Flight Simulator 3.0
Released: August 1988
Published by: Microsoft
Developed by: subLogic, Inc.
Author(s): Bruce A. Artwick
Introduction
The third installment of Flight Simulator brought a lot of enhancements over its older siblings. Notably, the geographical area you could now fly in extended to cover over 100 airports, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, New York, Seattle, Florida, Chicago, and Los Angeles. According to the user manual, "Flight Simulator’s “world” is more than 10,000 by 10,000 miles square, with a resolution of about one one-hundredth inch. The world encompasses the entire continental United States and extends into Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The “populated” world consists of five areas and includes 118 airports, detailed in charts at the back of this manual. Winds, clouds, time of day (for dawn, day, dusk, and night flight), and navigation aids are also included."
The game featured dropdown menus that were very full-featured, covering everything from what and where you were flying, to environment controls (clouds, winds, season, time of day) and realism/reliability settings for your aircraft. Whatever you used to control your plane, be it joystick, mouse or keyboard, could be tweaked and calibrated to work precisely how you wanted.
The base game only came with three planes: Cessna Skylane, Gates Learjet, and Sopwith Camel, though you could add more planes and locations to FS3 via the Aircraft Library and Mode Library options. If you had previously bought FS2 add-on scenery, this could be converted and loaded into FS3 - a nice touch for backward compatibility.
FS3 also came with a "Flight Instruction" mode that comprised 10 basic lessons, 8 advanced lessons, and 7 aerobatic lessons. Each of these could be set to run in a sequence or run as a one-off, and you could even switch between instructor control and student control at any time.
The game supported multiple windows being open at the same time, with up to two being 3D views - this is a little clunky to use in modern times, but for 1988 it was incredible to have access to multiple windows, each one dynamically changing as you flew. You could have a top-down map in one, a view from a spotter plane in another, and the main cockpit view, for example.
With support for EGA graphics (640 x 350 maximum resolution in 16 colours), the visuals were far ahead of FS2 which topped out with CGA or Tandy/PCjr graphics. Performance certainly suffered if you ran in EGA/VGA mode on anything but the latest hardware, but as with earlier versions, many other graphics options were available. In addition, you could enable or disable some visuals via the in-game menus to further trade-off quality for speed.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.00 (1988)
The ability to instantly change your coordinates to anywhere in the world without reloading the game, along with the 'slew' mode would be a feature carried forward into later versions, and demonstrated its scope to be a truly global flight simulator. The weather effects (a new feature in FS3) such as cloud cover and thunderstorms were somewhat primitive but at the time added to the immersion, along with day/night modes that operated in real time.
The game came with a few 'entertainment' scenarios to play as well, such as crop dusting or aerobatics. It also supported a multiplayer mode, over modem or direct cable connection, allowing up to four people to fly in the same airspace!
Looking back at it now, it's not all great. The 3D models are all basic filled wireframes (no texturing), the sound is pretty dreadful, the number of planes and locations is very sparse, though much better than FS2, and the clouds are simply filled white circles. We would have to wait for Flight Simulator 4 a year later to get dynamic scenery (other planes in the sky, moving ships on the water, and ground vehicles), and Flight Simulator 5 a whole 5 years later to get textured graphics and sound card support.
FS3 as we see it here was actually originally released on the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST back in 1986, and what we got for the PC almost 2 years later was essentially the same game. Overall, FS3 added a plethora of new features over FS2, making it a much more realistic, difficult (if you wanted it to be), and expansive title that would impact the flight simulation genre in a major way.
System Requirements
| System Requirements | Intel 8088/8086 CPU, 256 KB of RAM, DOS 2.0 Graphics support: Hercules, CGA, CGA Composite, Tandy/PCjr, Hercules InColor (720 x 348 in 16 colours), EGA and VGA (640 x 350 max. in 16 colours - no 256-colour support). Audio support: PC speaker only Peripheral support: Mouse, analogue joystick |
|---|---|
| Original Media | Two 5.25" 360 KB (DS/DD) floppy diskettes |
| Installed Size (MB) | 634 KB (Main program + US scenery only) |
From where can it be run?
FS3 could be installed to your hard disk, or run from floppy disks. It was the first title in the Flight Simulator series that did not run as a PC booter.
Copy Protection
FS3 has no copy protection.
How to Setup
There is no installation routine or setup utility for FS3. If you wish to go through the startup questions, e.g. to run the game in a different graphics option, run FS.BAT instead of FS3.EXE. Alternatively, run FS3 x and it will take you through the following steps:
Your choices are saved in a file called AUTOEXEC.FS3 in the game directory.
Problems
Symptom: The game fails to start correctly, or I get garbled characters all over my screen.
Cause: Your setup configuration may be incorrect.
Resolution: Delete the file AUTOEXEC.FS3 and re-run the game with 'fs3 x', choosing the options that match your hardware.
Keys
There are far too many controls in FS3 to list them all here, but here are the basic ones to get you up and running:
| Flight Controls F1 = Cut throttle F2 = Decrease throttle 2 notches F3 = Increase throttle 2 notch F4 = Full throttle F5 = Flaps Up F6 = Flaps 15 deg. F7 = Flaps 30 deg. F8 = Flaps 40% . (period key) = Wheelbrake G = Landing gear up/down Keypad bottom-left (0) & bottom-right (Enter) = Rudder left/right NumPad 7 and 1 = Elevator trim |
View Controls Scroll Lock + Numeric Keypad 1-9 = Look in that direction [ = 3D window one ] = 3D window two NumLock = Map window S = Cycle through Cockpit, Tower, Track, and Spot view modes [ + or - = Zoom in/out 3D window one ] + or - = Zoom in/out 3D window two NumLock + or - = Zoom in/out map window |
| Ancillary Flight Controls L = Lights on/off O = Strobe on/off A = Altimeter calibrate D = Directional gyro calibrate Radio Controls Press the Nav key (N) followed by the radio number. The use + and - to increase/decrease the frequency. Press N key twice in rapid succession, then + or - again to set the fractional frequency. ATC Transponder reponse: Press T, TT, TTT, and TTTT followed by + and - to set the squawk frequency. |
General Controls ESC = display menu / hide menu P = Pause simulation Q = Sound on/off |
To Quit the Game
When in-flight (not in a demo mode), press Ctrl-C to exit the game. You will be prompted to confirm with '1' for Yes, or '2' for No.
Supporting Documents
- User Manual (22 MB PDF file)
- Quick Reference Card
Additional Files, Drivers & Utilities
Though add-ons are commonplace in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, there really wasn't much for FS3 apart from the subLogic scenery disks that would work with FS2 and FS3. A version was released that also contained the Western Europe scenery - this consisted of just a single file: SD-EUR.SCN. As mentioned, FS3 came with a CONVERTS.EXE file which allowed you to convert subLogic/IBM scenery disks from FS2 into FS3 format. These would be renamed to SD-1.SCN through SD-11.SCN (for the numbered subLogic scenery disks), or SD-JPN.SCN (Japan), SD-SFS.SCN (San Francisco), or SD-EUR.SCN (Europe).
Save Games
FS3 doesn't have the concept of a 'save game'.
Versions of the game known to exist
Note this page is only for Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.0 - other pages exist for other versions.
| Version | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 3.00 | 29th Aug 1988 | Initial public release. |
Original Floppy Disk Contents
The floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:
Disk 1 of 2 (5.25" DS/DD floppy diskette)
Directory of A:\ |
|
Disk 2 of 2 (5.25" DS/DD floppy diskette)
Directory of A:\ |
 |
Europe Scenery Disk (5.25" DS/DD floppy disk):
Directory of A:\ |
Installed Directory Contents
Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:
Directory of C:\FLTSIM A G3D 13,279 12-05-2024 16:06 |
Two more demo videos of Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.00 (1988)