With several flight simulators already available for the Dragon, it's interesting to check out a new one and see how it compares with the rest, though unfortunately Combat Air Patrol (CAP) doesn't compare too well. It's fairly comprehensive but is mostly in BASIC and so lacks a certain speed and excitement.

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There are three phases you can choose from: Patrol, Landing and Refuelling. You begin in Patrol mode, though curiously your undercarriage is down despite the fact that you're travelling at over 500mph and at almost 3,000 feet. It's when patrolling that the combat sequences take place, with enemy aircraft appearing at random in your front sights or rear view mirror (or "rear veiw mirror" as the notes spell it). To deal with these you have 90 cannon and two missiles, though the sound and graphics are both rather tame unfortunately.

Pressing 'R' takes you into the refuelling sequence, where you're told the heading, height and speed you must attain before being allowed to try to line up your Tornado with a tanker in a separate little graphics sequence.

The Landing routine also gives you a heading and height to aim for before you can bring your Tornado (now a pixel) down in the Landing Screen at bottom left of the main screen. This main screen gives you all the readouts you need, including altitude, fuel supply, speed and heading, though the heading is simply the eight compass points rather than a specific bearing. There is no factor for pitch, you're always deemed to be flying level apart from when landing, and to play CAP, you need two joysticks - one acts as the throttle, the second as flight controls. Very complicated.

A lot of programming effort has obviously gone into the software, but the responses are just too slow to make it enjoyable - descending from 2,500 feet (at which height the combat sequences come into effect) down to a suitable height to commence landing lakes forever. An interesting exercise for the programmer, but not for the potential buyer when better stuff's available from the likes of Hewson and Microdeal.