Arcades (1970s–1990s) Prior to the rise of
video games,
Sega produced
Jet Rocket (1970), a first-person arcade
combat flight simulator electro-mechanical game (EM game) 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. The game displayed three-dimensional terrain with buildings, produced using special belt technology along with fluorescent paint to simulate a night view. Upon its debut, the game was cloned by three arcade manufacturers. Sega's last EM flight simulator was
Heli-Shooter (1977), which combines the use of a
CPU processor with electro-mechanical components, screen projection and audio tape deck. The gameplay involves the player piloting a
helicopter using a throttle joystick (to accelerate and decelerate) and pedals (to maneuver left and right) across a realistic three-dimensional landscape and shooting at military targets across the landscape. Combat flight simulator video games began appearing in arcades from the late 1970s. In 1975,
Taito released a simulator video game in
arcades,
Interceptor, which was a crude arcade
first-person combat flight simulator that involved 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. In the late 1980s, it became a trend for arcade flight combat simulators to use hydraulic
motion simulator arcade cabinets. The trend was sparked by
Sega's "taikan" games, with "taikan" meaning "body sensation" in Japanese. Arcade flight simulator games began adopting 3D polygon graphics in the late 1980s, with titles such as Taito's
Top Landing (1988). Taito's
Midnight Landing (1987) and
Top Landing did not have air combat, but instead simulated a commercial airliner, while utilizing motion simulator cockpit cabinets. Arcade flight combat simulators later began adopting 3D polygons with Taito's
Air Inferno (1990) and
Steel Talons (1991) by
Atari Games.
Personal computers (1980s–present) Flight simulators were among the first types of programs to be developed for early
personal computers and began adopting
3D polygon graphics in the early 1990s, with titles such as
Stunt Island (1992),
Star Wars: X-Wing (1993), and
Strike Commander (1993). The game world in flight simulators is often based on the real world. However, they are often confined to one part of the game world by invisible boundaries. In some games, the aircraft simply halts in midair, while other games force the player to turn around. However, many games solve this boundary problem by wrapping the game world as a sphere. Although these games strive for a great deal of realism, they often simplify or abstract certain elements to reach a wider audience. Many modern fighter aircraft have hundreds of controls, and flight simulator games usually simplify these controls drastically. Further, certain maneuvers can knock a pilot unconscious or rip their aircraft apart, but games do not always implement these concerns. In the early 2000s, even home entertainment flight simulators had become so realistic that after the events of
September 11, 2001, some
journalists and experts speculated that the
hijackers might have gained enough knowledge to steer a passenger airliner from packages such as
Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Microsoft, while rebutting such criticisms, delayed the release of the 2002 version of its hallmark simulator to remove the
World Trade Center from its
New York City scenery and even supplied a
patch to delete the towers retroactively from earlier versions of the sim. The advent of flight simulators as home video game entertainment has prompted many users to become "airplane designers" for these systems. As such, they may create both military or commercial airline airplanes, and they may even use names of real life airlines, as long as they do not make profits out of their designs. Many other home flight simulator users create fictional airlines, or virtual versions of real-world airlines, so called
virtual airlines. These modifications to a simulation generally add to the simulation's realism and often grant a significantly expanded playing experience, with new situations and content. In some cases, a simulation is taken much further in regards to its features than was envisioned or intended by its original developers.
Falcon 4.0 is an example of such modification; "modders" have created whole new warzones, along with the ability to fly hundreds of different aircraft, as opposed to the single original flyable airframe. One way that users of flight simulation software engage is through the internet. Virtual
pilots and virtual
air traffic controllers take part in an online flying experience which attempts to simulate real-world aviation to a high degree. There are four networks where this sort of play is possible, the most popular ones being
VATSIM and
IVAO. The virtual airspace provided by both organizations provides users a low barrier of entry. This allows any member, regardless of skill, the ability to fly without worrying if something goes wrong. The provided airspace on both networks covers the entire globe, VATSIM is generally regarded to have better coverage of North America, Europe, and Australia, while at IVAO pilots and controllers generally fly and control in Africa and South America, in addition to Europe. Both networks receive 600 to 900 ATC and pilot connections daily.
Video game consoles (1990s–present) Much rarer but still notable are flight simulators available for various
game consoles. Successful examples of these are the
Pilotwings series by
Nintendo and the
Ace Combat series by
Namco. While generally not as complex as PC based simulators, console flight simulators can still be enjoyable to play, though their 'simulation' status is disputed by many in the flight simulation community. In 2020,
Microsoft released
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 to Xbox consoles, increasing the presence of flight simulators on console devices. ==Homebuilt cockpits==