A finger lazily circles the rim of the glass as he continues, eyes lost in memory. “We got hit by 109s and I lost my left aileron. Then an ME 109 rolled in on my leader. I broke left and let go a long blast from my guns. The 109 blew up and my leader dove away. I had to dive out following him.”

He looks at me, his expression still flat. “He didn’t make it. I started home and picked up an injured bomber, fire spouting from two engines, trying to limp home. Halfway there, we got hit by two more 109s. I kept them from lining up on him and between his guns and my buzzing, I picked off one and he got the other. I deadsticked my injured P-51 from 5,000 feet to a landing behind his burning airplane.”

Bill Stealey smiles. “Bought the bar that night.”

WarBirds 2007. And on your left, you’ll see some flak.

The Real World Informs the Digital One

Lt. Colonel Stealey spent over 4,000 hours of his first career piloting military aircraft in the real world, but these days he loses himself in digital recreations of World War I and World War II, thanks to FlyBoys Squadron and WarBirds 2007, respectively. The iEntertainment Network CEO has been involved in the creation of over 100 flight simulation games during his second career, and he believes the latest ones are among the most realistic titles ever produced.

The two titles are massively multi-player online games that allow hundreds of human-controlled planes in the air simultaneously, dogfighting over realistic representations of maps from both World Wars. FlyBoys, which is based on the movie of the same name, also includes an offline campaign mode, while WarBirds features missions that you can fly solo, against computer-controlled pilots.

WarBirds 2007. Taking off from an aircraft carrier isn’t too hard, but landing on one is a wee bit tricky.

To prove his point about realism, Stealey elaborates on his war story: “Quite an aviator’s delight to make it back over the English Channel with no ailerons, shot-up aircraft, with fuel flowing out of your tanks and not through your engine.” (Ailerons are the hinged surfaces along the trailing edges of a plane’s wings; they control the aircraft while it rolls from side to side. A plane without ailerons is much more susceptible to spinning out of control and crashing.)

Stealey snaps his fingers and suddenly I’m in the cockpit of a P-38, ready to live such experiences for myself. Thanks to TeamSpeak, which allows participants in multi-player games to engage in audio chats over the Internet, he can continue the conversation. “We have 15 events every month,” he explains, “and they are all included with a normal WarBirds membership. Many other games of this type don’t have our great community of dedicated members who have flown and fought together for many years.” TeamSpeak support is also included for free.

Feedback Galore

A pair of Japanese Zeros appear on the horizon. Stealey banks in their direction and I do the same, but I push my plane a little too hard, and the edges of my vision begin to grow dim.

“Many other games of this type don’t have our great community of dedicated members who have flown and fought together for many years.”

- iEntertainment CEO Bill Stealey

That means I’ve put too much force into the turn, and I’m beginning to black out. I ease up a bit, the effect vanishes, and I follow Stealey into the heat of battle.

“The latest version of the game adds medals, ranks, and streak counts, which is how many missions a player has survived,” he notes as he rakes one of the Zeros with a hail of bullets from his P-51. “It’s all part of the feedback you get when you land after a mission, and I can tell you it’s pretty exciting to receive an air combat medal for ten kills in one day.”

WarBirds 2007. Sure, you can blast your opponent’s bases with a tank, but watch out for bombers dropping their payloads on you.

One of his opponent’s wings breaks away under the attack and the crippled aircraft descends into a death spiral. Meanwhile, I’m trying to lead my target with my guns, but I barely ding his plane. As he turns around to confront me head-on, I finally get him in my sights and I let loose with a fusillade that tears his engine apart. The pilot manages to bail out and float to safety with a parachute, while his plane screams into the side of a hill and explodes in a brilliant fireball.

“When a player knows they’ve done 12 missions without a death, then he or she becomes much more careful about what fights they join or run from,” Stealey says as his plane accelerates into the distance. “Just like real life.”

FlyBoys. In this mission, you must eliminate the enemy tri-planes.

Real Locations, Real Strategies

WarBirds engages you in struggles across a variety of well-known World War II battlefields, including Malta, Midway Island, Tunisia, and the London blitz. When you enter the action, your team is in control of many bases, including aircraft carrier fleets, from which you can take off and land. (You can run out of ammunition and fuel, so watch your gauges.)

Each side can capture the others’ bases by destroying key buildings and then dropping in paratroopers, who will secure the area.