About This Disk
===============

A2-FS1 is certainly copyright of Sublogic.  It appears that Sierra On-Line may
have purchased Sublogic at some time and therefore this may be still
technically copyrighted by them.

All other text and HELLO program was created by myself in February 1998 on my
Apple IIe.

Introduction
============

Sublogic's A2-FS1 Was the first 3D Flight Simulator I ever saw.  When this
first came out in 1979 it was one of a kind.  The first version was available
on cassette tape and loaded into any Apple II equipped with at least 16K of
RAM.  Not quite a modern day flight simulator but it was pretty neat in its
day.

My purpose in creating this disk is to document the keyboard commands.  I'm
probably one of the few people still around who remember how to fly this thing.

Sublogic's purpose was to simulate the flying of a Sopwith Camel (a World War I
era bi-plane).  Top speed for this beast was around 115 MPH.  Their explanation
for you being unable to do a loop to loop was that the Sopwith Camel was too
nose heavy to accomplish this.  Barrel rolls however are possible.

I have found three different versions of this program on the Internet.  Version
1 is the same as the original cassette tape version from 1979.  Versions 2 and
3 are enhancements to that original version.

In version 1 your world is a 6x6 grid, each grid representing 1 square mile.
Mountains line the northern edge of this grid.  However, these mountains are
not solid and you can fly right through them without fear of collision.  Your
airfield and hanger is located in the most north-eastern grid.  This is
represented by mere lines on the ground.  You world is located 411 feet above
sea level.

Far to the west, on the other side of the world is the enemy airfield and fuel
depot.  This airfield is again represented by lines on the ground and the fuel
depot is only a dot.  More on this later....

To the south-west is the civilian airfield and (of course) again just
represented by more lines on the ground.

Version 2 basically kept the same landscape but added three important features.
First was a "CRASH" message if you landed the plane too hard.  In version 1 you
could smack your plane into the ground as hard as you wanted and you could just
throttle up again and fly away.  Now, you received this message and then was
sent back to your hanger to start over.

The other two features were related to landing.  Landing this plane was almost
impossible in version 1.  It was hard to tell where you were in relation to the
runway and just how far above ground you were.  Your altimeter would only tell
you that you were within 50 feet.  Now you have an overhead view to help line
you up with the runway and a low altitude counter when you were under 1,000
feet.

Version 3 expanded the size of the world adding more mountains and a few other
landmarks.

One feature they had right from version 1 was the ability to declare war upon
the enemy airfield.  Once in this mode, five enemy planes are dispatched with
the purpose of shooting you out of the sky before you have an opportunity to
bomb their fuel depot.  Each enemy airplane has varying degree of skill and you
can have a dogfight trying to get them before they get you.  The enemies are
only represented by flying dots on the screen.  It is impossible to get all
five enemy planes before they shoot you down.  After you declare war there is
no way out without crashing.

This would be a rude awakening for someone who was just learning how to fly and
trying to figure out the keys.  Accidentally declaring war would mean that
while flying quite normally you would find yourself suddenly screaming in
flames uncontrollably towards the ground.  Not a pretty picture!

I hope that this is useful to someone interested in learning how to fly.  This
was always one of my favorite programs.  Sublogic did create A2-FS2 in 1983
which had a lot more detail and more realistic flying controls.  Still not
quite the same as flying one of today's flight simulators but still fun.

How To Fly A2-FS1
=================

When you first start the program you are in your hanger facing west.  The upper
half of the screen is your 3D view of what's directly in front of you.  What
you see at this point is three lines representing (top to bottom) the horizon,
the edge of the airfield and the edge of your hanger.  You'll see this better
once you are moving and have taken off.

The bottom half of the screen is your cockpit display.  The first gauge on your
left, in purple, is you air speed in MPH.  It measures your speed from 40 to
over 200 MPH.  Crusing speed (full throttle, zero vertical velocity) is around
115 MPH.  A controlled dive will bring you up in the 160-180 MPH range.  The
only way to reach 200+ MPH is an uncontrolled dive which means you've ripped
the wings of your plane and are about to leave a very nice crater.

In the center (in green) are your indicators for rudder, elevator and throttle
position.  The white dot or line indicates current position.

Next to that is your altimeter in purple.  It works like an analog clock with
the minute hand showing hundreds of feet and the hour hand showing thousands of
feet.  At the beginning it indicates that you are around 400 feet (actually 411
feet) above sea level.  If you fly directly out of your hanger and attempt to
maintain a maximum vertical velocity (around 650 feet/min) you can reach a
maximum altitude of near 30,000 feet.  At that point your fuel usually runs out
and due to air density at that altitude, you are only climbing a few feet per
minute.

At the far right is a square box labeled Radar/Map Display which is only used
in war mode.

On the four line text display, the first line is, from left to right, turn rate
(in degrees/min.), heading (0-359 degrees with 0 being north) and vertical
velocity (in feet/min).  The fourth line indicates oil pressure, oil
temperature, remaining fuel (in gallons) and tachometer which doubles as score
in war mode.

One of the problems in version 1 was that it was tough to tell just how far you
were from ground when trying to land.  Starting in version 2, the third text
line showed the actual digital feet of your altitude when you were under 1,000
feet.  Above 1,000 feet this number becomes "^^^".

Keyboard Commands
=================

When you start the default mode is keyboard controls.  This can be toggle by
pressing the "J" key for joystick mode.   It is very hard to fly this plane in
joystick mode as keyboard mode makes it far easier to control.  If you want to
try it, go ahead but you'll want to switch back quickly.  "K" switches you
back.

The keyboard joystick is centered at the "G" key and looks like this;

                                      T
                                      ^
                                      |
                                 F <- G -> H
                                      |
                                      v
                                     V B

The "F" and "H" keys move your rudder and the "G" key automatically centers it.
The "T" and "V" (or "B") works the elevators.

The "<-" and "->" keys are for your throttle.  When on the ground and your
throttle is off, pressing the "." key repeatedly applies the brakes to your
wheels.

If your running version 2 or 3, the "1" and "2" keys toggle your view from
normal to an overhead view.  This was added to help line you up with the runway
when landing and to assist in flying over the fuel depot in war mode.

Starting Up
===========

If you add a bit of throttle (2 or 3 notches), you can get a feel for how your
airfield looks.  Start by turning your plain around and head for the end of
your runway.  When you find it, point your nose west (270 degrees) and apply
full throttle.  As you gain speed, if you pull back on your joystick (keys "V"
or "B") you'll start to gain altitude.

Once in the air, retract your landing gear by pressing the "U" key.  You'll
notice that actually all you are doing is changing your view from the detailed,
airfield view to the much nicer world view.  To return back to the airfield
view, press the "D" key.

Once in the air it's pretty easy.  You'll discover that objects, such as
mountains are not solid and can be flown through.  Climbing at too steep a rate
will stall you engine, indicated by a line next to your altimeter and a ticking
sound from the speaker.  If after flying around a while you want to try
something different, try declaring war.

War Mode
========

Far to the west of your airfield is a square mile with a single dot in the
center.  This dot represents the enemy's fuel depot.  You can declare war by
either pressing the "W" key or by dropping your bomb on the depot with the "X"
key.  In war mode your Radar/Map Display becomes active with an "+" in the
center showing where the enemy planes are in relation to yourself.  Once you
declare war 5 flying dots, representing enemy aircraft will come after you.  A
line above your Radar/Map indicates they are firing at you.  A line just inside
the display shows they are in you gun sights.  Pressing the "space bar" fires
you guns.  You tachometer now becomes your score as you get one point for each
enemy you shoot down plus 3 points for a direct hit on the fuel depot.  The
idea is to drop you bomb, shoot the enemy and return to your air base.  I have
never been successful at this yet.  Normally I'm shot down within 5 mins of
declaring war.

Conclusion
==========

It wasn't too long after the 3rd version that Sublogic started work on A2-FS2.
That flight simulator started the process towards more realistic flight
simulators that we have today.  However this program certainly has it's charm
and I think it is kind of neat to still be able to fly this on my Pentium
200/NT 4.0 machine using AppleWin.

As far as I know these are the only three versions of this program.  If you
know different, contact me and I'll put out an updated disk.  I can be
contacted on the Internet.

Mark Percival
m_percival@hotmail.com

