Wait! Before you write!

• Read through the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ); your question may be there already!
  
  
• Visit our Tips and Support page.
  
  
• Technical Support—If you have a technical or support question, please visit Microsoft Personal Online Support.
  
  
• Learn from the expertise of your fellow fighter pilots on the Combat Flight Simulator Message Board. Share your knowledge, resources, and passion for flight combat!
  
  
• Look through the Mailbag archives.

Great suggestion! We're putting it into the hopper. Since we will be doing future versions of Combat Flight Simulator, we welcome these kinds of ideas!

Dear CFS Team,

Why is Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator not available in a Macintosh version? It seems like a great product but why ignore one segment of the market? I'd buy it tomorrow if it were available, and I'm positive I'm not the only Mac user out there who would, so what gives?

Geoffrey Davis

To make a conversion of any product that was not expressly designed to be implemented on multiple platforms is a big task. Menus and dialogs are handled differently; text and button functions are often slightly different in function-even figuring how to deal with the functionality normally addressed with a second mouse button needs to be rethought.

For CFS the problem is even larger because the core of the product is the Flight Simulator engine. To make CFS workable on Macintosh would require rewriting not only everything that was specifically designed for CFS, but all of the FS98 code that it is built on, as well. That process would undoubtedly take more time and personnel than building the PC version of CFS did.

—Tucker Hatfield,
Combat Flight Simulator Program Manager

Dear CFS Team,

I'd appreciate help in re-painting aircraft textures. My father-in-law, a WWII P-51D pilot, bought this game for himself and me. I'd like to replicate the nose art and insignia of his real aircraft onto the P-51D model.

When I've made changes to the texture files for the model, the graphics are distorted, wrap underneath the aircraft, and extrude to the other side of the aircraft.

John Bullington

The short answer is that this is pretty complicated stuff. The complications lie in the fact that these planes had to be cut into separate objects for the sorting tools after they were textured. This made seams in the model where there were none before and have no reference point in the texture.

—Jim Deal
Combat Flight Simulator Art Lead

But it is possible to "hack" the textures by using a paint program. You just paint a line on the texture and then load the game and see where the breaks occur. It's not perfect, but it can be done.

—Rob Brown
Combat Flight Simulator Design Lead

Dear CFS Team,

The Messerschmitt 109G does not seem to fly correctly. The turning radius is much too big also at lower speeds. (I am aware that it should handle very dangerously at high speed.) The Messerschmitt 109E seems to be okay.

Esben Sørensen

There is no measured radius specified, nor a "correct" radius. The response to the turning radius is more subjective than objective. The turning radius is a function of many factors, pilot technique being the most dominant. Turn radius is determined by the aircraft's true airspeed and the bank angle, assuming coordinated flight. In coordinated flight, radius will decrease as bank angle is increased, and increase as airspeed is increased. Thus, the aircraft that can maintain flight at slower speeds will be able to achieve a smaller radius of turn. The 109G has a higher stall speed than the 109E, and thus [won't] achieve as tight a turn.

—Mike Schroeter
Combat Flight Simulator Aeronautical Engineer

Dear CFS Team,

My application seems to have a glitch in one of the Missions. In the "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" single mission the patrolling P-51s have the BF 109G texture. Is there a patch or easy way to fix this?

Randy Buhlman

Wow! Good catch! Fortunately there's an easy fix, just follow the instructions below.

1. Download the update (4 KB).
2. You will be asked to Run the file or Save it. Save the file to your Desktop.
3. From your Desktop, double-click single_rob4_lu.zip. A WinZip dialog box will open.
4. Unzip (Extract) the file to the Missions folder in your Combat Flight Simulator directory. If you installed the game to a different drive or folder, enter the correct path.

Archived Mailbags