Europe, 1943. World War II is in full rage, the United States joined the war effort and are now supporting the British air raids against German occupied western Europe with their legendary B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. Can your crew help end the war by successfully bombing strategically important targets while German fighters and Flaks turn the sky into a death trap?

Microprose's 1992 flight simulation is special in many ways. While other sims let you focus on one job and often on dogfights, a B-17 requires a much larger crew of ten soldiers - and you can take over each one of the important jobs they carry out: piloting, bombing, firing machine guns, navigating, first aid, repairs - you name it.

But is it also fun to let the AI do all the other jobs you're not currently involved with?

Our hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") are joined on this mission by experienced flyboys Rob ("Spoonboy") and David ("EvilCommieDictator").

[ download mp3 ] (164 mins, 187 MB)

* Spoonboy's B17 beginner's guide

* UK magazine reviews scanned by Pix

* Article from CRASH covering the origins of B17 developer Vektor Graphics

* B-17 Flying Fortress credits on Mobygames showing how many people who worked on this have also worked on many other famous Microprose titles

* The famous dive scene from Memphis Belle

* Microprose was previously discussed in episode 32 (Knights of the Sky) and episode 35 (Sid Meier's Pirates!)