Buy Fleet Defender: The F-14 Tomcat Simulation

One of the best flight sims of the 90's.
I have fond memories of playing this as a teenager.
Bro was also into the complex operations of the Radar Intercept Officer's back seat operations. Although I disabled these and flew it in more an arcade mode.

Fond memories of hunting down Russian Badger bombers launching cruise missiles at the carrier. Losing it means you only have the ocean to land in.
Running out of fuel and trying to glide back to the carrier for a landing.
Having to intercept an Unidentified Flying Object and having to try to shoot it down.
Doing TARPS missions and having to fly directly over hostile bases.
Skipping through the aircraft in the game and watching the dragon fly around (or UFO) =P.

The game featured a branching campaign like Wing Commander, lose the initiative and you'll end up on missions protecting your carrier from enemy assaults. Too many failures and your task group will have to make a strategic withdrawl.
The squadron selection was a nice touch as you get to see the insignia on your plane.
The game is perfectly flyable with a keyboard, not something you can do these days.
This used an updated version of the 1942 Pacific Air War engine, which wasn't surpassed in graphics until around 2000. I spent hours staring at the models.

Great game.

One of the most important 90's flight-sims, created by one of the most important 90's flight-sim studios. F-14:FD is a study sim of said bird, with moderate-to-high complexity, particularly in the AWG-9 radar modelling and carrier landings. It was one of the benchmark simulations of its day (hard to believe that was 20 years ago as of this writing... where does the time go?) and while the sim's graphics are certainly a smeary, muddy 320x200 mess, the underlying game still holds up well. There's a campaign mode (blow the filthy Commie Scum out of the North Atlantic), scramble (quick mission builder) mode, and even a full mission builder.

Some caveats: first, this is a DOS game, running under DOSBox. I'm not sure if Night Dive Studios made any additional modifcations to the sim other than DOSBox settings, but I know from past experience that FD behaves well under DOSBox so there isn't any problem there. Still, you'll need to understand and futz with DOSBox settings if you want your joystick throttle to work. Second: this is a complex simulation, not a kick-the-tires-and-light-the-fires kind of deal. You will want to read the (hefty) game manual, and you need to understand that you're taking the role of TWO people in the Tomcat -- both the pilot and the RIO. The workload wasn't everyone's bag of tea even back in the 90's, when simheads were two-fisted men of iron and tobacco spit.

So should you, the reader, buy this game?
YES if you are deeply interested in how the (now-retired) Tomcat worked and fought, and don't mind aged (yet somehow still compelling) graphics. There will probably never be a better Turkey sim than this one.

NO if ancient textured polygons bother you, or you're not interested in a simulation more complex than War Thunder. Or are an Eagle pilot, which means you have other problems that nobody can help you with :)

Ahh the memories. Hard to believe this was state of the art
but for its' day it was and still is a fun game. Now if only someone
would put Jane's FA18 and F15 on Steam in playable shape ...

It was simply the best flight sim when i was like.. 5 and i used to play this with my dad.
its good to see this again on Steam.