Jane's Combat Simulations...memory lane...

[DBFlyguy]

Ran across videos from two of my all time favorite combat flight sims when I was a younger:

 

Janes WWII Fighters:

 

 

Jane's USAF (I always LOVED this intro, probably one of my favorite from all games):

 

 

Both brought so much fun way back, miss games like these

[Vig]

USAF was great fun.  Flying the Thud in Vietnam was a delight!

[dburne]

Ah man great memories! I so loved the Janes series back in the day. 

Thanks for posting!

[Knarley-Bob]

I still have those. Don't have a computer old enough to run them any more. Flew on them for years..

That was fun to see again, thank you.

KB

Edited March 6, 2022 by Knarley-Bob

[Irishratticus72]

10 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

Ran across videos from two of my all time favorite combat flight sims when I was a younger:

 

Janes WWII Fighters:

 

 

Jane's USAF (I always LOVED this intro, probably one of my favorite from all games):

 

 

Both brought so much fun way back, miss games like these

I still fire it up from time to time. 

[354thFG_Leifr]

Both of these are some of my favourite flight sims of all time, I especially enjoyed USAF!

[IckyATLAS]

Oh  that brings back a lot of nice memories. 

[dburne]

3 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

Oh  that brings back a lot of nice memories. 

 

Yeah remember the big ass box and nice manual that came with it? Those were the days man.

[Chilli_40]

Absolutely loved Janes sims, I had the WW2 fighters, Janes Fighter Anthology, & Janes Longbow every one of them was amazing. I even really enjoyed Microsoft Combat Flight sims a lot. Thanks for the memories

Edited March 6, 2022 by MStewart40

[DBFlyguy]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

 

Yeah remember the big ass box and nice manual that came with it? Those were the days man.

Yeah, I definitely miss having actual paper manuals you could look through with these games, something about a PDF file just doesn't cut it...

[dburne]

3 hours ago, MStewart40 said:

Absolutely loved Janes sims, I had the WW2 fighters, Janes Fighter Anthology, & Janes Longbow every one of them was amazing. I even really enjoyed Microsoft Combat Flight sims a lot. Thanks for the memories

 

Yeah Longbow was my favorite, I had the original which was actually a DOS based game. Then I got Longbow II which was Windows based. Had many hours of fun with both of those. One of the reasons I am so excited about the upcoming Apache release into DCS Early Access.

Edited March 7, 2022 by dburne

[Confused_2018]

I wonder if it still possible to get the mod cd or usb?

 

https://www.ww2fighters.org/

[IckyATLAS]

In the 80's and beginning of 90's I had a Mac and PC platform. On the Mac Platform the only flight sims that I played  were the ones from Graphic Simulations (by Parsoft) in 1991 Hellcats over the Pacific (with other releases like (Leyte Gulf) and F-18 Hornet and there was also A-10 Attack.

See two of them below I found on youtube. The difference between the  videos below (where you have stuttering or too low FPS which makes it jerky) and what I had on my Mac platform that had the top CPU available and RAM of the time and was equipped with a separate mathamatical coprocessor, is that you had absolutely no stuttering, I mean the FPS was high enough that images were perfectly fluid and reaction time from the joystick was perfect. It was a quality that I did not get on the PC platform with other Sims of the time. On the PC platform it was always jerky more or less to a certain extent. This is why I loved these sims on Mac. 

Incredible when you think how primitive and crude the images are but how it was seen as fantastic.

 

There are exactly 30 years of difference between those sims and today.

Can you spot the difference ? ?

Let me answer here there is no difference in terms of pleasure and axcitement. It was the same. The products, visual rendering, sound, everything is light years better today than before but pleasure and excitement does not change. Amazing isn't it.

 

 

Hellcats over the Pacific

 

And the other one F-18 Hornet

 

[BMA_FlyingShark]

I wasn't into PC gaming at that time, although I played other, earlier sims.

 

Can anybody tell me why that series was called "Jane's..."?

 

Have a nice day.

 

[Props]

2 hours ago, FlyingShark said:

I wasn't into PC gaming at that time, although I played other, earlier sims.

 

Can anybody tell me why that series was called "Jane's..."?

 

Have a nice day.

 

Jane's is a British publishing company dedicated to producing military equipment reference volumes for consumption by the military and general public. They produce huge volumes on everything military from aircraft to ships to small arms, etc., and are highly regarded for doing their homework and provided detailed references. 

[BMA_FlyingShark]

3 minutes ago, Props said:

Jane's is a British publishing company dedicated to producing military equipment reference volumes for consumption by the military and general public. They produce huge volumes on everything military from aircraft to ships to small arms, etc., and are highly regarded for doing their homework and provided detailed references. 

Ok, thanks and where does the name come from?

 

Have a nice day.

 

[IckyATLAS]

10 hours ago, FlyingShark said:

Ok, thanks and where does the name come from?

 

Have a nice day.

 

Some people believe that Jane was derived from the old French name Jehanne, which in turn, is thought to be derived from the Hebrew name Yochanan which means “Yahweh is merciful.” 

 

[Vig]

The name comes from the company's founder, John Frederick Thomas Jane (1865-1916), who published reference books relating to contemporary warships and airships.

[Props]

10 hours ago, Vig said:

The name comes from the company's founder, John Frederick Thomas Jane (1865-1916), who published reference books relating to contemporary warships and airships.

Thanks, I did not know that part.

[Chilli_40]

Wonder why Janes stopped making sim? They were unsurpassed for their realism and graphics at the time.

[Redwo1f]

 

8 minutes ago, MStewart40 said:

Wonder why Janes stopped making sim? They were unsurpassed for their realism and graphics at the time.

 

Blame Electronic Arts. 

[Skelthos]

1 hour ago, MStewart40 said:

Wonder why Janes stopped making sim? They were unsurpassed for their realism and graphics at the time.

Janes did not make the sims   EA licensed the name and made the games.  For some unknown reason when the license was up for renewal EA declined to renew it.    Sales did not reach forecasts? Cost of licensing? some other reason who really knows.    During the 5 years EA held the license there were at least 4 different studios within EA that made them.

[Dornil]

On 3/7/2022 at 3:54 AM, Confused_2018 said:

I wonder if it still possible to get the mod cd or usb?

 

https://www.ww2fighters.org/

Yep, here are the CD and the files dump from the late website: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/MhR1JiL53Qj8ez

And here's my personal selection of graphics mods (just drop it into WWII Fighters/Data folder): https://disk.yandex.ru/d/flJF-pfYO8fUEQ

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Dornil

[Gambit21]

Fond memories of Janes F-15!

 

WWII Fighters was so inferior to EAW however that I uninstalled it after an hour.

 

[Sharpe43]

 

 

[kestrel79]

USNF 97 was my first flight sim. Me and my brother still make fun of the cheezy acting campaign videos before missions. Longbow 2 was great too. 

[Lemmi]

On 3/13/2022 at 10:25 PM, Gambit21 said:

Fond memories of Janes F-15!

 

WWII Fighters was so inferior to EAW however that I uninstalled it after an hour.

 

 

You are right. EAW - a dream came true after PAW - my first one.

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Lemmi

[dburne]

9 hours ago, kestrel79 said:

USNF 97 was my first flight sim. Me and my brother still make fun of the cheezy acting campaign videos before missions. Longbow 2 was great too. 

 

Red Baron was my first. Pretty sure USNF 97 was my second, loved it. Or it might have been just USNF can't remember. Also had both Longbow I and II.

Edited March 24, 2022 by dburne

[Vig]

This was my first flight sim:

 

[Tyberan]

I had Janes ATF, which had the B2, X31,F117 etc. I think this was back in 1996 or something. I remember it had a way to view the bombs when dropped just like modern sims now. I thought it was pretty good at the time