Over the past few months I have come across many professionally packaged and marketed Flight Simulator add-ons and have been seriously disappointed with their distinct lack of variety and dubious quality of the final product.  Including the fact that some actually reduce the performance of an already graphics intensive and processor hungry Simulator.  This has been compounded by the fact that most of these software packages fail to provoke the imagination, which is for me a prerequisite to developing an addition to an already successful Simulator.

So, perhaps you too need a new challenge in your Flight Sim World?  Look no further!

Here we have effectively three titles in one package for you to savour - Carrier Operations, World War II Carrier Operations and Vietnam Carrier Operations.  All these 3 Titles are on one PC-CD and can be installed separately.  A couple of them have been available separately for some time, emphasising the value offered in this package. (Vietnam Carrier Operations is previously unreleased).

First up - Carrier Operations.  In order to access Carrier Operations you must first use the ‘select flight’ menu within FS2004.  From here you can pick Abacus Carrier Operations.  You will then be presented with several saved flights, which you can choose depending on your preference.  These choices include aircraft type and whether you wish to land or launch.

Abacus claim that this add-on comes with a very detailed aircraft carrier – I have to agree; it looks very real and even stands up to close scrutiny.  A NIMITZ CLASS aircraft carrier includes rotating radar array on the ship, people (albeit unmoveable) and vehicles.  The texture detail here has been very carefully executed; a really excellent job all round.  The only drawback here, however, is that the ship forms part of add-on scenery and as such does not completely convince you that the ship is at sea.  There were no waves crashing theatrically onto the hull.

Onboard the ship, if you wish to launch (take-off) your aircraft, just like the real thing, you will have to utilise the help of a catapult, and a very large one at that!  This can be tricky to use and in order to enable the function of this essential tool you will have to start another piece of software (which comes with the package) and synchronise this with FS9 (Flight simulator 2004).

As with take-off, landing can also take a little practice.  In order to slow you enough to make a full stop on deck, you will need to use the arrestor cable, which involves a similar setup procedure to the catapult.

The additional aircraft themselves are excellent.  You get to choose from:

·  F/A - 18 Hornet
·  Sea Knight Helicopter
·  F-14 Tomcat
·  E2-C Hawkeye
·  AU-8b Harrier Jet

These are highly detailed and include the traditionally high standard of virtual cockpit that can be found on other Abacus FS products.  Just be sure to have your wits about you when you fly these aircraft, since they don’t fly like anything you find in the default FS2004 hanger.

A letdown for me in this package was the severe lack of detailed operational information in the paper manual supplied with the add-on.  I am an electronic junkie at heart, but find that you cannot beat a nice glossy game manual to thumb through.  The PDF and Word files that supply the additional information you will require are absolutely no substitute.  That little niggle aside, I can only think of one more negative for this part of the trio - the mind-numbing lack of variety.  OK, you can choose from different aircraft and various locations in seas the world over, but the sea is featureless and all you have in that void to break the monotony is the same aircraft carrier over and over again (unless you wish to fly some distance to land).

The only saving grace in this monotonous sea are the other two add-ons in this trio.  This alone makes it more interesting.  Next up, Vietnam Carrier Operations.

In this little add-on you are provided with another totally different aircraft carrier - The USS Constellation.  Again this offers supreme detailing and texture quality, and again comes into FS as a scenery add-on, including most of the features of the previous carrier, also using the arrestor cable and catapult set-up previously described.

Aircraft for Vietnam Carrier Operations offer great virtual cockpits, authentic sound and visually stunning exteriors.  You again use the ‘select flight’ option in the FS Main Menu to choose flights for Vietnam Carrier Operations, other than that, performance and operation is very similar to Carrier Operations.

The icing on the cake though is World War II Carrier Operations!

If you are a fan of historical aircraft you must install this worthwhile add-on.  This is built to the same high quality as the other two add-ons adding the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to your scenery library and giving you the option of installing the World War II aircraft with simplified or realistic flight dynamics.  Which one you choose is up to you, but for the most authentic World War II experience I recommend the realistic flight dynamics.

Plane models are of unusually high quality, and are designed in such a way as not to cause detrimental effect to the operation of FS 2004, these include:

·  F4U Corsair
·  F4F-4 Wildcat
·  F6F-3 Hellcat
·  TBF-1 Avenger
·  SDB-3 Dauntless

All these models, and all three add-ons use the Flight Simulator Smoke System for weapon effects.  Also as with other add-ons using this feature you cannot destroy scenery or other aircraft, alas.  It would have been nice to add this element to the military aircraft line-up, but unfortunately this is beyond the capabilities of Flight Simulator itself.

Overall this package is good value for money, being saved by the fact it has three titles in one package, and gives you the variety to ensure you keep going back to replay the different flights; or even create your own using the FS 2004 flight planner.  The add-ons included with this title maintain the quality you have come to expect from this developer and enhance the Flight simulator experience no end.

It is unfortunate then that the whole title is let down by the fact there are no real missions included with the package; just take off and landing and the flying in between.  So to make this add-on really interesting and longer-lived I would have expected Abacus to have included some missions.  And we know they can write quality missions as we have seen from some of the packs we have reviewed at Gaming Headlines in the last few months.