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If you thought Solo Flight was a challenge, with its basic propeller-driven training plane, Acro-Jet provides even more thrills. It's an aerobatic simulator using the Jim Bede designed BD-5J plane. If that means nothing to you it's the aircraft James Bond flew through an aeroplane hangar in the film Octopussy.

This is a very demanding plane to fly and it's been involved in at least 24 recorded accidents. And since I got hold of the simulator that has more than doubled. This simulator is one which really does live up to its real-life counterpart!

Being an aerobatic simulator, you're set a number of aerobatic competition events with varying degrees of difficulty. To help you, you're given a comprehensive flight instrument panel, as well as an operations manual has sections covering such matters, including lots of information on aerodynamics.

Now you've learnd the basics, we can start on the ten aerobatic and cometition events. These are:

1. Pylon Race
   Simplest event, involves getting airborne, racing round five pylons arranged in a square and getting back as quickly as possible.
2. Slalom Race
3. Get airborne, go round four pylons in a criss-cross manner and in a set pattern.
4. Ribbon Cut
5. Take off, fly through two gates, cutting the ribbon suspended between them as you pass through.
6. Inverted Ribbon Cut
7. Same as above but you fly upside-down, which means your pitch controls are reversed - a special challenge.
8. Ribbon Roll
9. Pass under one gate, perform a 360 degree roll before passing under the second gate in level flight.
10. Under Ribbon Race
11. Pass under three gates in sequence, this time without cutting the ribbon.
12. Looping Under Ribbon
13. A difficult one this, fly through the gate, then do a loop over the gate.
    
    As you come out of the bottom of the loop, you must go under the gate again.
14. Spot Landing
15. Climb to at last 2,000 feet and try to land on exactly the spot marked on the runway. The further away you are the less points you get. If you don't land on the runway, you've crashed!
16. Cuban Eight
17. Most difficult of all; fly west through the west gate, do a half loop about it, followed by a half-roll on the descent, as you aim to fly through the east gate. And so it goes on until you've described a figure of eight - makes your stomach turn.
18. Flame-out Landing
19. Similar to spot landing but you've got to land without using any power.

If these set pieces aren't sufficient challenge for you, you can select your own course from six of the events described above.

To score highly, you must complete events as quickly as possible (except landing events) but you do get consolation points for flying correctly and finishing in one piece. You can get bonus points for flying in more difficult weather conditions.

So how did it fly? Acro-Jet is very sensitive. You've got to keep constant control of the plane with your joystick, whilst keeping an eagle eye on the flight and engine instruments. Remember, most of these competitions are done very close to the ground which keaves very little margin for error. If you allow the engine to overheat, it could damage it, and you might have to attempt a forced landing.

Engine sound effects are good, and so is the accuracy of instrumentation except for the artificial horizon which sometimes displays the plane as banking, when you can see on the outside 3-D view and on the compass that the wings are level. This is irritating because you need this accuracy of information when you're looking sideways or backwards.

Having completed all my events, I found Acro-Jet completely absorbing and very exciting. Moreover, for such a complex game, it's extremely good value for money. It's given me a taste for the aerobatic displays I used to do in the RAF - any vacancies in the Red Arrows?