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Flight Model

The flight model saw some changes. Pitch input has been made more symmetrical. What does this mean? The plane is easier to fly. I found that difficult flight maneuvers like carrier landings and refueling are now a bit easier. Although, I still find refueling to be the most difficult of any sim I've played. You can now use your rudder pedals for more than taxiing, although they only respond well at slower speeds.

Fig. 3. Cities come to life at night

Other Fixes

The fix with the greatest visual impact has to be the runway lights and city lights fix. This is a whole new simulation at night! How this was left out of the original release I will never know, but boy am I glad they fixed it.

Fig. 4. Runway Lights

Another important fix was the meatball. The meatball is the term used to identify the IFOLS. This device sits on the left side of the carrier and gives the pilot (using a series of lights) information about how good (or how bad) his approach is when attempting a carrier landing. Following the information on the meatball before the patch brought you in low, making most of your traps a 1-wire trap. This has been corrected and you can now keep that perfect cross on the ILS, and follow the meatball to a perfect 3-wire trap. This fix along with the flight model changes mentioned above should now make carrier landings a reality for those who found it an unachievable challenge. There was a bug discovered in campaign mode that allowed the player to have unlimited weapons by loading custom load outs. This bug has been fixed in the patch. Time to keep a close eye on those GBUs!

Fig. 5. The "meatball" in Jane's F/A-18