Know any good combat flight sims?

[Sava]

I'm having so much fun with Battlefield 1942 and a mod for it: "Desert Combat", and I want a game that is a combat flight sim. The only other flight sim I own is IL-2 Sturmovik, which is good, but not quite as fun as it once was.

Does anyone know of a good combat flight sim, preferrably a newer game?

Some things I am looking for in such a game:
more arcade style than simulation (although simulations aren't bad, I just want to blow **** up)

post ww2 planes... most notably, A-10, A-8 Harrier, maybe even a helicopter sim. I like attacking ground targets, strafing them to shreds. BF1942 satisfies my WW2 desires. I want jets and missiles and ****!

lots of missions... the one thing that bugs me about IL-2 Sturmovik is the lack of missions. There are only a dozen or so decent missions, and I've played them to death. Objectives aren't a big deal to me, I just want to strafe ground targets, like tanks or buildings, in an arcade style game.

So, can you guys make some recommendations?

Thanks

[General Ludd]

Only one i've played is WW2online. Fun.

[Sava]

anyone else?

[Verto]

Crimson Skies was fun.

[Admiral]

Well, I liked F-18: Korea. It was rather heavy on the simulation part, and is from back in the day, but i ended up having great fun with it.

[asleepathewheel]

x-wing

[Space05us]

Only one i've played is WW2online. Fun.

[CerberusIV]

I gave up on flight combat sims a while back but the one I always liked was US Navy Fighters. They did a Windows version (it was originally a DOS game) with 3 campaigns - F14's and F18's over Ukraine, AV8's in the Kuriles and a Vietnam era one. Plenty of missions and a good mix of air to air and air to ground tasks. It also had a quick mission option which was good for lots of shooting.

Graphics weren't brilliant but it was fun and should be just what you are asking for. I don't know if it is still available, maybe as a cheap recycled "classic"?

[Stuie]

US Navy Fighters was the most fun I ever had playing a flight sim. The biggest draw-back now would be the graphics - no cockpit at any resolution above 800x600.

The follow up (ATF) was pretty good, too. The planes were more next-generation concept planes.

But the next spiritual successor, USAF, sucked. The graphics were nice and the planes were cool, but I hated that you had to hop from plane to plane to complete all the mission objectives. For instance, if you didn't switch from flight A to flight B when B was approaching their objective, the AI would just hang around the target instead of attacking it. That totally blew any sort of realism out of the sky.

[Verto]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
x-wing

I'm waiting for a true successor to the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games.

[Sava]

anyone know of anything more recent?

[Tocca42]

If you look for something more arcady than sim, then maybe "Secret weapons over Normandy" might be something for you.
It's from the same guys who made Crimson Skies, fastpaced easy to fly action. Crimson Skies was set in a fantasy USA, while this one is more near reality.
There's a demo out you can try:
http://www.lucasarts.com/products/normandy/

Lock-On, Lomac is much more Sim but yet fairly (atleast compared to the real hardcore ones like Falcon4) easy to learn.
www.lo-mac.com

[Verto]

I've been on a 70 minute waiting list to download Secret Weapons Over Normandy, so it better be good.

[Tocca42]

Originally posted by Verto
I've been on a 70 minute waiting list to download Secret Weapons Over Normandy, so it better be good.

70min
Well, don't blame me if you don't like it!
I've tried the demo some, and it's not really my style. I imagine it can be fun for a while, but sims like IL2 has much better longelivity i think.

Still, it seemed a well made game.

[Verto]

Well, I have installed and played it. I'd give it a score of 79%. Good, but nothing great.