a new flight sim. Strap in.

HARPER'S AIR COMBAT puts you in the cockpit for one-on-one dogfights across the jet age, rendered in the chunky VGA palette of the classic PC flight sims, but all around you in VR.

THREE WARS, THREE MATCHUPS • 1951, MiG Alley, Korea: F-80C Shooting Star vs MiG-15. The MiG is faster. You have to be better. • 1967, Route Pack Six, Vietnam: F-4E Phantom II vs MiG-21, among towering tropical clouds. • 1990, Fulda Gap, Germany: F-16C Fighting Falcon vs MiG-29, all-aspect missiles on both sides.

FLY WITH YOUR HANDS

Reach out and take the stick and throttle in the cockpit. Squeeze to grab, squeeze again to let go. Prefer thumb sticks? They work too.

Gear, flaps and speed brake are on the left stick.

REAL FLIGHT PHYSICS, ARCADE PUNCH

Every jet flies on JSBSim, the open-source flight dynamics engine used in serious simulators, tuned so the fight stays fast. Pull too

hard and you'll feel the buffet. Lose your energy and the MiG will be on your six.

CLOUDS ARE COVER

Duck into a cumulus to break a missile lock, or watch your bandit vanish into one and guess where he'll come out. Heat seekers can't see through cloud, and neither can you.

GUNS, MISSILES AND FLARES

Six .50 Cals, the M61 Vulcan, Sidewinders and their Soviet counterparts. Dump flares, jink, and get your tail out of the gun sight.