Dropping bombs or taking out slower targets pales in comparison slightly, and despite the fact you’re joyriding a multimillion dollar jet plane at several hundred miles an hour, it can feel a little stale. Ace Combat’s challenge comes from trying to take into account your speed and direction and your enemies, lining up your spins and turns so that you come in at the perfect angle to get a missile lock or the burst of gunfire that can take down an errant plane that is also tearing around. This is useful, because unlike the faux military stylings of many aerial combat games, Ace Combat will throw just about anything at you if it thinks it might be fun: battles against swarms of fighters are punctuated with bombing radar towers, escaping collapsing skyscrapers or trying to take down particularly tricky enemy aces who corkscrew around the air with ease. Aerial combat games have always split into two different camps: the arcade shooting shenanigans of titles like H.A.W.X and Afterburner or the realistic “I just crashed because I didn’t realise I’d forgotten to put my landing gear down before landing” seriousness of titles like IL-2 Sturmovik or Falcon 4.0.Īce Combat is definitely part of the first group, and despite having an arcade and simulation control set, it’s never particularly difficult to do what you want to do with whichever plane you take to the skies in. This is Ace Combat’s wheelhouse, in a way. Unlike the rest of the flight, I was able to shut my eyes and drift off back to sleep - a jumbo jet is a walk in the park compared to a two-person propellor plane.Ace Combat 7 is – in short – Top Gun by way of Neon Genesis Evangelion, offering a unique opportunity to mix flying fighter jets with wondering about the meaning of human consciousness. On a transatlantic flight a couple of weeks after going in the stunt plane, I was woken by some violent turbulence, the worst I'd ever had in fact. I managed to pull it together - after begging Ed not to do any more tumbles or loops - and we landed without safety. I had to reach for the sick bag and I was moments away from giving up.īut I was the first person in the plane and down on the ground there were half a dozen others waiting to sit in this cockpit. My stomach was tied in an impossible knot. It's exhausting and, unfortunately, that bacon roll had come back to haunt me. The easiest way to describe the feeling is that the outside of your body is being pushed in one direction while your insides are being completely pushed as hard as they can in the other. At one point we just flew upside down for what felt like an eternity (pictured). We did loops, barrell rolls and corkscrews. it's hard to explain the feeling your body goes through.Īt the end of the flight I was told we'd hit -2g and +6g - to put that into context, the UK's most thrilling rollercoasters hit about 4.5g. My pilot Ed - who had taught Idris Elba how to do stunts on TV last year - finally got into the acrobatic moves and. The stunt plane was barely big enough for my 6ft+ frame - you could feel every slight twitch of the stick and every gust of wind shake us. We'd be reanacting the kind of dogfighting you get in the game - taking turns as the leader and follower - to learn how to tail a bogey or shake him off with evasive manouevres.Īfter an increasinbly nervy wait on the ground, we were finally up in the sky on a gloriously sunny day. I repeated that to myself as I nervously arrived at the West London Aero club in Berkshire.Īfter a quick bacon roll and a debrief, we were in our Top Gun-inspired flight suits and meeting the pilots. I've not been afraid of flying since I was a kid, but I can't exactly say I ever look forward to sitting in a metal box a mile above the ground while travelling at 500mph.īut when an email arrives asking if you'd like to learn how to dogfight in a stunt plane you can't say no - you might never get another chance to do it.
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