F-16 Combat Pilot • Digital Integration 1989 (Commodore Amiga) - Scramble Mission

Before excellent and widely known Tornado, Digital Integration released F-16 Combat Pilot for many 8 and 16-bit platforms - initially in 1989 for Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC, in 1990 for Commodore C64 and finally in 1991 for ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Game lets you drop right into action (Quickstart), participate in training excercises (Free Flight, Landing or each single mission type), hone your skills in every mission type flying solo - Scramble, Watchtower (recon), Tankbuster (CAS), Hammerblow (OCA) and Deepstrike. Finally if you pass each of the 5 missions you will be able to embark on full blown strategic conflict in which you must plan each sortie for yourself and 3 other F-16s. Or if you have a friend you wish to challange in one-on-one dogfight you can play Gladiator mode through direct connection or via a modem. The game was really ambitious for its time - it modelled wide variety of weapons and aircraft systems - several radar modes, RWR, ILS, LANTIRN (FLIR on HUD display at night), autopilot, radio comms, landing procedures with Ground Control Approach - something similar I saw only several years later in Falcon 4.0! I have to admit - I didn't had a chance to try it back in the day on my Amiga 500. And even if I could I'm not sure if my younger self would grasp all the complexity that was put into the game. Only much, much later (maybe 15 years ago) I've checked out the game on PC (through DOSBox), but the EGA graphics and PC Speaker sound drove me away before I could really appreciate it. Few days ago I bought A500 Mini, and the only flight sim included in its 25 game line-up intrigued me. I've fired it up (playing it with a gamepad is a bit problematic, but you can always connect USB keyboard to A500 Mini) and was pretty impressed with it. As of now it's probably one of the best flight sim on Amiga 500 right next to Gunship 2000 and F-19 Stealth Fighter for me. Digital Integration's flight sims: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIku_oD9y-RCKdPbwlDqHcIBq7dU9A7ko
Flight Sims Showcases: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIku_oD9y-RD5mg8f9ganyHBOBO8l7lQk
Amiga Flight Sims: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIku_oD9y-RCuX59Ah028OhtAc0oNVXDY
F-16 Combat Pilot Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIku_oD9y-RCriq0UiSzlckS7jf6LHfI9
0:00 Start 0:14 Credits 0:25 Weapon data (only few selected ones) 0:48 Aircraft data (there are supposedly Hinds, PC version had F-16 here as well) 1:52 Missions selection 2:05 Mission planning (since it's Scramble we don't need waypoints) 2:32 Arming (and more weapons showcases) 3:37 Weather report 3:47 Take off 8:00 All bandits splashed, time to land 8:44 ILS broken, we will have to land manually without aids 9:11 Calling the tower for Ground Controlled Approach 9:20 After entering proper spd/alt envelope we will get vectors for final 10:26 Turning to 90° 13:57 Turning to 360° 14:52 Final approach - gear down 15:12 Turning to final heading of 270° 15:30 At this point we would get ILS needles and could use approach AP 18:40 Fine details like red lights shining through the green FLIR image on the HUD 19:14 Touchdown 19:40 Taxiing to the hangar 20:32 Debriefing 20:42 Aircraft maintenance #RetroFlightSims