A piece of cake!

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Immelmann turns, barrel rolls, Fokker, Eindecker, Sopwith, A. V. Roe, De Havilland - words to make the heart race and the fingers reach for the flying helmet and goggles.

Have you ever read Captain W. E. Jones' Biggles books? I did, but until I played Chocks Away must of it was just words: Diving to increase speed and outrunning your opponents, stall turns, looking round to check the skies are clear - now it can all come to life.

Coming with a short manual and two discs in the usual 4th Dimension video-style box, this new 3D flight game reveals an extensive selection of applications on the first disc: !Chocks, !Demo, !Extras, !Format, !Hint and !Info. The first is the actual game while the second is self-explanatory, but bear in mind that the demo is 90 minutes long.

!Extras provides a number of preset positions so that you can practise useful things like landings and combat. To create a disc for recording a flight, you use !Format, while !Hint provides a selection of rather silly pieces of advice and !Info is a copyright notice plus an advert for a Chocks Away extra missions disc.

Going straight into the game, you are presented with a pretty title screen while the rest loads. Finally, the control screen appears, allowing you to alter which control device you're using, one or two player game, and so on. You can opt to practice - a good initial move - perhaps engage in a dogfight (two players only) or start on the missions.

In the practice mode there are plenty of items on the ground and planes in the air to shoot at. Things tend not to fight back much and, when dogfighting, you simply try to shoot down your opponent.

But the whole game is based around the idea of missions, of which there are 20 of increasing difficulty covering three maps. There's a simple land area criss-crossed with roads and rivers, an island attack from an aircraft carrier and a truly massive archipelago scenario.

Selecting the missions option takes you to a table with the complete list. You can only progress one at a time through the missions, but once one has been completed you can play from that point next time - even if it wasn't you who reached the level.

Having selected a mission you are given a briefing by some RAF bod and then it's off to the old Camel for a spot of Hun bashing - except it's not a Sopwith Camel, it's a jolly old Tiger Moth, damn good place but old Flight Captain Bigglesworth flew a Camel, dash it.

So rev up, it's chocks away and you trundle down the runway. The wheels leave the tarmac and, peeking a look at the compass, we head south, keeping the old bird's nose up and getting some height - 3,000 feet should do it. Give the fuel gauge a quick tap. No problem.

Always damn Bosch patrols hereabouts. Ah yes, there's the blighter. Tally ho, straight down his gun barrel blasting away with the old cannon, tracers showing their path clearly. One... two... three puffs of smoke and down he goes, black smoke trailing as he spins in. Not a scratch this time.

Flight said to knock out the control tower on the southern airfield - well, there it is and a blasted Fokker F7 coming this way. Damn fast and manoeuvrable those monoplanes. Not enough time to take him head on - there goes his tracer now straight for me.

Nothing for it but half roll right, pull back, flatten out, pull back, cut engine, roll left, pull back hard and there he is pulling a tight left hand turn trying to get behind me but he's too late. Pull round tighter and tighter getting my nose ahead of him and let rip with the cannon - he takes them along the fuselage and the black smoke tells its story. On to the runway, knock out the Fokker Triplehound sitting on the tarmac, then the control tower and two other buildings. No need to leave those blighters anything they can use.

On the way home I pass a Bosch bomber, loads of trouble those, the gunners can shoot in any direction. I leave it alone. Home runway looks a jolly pleasant sight, check round quickly to make sure there's nothing in view and down we go. Cross the end of the runway at 50 feet, cut the engines and drop to the deck, bounce once and I'm down. Time for de-briefing.

Chocks Away has some nice touches. You can view your plane from the outside - and see more of the surroundings, too. There's flight recorder so that you can play back your missions and even take over just before you made that fatal mistake. But the graphics are a bit slow - nowhere near the speed of either Interdictor - although 4D are working on it. But it's a really great game.

Now then, where's that White Fokker...

Wing Commander Lazarus