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		A Winning Collaboration: Microsoft and Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum By Jon Seal, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator researcher & writer Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum in Mesa, Arizona maintains one of the most extensive collections of historic fighter aircraft in the world. The collection spans the entire history of fighter aircraft, from the Rumpler Taube ("Dove") of 1914 to the McDonnell F4 Phantom that flew in Vietnam. In between are numerous WWII-era fighters from Britain, Germany, Russia, the United States, and Japan. Photographing and Recording Historic Aircraft In March 1997, members of the Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator team visited Champlin to photograph and record fighter aircraft that flew in the European Theater of Operations in World War II. The resulting cockpit and detail photography and audio recordings helped to make Combat Flight Simulator one of the most accurate and compelling flight simulations on the market. Among the aircraft we photographed at Champlin are their Messerschmitt Bf 109E (with its original Daimler-Benz V-12), Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX, Republic P-47D Thunderbolt, North American P-51D Mustang, Lockheed P-38L, and Champlin's extremely rare Focke-Wulf 190D "Dora" or "Long Nose," of which just three still exist. Working Together to Enhance Realism With the approval of museum owner Doug Champlin, museum staff towed some of these rare aircraft out of their hangar so we could get sharply detailed interior and exterior photography. Doug Champlin and Bill Rummer, the museum's Executive Director, also arranged for the owner of the P-51D Mustang, Bill Hane, to fly his fighter for us. Hane helped attach our sound recording equipment inside and outside the aircraft, and took off with one member of the Microsoft team stuffed into a miniscule back seat where the plane's original radio had been. He even made a couple of low passes with the Mustang's Merlin engine well throttled up, so we could record the experience from the outside. Hear the P-51 fly by—it's powerful! (329 KB WAV) Microsoft is once again working with Champlin to ensure that upcoming versions of Combat Flight Simulator, like the Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum itself, will continue to be among the best of its type in the world. Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum 4636 Fighter Aces Drive Mesa AZ 85215 602-830-4540 Email: champlinfighter@worldnet.att.net Web site: http://www.ci.mesa.az.us/airport/museum.htm Contact: William Rummer, Executive Director (602-830-4541) Rummer.bill@worldnet.att.net © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.