Combat flight simulators

Combat flight simulators are simulation video games (similar to amateur flight simulation software) used to simulate military aircraft and their operations. These are distinct from dedicated flight simulators used for professional pilot and military flight training which consist of realistic physical recreations of the actual aircraft cockpit, often with full-motion platform.

Combat flight simulation titles are more numerous than civilian flight simulators due to variety of subject matter available and market demand.

Prior to the rise of video games, Sega produced arcade games that resemble video games, but were in fact electro-mechanical games that used rear image projection in a manner similar to the ancient zoetrope to produce moving animations on a screen. One such electro-mechanical game by Sega was Jet Rocket, a flight simulator featuring cockpit controls that could move the player aircraft around a landscape displayed on a screen and shoot missiles onto targets that explode when hit. In 1975, Taito released an arcade video game simulator, Interceptor, an early first-person combat flight simulator that involved piloting a jet fighter, using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two and scale in size depending on their distance to the player.Atari Inc.'s Red Baron used QuadraScan graphics and sound effects to simulate first-person flight combat.

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