F-19 Stealth Fighter IBM PC MicroProse 1988

F-19 Stealth Fighter MicroProse

Microprose released F-19 Stealth Fighter for IBM PC MS-DOS 2.1 in October of 1988. F-19 Stealth Fighter was designed by Sid Meier and Arnold Hendrick and programmed by Sid Meier, Andy Hollis, Jim Synoski and David McKibbin.

F-19 Stealth Fighter is a stealth flight simulator and remake of Jim Synoski's Project Stealth Fighter of 1987 on the Commodore 64.

F-19 Stealth Fighter took four years to develop. F-19 Stealth Fighter was followed up by F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 of 1991.

In F-19 Stealth Fighter players pilot the Lockheed Martin F-19.

As the most complex and fleshed out flight sim of its era, F-19 Stealth Fighter features three levels of conflict and four scenarios, totalling 3,300 missions over 409,600 square miles of landscape.

F-19 Stealth Fighter also features aircraft carrier take-off and landings, radar evasion and threat displays and tracking systems.

Along with F-16 Falcon, this was my fave flight sim of the late 80s. In my opinion Falcon and F-19 were also the best flight sims of that era.

F-19 Stealth Fighter requires an i808x or i80x86 CPU and 384K of RAM, but a 386 CPU and 1 meg of RAM is recommended.

F-19 Stealth Fighter was distributed on 2x 3.5" 720kB  DD diskettes or 3x 5.25" 360kB floppy disks and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via F-19 Installer. The install size is 900 kbytes and consists of 80 files.

F-19 displays in 16K-vRAM 4-color CGA 320x200, 256K-vRAM 16-color EGA 320x200 or 256K-vRAM 16-color VGA 320x200.

Note that F-19's VGA mode employs a 16-color EGA palette for 3D rendering; only in-cockpit color gradients are improved by VGA.

Graphics detail can be changed on the fly via Alt+D.

F-19 Levels of Conflict

• Cold War
• Limited War
• Conventional War

F-19 Scenarios

• Libya
• The Persian Gulf
• The North Cape
• Central Europe

ST/Amiga versions were released in 1990. Amiga version:

F-19 Stealth Fighter Armaments

• M61A1 20mm Vulcan (six-barrel gatling gun-style cannon)
• AIM-9M Sidewinder Air-to-air Short-range Infrared-homing
• AIM-120A AMRAAM Air-to-air Medium-range Radar-homing
• AGM-88A HARM Guided Missile
• Penguin-3 ASM Guided Missile
• AGM-84A Harpoon anti-ship Guided Missile
• AGM-65D Maverick thermal-imaging air-to-ground Guided Missile
• GBU-12 Paveway Laser-Guided glide bomb
• CBU-72 FAE Laser-Guided explosive bomb
• MK 20 Rockeye Re-Bomb
• MK 20 Rockeye II Laser-Guided cluster bomb
• Durandal Re-Bomb anti-runway
• ISC B-1 Minelets Re-Bomb
• MK 82-1 Snakeye Re-Bomb
• MK 35 Incendiary Cluster Re-Bomb
• MK 82-0 Slick Free-fall Iron bomb
• MK 122 Fireye Free-fall incendiary bomb
• 135mm Infrared Reconnaissance camera
• 1,900 LBS. Fuel

F-19 Stealth Fighter copy protection: aircraft identification manual reference.

F-19 Stealth Fighter manual written by Arnold Hendrick: 193 pages.

How to take off in F-19 Stealth Fighter

• Hit the 9 key to extend the flaps
• Hit 0 key to disengage breaks
• Hold down Shift and the + key for Maximum Power
• Pull back to take off
• Hit the 9 key to retract the flaps
• Hit the 6 key to retract the landing gear

F-19 Stealth Fighter Hotkeys

• Shift + numpad keys: Change waypoint
• Shift + F8: Reset waypoint
• Shift + F1-F6: External views
• F1-F10: Readouts
• Z/X = Zoom/Unzoom
• Shift + Z = accelerate time
• Shift + X = normal time
• Select Ordnance: Spacebar
• B: Select target
• N: New Target
• Joystick button 1: Fire cannon
• Return/Enter/Joystick button 2: Fire ordnance
• 1: Flare
• 2: Chaff
• 3: IR Jammer
• 4: ECM
• 5: Decoy
• 6: Gear
• 7: Auto pilot
• 8: Bay doors
• 9: Flaps
• 0: Breaks
• -: Decrease power
• +: Increase power
• Shift + F10: Eject
• Alt + P = Pause
• Alt + Q = Quit

See also: Combat Flight Simulators --- WinUAE Amiga Emulator --- Best Amiga Games.