Chris "BeachAV8R" Frishmuth returns with the next installment of his popular series. This time around Chris blends the book, Strike Eagle: Flying the F-15 E in the Gulf War by author William L. Smallwood, and the flight sim masterpiece Jane's F-15.

http://www.simhq.com/_air12/air_403a.html

Great book, great sim, great review!

Great memories. I played that sim for the better part of 1998 - until a few days before X-Mas when suddenly Falcon 4 arrived. Played it in realtime BTW - most of the flight was boring so I put the plane on autopilot, took a book and started reading, then when we got close to the action I took command again.

Good stuff Chris, thanks. I share your dream of the Jane's crew getting together one more time to produce a modern day version of F-15. One of my all time favorite flight sims. I haven't read Smallwood's book in quite a while, but when I did, I remember thinking "Man, that's just how it is in the sim!" And then of course, I'd have to go play it.

I loved the mission setup area where you assigned individual aircraft to a target and changed loadouts, etc. Some of those missions were darned difficult! I recall one where you had to take out a vehicle convoy that was proceeding down a road at night. Even with all the Strike Eagle's nighttime ability, it was tough. Or maybe it was the lack of pilot ability...

Anyways, great book and great sim. An excellent marriage. And congrats again on yours.

Yep... great visit down memory lane, got my start here at SimHQ because of LB2 then F-15... thx for the article.

Absolutely gread read and review. I really liked the added video in the end giving a good idea about how the sim played. I myself was one of those unfortunate who missed out on this sim. I kick myself to this day wishing I had picked it up back then. I would love to see someone breath new life into it with up-to-date graphics and such.

Again, nice article and great fun to read.

Ahh, JF-15, that was a great game. Coming from Fighters Anthology before that was a bit of a culture shock, going from an arcadey game into what was, at the time, a fully-fledged sim. Ducking and diving through the featureless desert was actually quite tense, especially when you're driving through enemy territory with any number of GCI, SAM, AAA and enemy A/C gunning for your hide.

Try as I might, I never got the hang of hooking up with the tanker.

Great article!

nice, i really enjoyed reading this article. BeachAV8R is obviously an accomplished writer!

i am going to setup my windows 98/Voodoo5 5500 computer and fly Jane's F-15 again.

Connecting with the tanker was the greatest sense of accomplishment. To this day I don't know how they managed to provide such a powerful tactile sensation when the connection was made. I've never quite 'felt' anything like it.

Smallwood's books are the most enjoyable I have ever read about air combat. Nice to see this paired with a great sim in such a manner.