A-10C Warthog fires up its lovely lovely engines

Look at that. Beautiful! Not necessarily the graphics engine, but the actual airplane. There’s nothing quite like the Warthog, a close support aircraft made for the unglamorous job of kicking up dirt. Anyone can makes a sleek jet with the sexy spaceship lines of an F-16 or F-22. Whatever. Give me the unique ungainly aesthetic of that big-nacelled beauty any day.

That’s a screenshot from A-10C Warthog, a flight sim released as part of Eagle Dynamics’ Digital Combat Series, which previously featured the the Russian Ka-50 Black Shark helicopter. Before that, Eagle was known for their Su-27 sims published by SSI, which were a paean to Russia’s versatile Su-27 fighter/bomber. In those games I simultaneously felt like I was in over my head, but in good hands. Eagle Dynamics made sophisticated, measured, detailed flight sims with long shallow learning curves doled out over a series of missions, and a scenario editor that meant lots of user-made missions. I couldn’t be happier that they’re still hard at work.

A-10C Warthog is out today. Read more about it here and buy it here for $60.