Microsoft Flight Simulator | Code Like It's 198x

The first version redrew its view out of the cockpit three times a second, and you could take off and land anywhere because, as a Computer Gaming World writer put it, the whole world was “a gigantic parking lot”. Forty years later the same name was on a program that streamed satellite pictures of the entire planet so that players could fly over their own houses. Microsoft Flight Simulator began as somebody else’s program. Bruce Artwick, a pilot, wrote it for his small Illinois company subLOGIC, and Microsoft licensed it for the new IBM PC in 1982. It is older than Windows, and Microsoft calls it its longest-running franchise.

Fast facts

Creator: Bruce Artwick, through his company subLOGIC of Champaign, Illinois.
subLOGIC’s FS1: advertised in 1980 for the Apple II and TRS-80, $25 on cassette.
Microsoft version: for the IBM PC, 1982; $49.95 in 1983, needing 64K and the colour graphics adapter.
Milestones: version 4.0 (1989), version 5 (1993), Flight Simulator X (2006), Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020), Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Developers: subLOGIC and Artwick at first; Microsoft’s own Aces Game Studio until 2009; Asobo Studio of France from 2020.

subLOGIC’s flight simulator

In March 1980 subLOGIC advertised its “FS1 Flight Simulator” in Byte for the Apple II and TRS-80, at $25 on cassette, as “just one application” of its graphics software. Its advertisements promised “a real-time, 3-D” view “out of the cockpit”, and the program came with a war game too. Computer Gaming World explained in 1982 that the Apple version, A2-FS1 Flight Simulator with British Air Ace, pitted the player against five enemy pilots, and that reviewers had called the dogfight “difficult”, “challenging” and “next to impossible”. Its writer’s advice was to fly due west about 100 feet above the ground and shoot the enemy planes before they could get on your tail.

subLOGIC followed it with Flight Simulator II, which reached the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari computers at $49.95. K-Power reported in 1984 that within months of its release it was number one on Billboard’s and Softsel’s best-seller lists and was selling about 10,000 copies a month. “Artwick is a pilot himself,” the magazine added. “That’s one reason his Simulator is amazingly accurate.”

Microsoft’s flight simulator

The IBM PC version came out under Microsoft’s name, though shop listings in 1983 still sold it as “MICROSOFT Flight Simulator (by Sub-Logic)”. SoftSide’s reviewer in April 1983 found a program modelled on the performance of a Cessna 182 class aircraft, with radio navigation aids that “accurately imitate flying conditions”, charts of the New York, Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles areas and northern Illinois, and thirty flight modes, ten of them preset. One was the British Ace dogfight, set in Europe in 1917. He enjoyed flying round the John Hancock Building in Chicago and buzzing Seattle’s Space Needle, but on a black-and-white monitor land and water looked much the same, the mountains were flat, and the program crashed on him three times. He still called it “an entertaining program for anyone who ever wanted to pilot an airplane”. In September 1983 Electronic Fun with Computers & Games described it as “the state of the art in home simulations”.

Flight Simulator found a second job, as a test for the IBM-compatible computers that followed the PC. A May 1984 advertisement in Byte told buyers to check a machine’s compatibility by seeing whether it could run “Business programs like Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc, or WordStar. Games like Flight Simulator.” By the end of 1984 the New Zealand magazine Bits & Bytes was calling Lotus 1-2-3 and Flight Simulator “the benchmarks of IBM compatibility”.

Growing up

Each version added more of real flying. Flight Simulator 4.0, released in September 1989, let players adjust an aircraft’s flight characteristics and design experimental ones, added a sailplane, random weather and updrafts, other aircraft in the sky and air traffic control. Computer Gaming World noted that owners of 3.0 were “miffed” that Microsoft offered no upgrade. In 1990 Compute! reckoned that almost two million people had taken to the air on their home computers, and judged 4.0’s instrument panel the most complete of any simulator it tested.

Version 5, released in 1993, cost $64.95 and took players from a Cessna Skylane to a Learjet and a sailplane, with instrument panels digitised from real aircraft and scenery that grew more detailed as the plane approached. Computer Gaming World called the series “long-standing and best-selling”. Other companies sold scenery for it: Mallard’s San Francisco disk used satellite photographs as the foundation for its landscapes. Microsoft went on to Flight Simulator 95, 98, 2000, 2002 and 2004, and Flight Simulator X in 2006.

Grounded, then back

In January 2009 Microsoft closed the Aces studio that made the series, as part of a round of 1,400 job cuts. A spokeswoman told Computerworld that the company had “nothing to announce around Flight Simulator specifically”. Microsoft tried a free program called Microsoft Flight in 2012, which Retro Gamer described as “planned as Flight Simulator’s successor”.

The real successor began in 2016, when Microsoft’s Jorg Neumann asked the French studio Asobo to prototype a flight over Seattle built from Bing satellite map data and procedurally generated detail, and then asked whether the method could be applied to the whole planet. Microsoft Flight Simulator came out for Windows on 18 August 2020. Within about two weeks Microsoft counted more than a million players and called it “the simulator’s biggest launch in 38 years”. It reached the Xbox Series consoles on 27 July 2021, and by December 2022 more than ten million people had played it. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 followed in November 2024.

Sources

Byte vol. 5 no. 3, March 1980, p. 144: subLOGIC advertisement (“just one application”; “The FS1 Flight Simulator is available for Apple II and TRS-80 Level I & II for $25 on cassette”). The simulation games entry cites subLOGIC’s advertisements in Byte (January 1980) and 80 Micro (November 1980), including the “real-time, 3-D” view at three frames a second.
Bob Proctor, “You Too Can Be an Ace!”, Computer Gaming World issue 3, March 1982, p. 32: A2-FS1 Flight Simulator with British Air Ace, by Bruce A. Artwick, Sublogic of Champaign; tape $25, Apple disk $33.50; five enemy pilots; “a gigantic parking lot”.
Ken Coach, K-Power vol. 1 no. 5, June 1984, p. 52: Flight Simulator II ($49.95; Billboard and Softsel lists; about 10,000 copies a month; “Artwick is a pilot himself”).
Jay Marrone, “MS-Flight Simulator”, SoftSide, April 1983, p. 56: Microsoft, IBM PC, 64K, $49.95; the Cessna 182; thirty modes; British Ace; charts; the monochrome problem; three crashes.
Byte vol. 8 no. 8, August 1983, p. 198: mail-order listing “MICROSOFT Flight Simulator (by Sub-Logic)”, as cited in the simulation games entry; the Microsoft entry cites a similar listing in May 1983.
Electronic Fun with Computers & Games, September 1983, p. 94, feature on flight simulators: “Flight Simulator from Microsoft and Sub-Logic Inc. for the IBM PC”; “The state of the art in home simulations.”
Byte vol. 9 no. 5, May 1984, p. 206: Visual Technology advertisement on IBM PC compatibility (“Games like Flight Simulator”).
Bits & Bytes (New Zealand) vol. 3 no. 4, December 1984, p. 9: the Data General One and “Lotus 1-2-3 and Flight Simulator, the benchmarks of IBM compatibility”.
Computer Gaming World issue 66, December 1989, p. 30: Flight Simulator 4.0 released in September; its new features; no upgrade from 3.0.
Denny Atkin, “Wing It”, Compute! issue 118, March 1990, p. 146: “almost 2 million people”; Flight Simulator 4.0’s Cessna Skylane RG and instrument panel.
Computer Gaming World issue 113, December 1993, p. 70: Microsoft Flight Simulator 5 ($64.95) and Mallard’s San Francisco scenery.
“Bluffer’s Guide to Flight Simulators”, Retro Gamer issue 103, 2012, pp. 77–81: Flight Simulator 3.0 (1988), Flight Simulator X (2006) and Microsoft Flight.
Eric Lai, “Flight Simulator will Soar Despite Microsoft Layoffs”, Computerworld, via PC World, 25 January 2009 (web, secondary): the closure of the Aces studio in the layoff of 1,400 employees. https://www.pcworld.com/article/158274/flight_simulator_will_soar_despite_microsoft_layoffs.html
Sam Machkovech, “The new MS Flight Simulator taught me how to fly an actual plane”, Ars Technica, 30 September 2019 (web, secondary): Asobo Studio; Jorg Neumann’s 2016 request for a Seattle prototype using Bing satellite map data. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/the-new-ms-flight-simulator-taught-me-how-to-fly-an-actual-plane/
Jorg Neumann, “Microsoft Flight Simulator is the biggest game launch in Xbox Game Pass for PC history with over 1 million players to date”, Xbox Wire, 3 September 2020 (web, secondary): “Microsoft’s longest running franchise”; more than one million players in just over two weeks. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/09/03/microsoft-flight-simulator-is-the-biggest-game-launch-in-xbox-game-pass-for-pc-history-with-over-1-million-players-to-date/
Wireframe issue 52, June 2021, p. 18: the console release on 27 July.
“Microsoft Flight Simulator Celebrates 10 Million Pilots”, Xbox Wire, 7 December 2022 (web, secondary): the 40th anniversary on 11 November 2022 and more than ten million players. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/12/07/microsoft-flight-simulator-celebrates-10-million-pilots/
Wikipedia, “Microsoft Flight Simulator” (accessed October 2026) (web, secondary): Flight Simulator 95 to 2004; the 2020 release on 18 August; Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator