HellCat Ace
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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A classic 1st person flight simulation similar to Ace of Aces. In several missions you have to shoot down Japanese fighters and bombers. Through the front cockpit window you can see the sky and the ocean. Below the cockpit view is the instrument panel with engine power, altitude, fuel and your ammunition-counter. Through the a rear window you can see the enemies on your tail. 

Trivia

In the summer of 1982, Bill Stealey was a strategic planner for electronics company General Instrument. During a break at a company meeting in Las Vegas, Stealey challenged all comers to beat his high score on a coin-op arcade game called 'Red Baron'. No one could - except a programmer at General Instrument called Sid Meier, who promptly kicked his tail. The programmer explained to Stealey that it was not flying skill but down to observing the rudimentary AI of the enemy pilots and anticipating their next move. 
Meier boasted to Stealey that he could design a better game in a week on his home computer. Stealey said that if Meier could do it, he would sell it. The resulting game was Hellcat Ace - though it was only two months later that Meier finished it. The two men that year left General Instrument to form MicroProse - a company that would produce some of the best flight simulation games during the coming decade. (Source - 'Computer Gaming World', November 1992)

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Description from the packaging:

Exciting 3-Dimensional Aerial Combat Over the Pacific in World War II!
Hellcat Ace is an exciting and challenging three dimensional combat flying simulation of World War II air battles in the Pacific. The game player sits in the cockpit of a World War II fighter and uses the realistic out-of-the-cockpit graphic view to maneuver his aircraft through a series of combat fighter tactics. The game is played in a three dimensional airspace. The objective is to establish a machine gun firing position on the enemy aircraft and shoot it down. However, the enemy aircraft can and will outmaneuver the game player and shoot him down! This is no "Sunday Flying" simulation. It requires the concentration and hand-eye coordination of real combat fighter pilot flying!

Fourteen combat scenarios from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima and four different skill levels are available. The game features bailouts, ocean ditching, limited ammunition, night missions, and combat flying maneuvers. One to four players can compete in this exciting simulation for the distinction of being the World's Greatest Fighter Pilot! Step up to this challenge and show you have the "Right Stuff" of a real combat fighter pilot!
