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"You've bought it, old boy," read the stark message on the screen. "You came down too steeply."

Picking myself up from the tangled wreckage of the crashed Spitfire I gave myself a quick dustdown, adjusted my goggles, re-groomed the handlebar moustache and it's back into the air with Mirrorsoft's wartime flight simulation, Spitfire 40.

It's summer 1940 and you play the part of a newly-qualified pilot stationed somewhere in the south east of England. With practice and success in combat missions you can rise through the tanks to reach the rank of Group Captain, gaining medals such as VC, DSO and DFC.

There are two main screens to the game - the cockpit controls and view from the cockpit. The controls include all the normal stuff - including air speed indicator, fuel gauge, compass, engine rev counter, altimeter and artificial horizon.

Pressing the M key brings up a map of the south east of England and pressing N expands the map to show greater detail i.e. the position of your craft and the enemy.

There are three flight modes - practice, combat and combat practice.

Practice just allows you to get used to the handling of the Spitfire, develop take off skills and perfect aerobatics.

Flight Combat gives the battle experience without the bother of finding the enemy aircraft. While playing the Amstrad version of this mode the destroyed enemy aircraft would sometimes stick to the cockpit like a dead fly!

The Combat mode starts off by giving you mission instructions - the number of enemy aircraft sighted, their distance in miles, bearing from the runway and height.

The graphics - particularly on the Amstrad version of Spitfire 40 - are very nice.

All in all, Spitfire 40 is a nice flight simulation, not too complicated to prevent instant enjoyment or too easy to make the game boring after just a few plays.