Wings of Power: WWII Heavy Bombers and Jets (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 8.2 (4.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Tracy Baker
• Reviewed on: 09/30/2004
• Released on: 09/13/2004
• Originally published on GameSpot: Wings of Power: WWII Heavy Bombers and Jets (PC) Review

Flight Simulator 2004 add-on creators have their work cut out for them. With thousands of incredible and free mods available for download, commercial products have to be truly special to stand out and justify their expense--and Shockwave Productions has really delivered this with Wings of Power. Wings of Power may just seem like a plane add-on for Flight Simulator 2004, but it's definitely commercial-quality software: It lets you experience the closest thing to actually flying a colorful collection of World War II-era aircraft.

Specifically, the program lets WWII buffs take wing in several famous bombers, including the B-17 (F and G) Flying Fortress, B-24 (D and J) Liberator, the B-29A Superfortress, the PB4Y-2 Privateer (a B-24 variant for the Pacific theater), the Lancaster BIII, and the jet-powered Ar-234B2 Blitz Bomber. A few German jet fighters, the Heinkel HE-162 Salamander (great for sightseeing), and Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebein, are thrown in for good measure. If you're used to flying any of these classics in games like Combat Flight Simulator 3, prepare for an entirely new level of realism, courtesy of the Flight Simulator 2004 engine.

The development team claims that users can fly the planes in this simulation using the actual pilot's manuals for the planes that are modeled here, promising close to 100 percent accuracy between the published statistics and in-game performance. In fact, many pages in the 160-page manual are ripped directly out of these original manuals, and the excellent documentation also includes historical facts, cockpit diagrams, flight data, and other helpful information about each aircraft that is modeled. There's even a section on how to use the archaic C-1 and Sperry autopilot systems found in some of the planes.

Good as the manual is, we obtained a complete copy of the B-17 Flying Fortress pilot's manual to take the developers up on their challenge--and sure enough, for the most part, things work as advertised. We were able to take off, fly, and land the bomber using the procedures outlined in the pilot's manual, and all of the switches and gauges were exactly where they should be. The plane stalled at all the right speeds, didn't take kindly to tight turns, and generally flew as the published statistics told us it should fly. The few quirks that did exist were attributable to limitations of the Flight Simulator 2004 engine. For example, turbochargers are not implemented properly, but the Flight Simulator 2004 engine makes doing so impossible.

Suffice it to say that if you've ever dreamed about flying any of these bombers or jets, this is as close as you can get outside of paying exorbitant amounts of cash for a real-life flight.

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