Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991                   TAG: 9102050070
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Diane Duston/Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPUTER FLIGHT SIMULATORS TURN DESK JOCKEYS INTO `MODEM PILOTS'

They settle into the cockpits of their F-16 jet fighters and go head to head at altitudes of 10,000 to 30,000 feet until one of them smokes the other, sending him to the ground in a ball of flames.

Then they go back to work.

They're "modem pilots" who sit in desk chairs and dogfight on personal computers. And since real fighting began in the Persian Gulf war, more and more of them are realizing Walter Mitty fantasies from behind a desk.

Mike Weksler, 25, alias "Moondawg," a consultant for the computer network CompuServe, sets up dogfights for people all over the country. He said the number of people sending him inquiries about military simulations has tripled since the war began.

Some want to dogfight, others want to know which games to buy, he said. Only a few of the simulations can be played against a partner in another location through use of a modem, the computer device which allows two computers to communicate.

Many feature World War I and II aircraft. Some use tanks or submarines. All have brightly colored graphics and scenarios similar to actual combat. Simulation developers currently are updating their games to include actual events from the gulf war.

Endo, 33, whose real name is Mark Estephanian, describes a typical battle, complete with lingo:

"Moondawg approaches at 10,000 feet from 20 miles away.

"I shut my radar off and dive to the deck.

"He sees me dive and pulls straight up to 30,000 feet.

"I wait till we're separated by five miles, hit my after-burners and pull it straight up.

"Moondawg sees this maneuver and dives to meet me.

"We pass each other in the vertical. He split-s's after leveling out and I break left.

"I set up in a lag pursuit and pull a high-G yo-yo. I lock him up and fire a heat-seeking missile. He pumps flares, breaks hard left and pops his boards into a 9-G hard left turn. He blacks out and becomes a 1-G target. I nail him."

Spectrum HoloByte, the company that manufacturers one of Weksler and Estephanian's favorite games - Falcon AT - says it doesn't have sales figures for this month yet, but phone calls for information about the games have mushroomed since the war started.

Executives for Microprose Software Inc., another leading military simulation maker, says its sales have increased 35 percent since the United States began bombing Iraq.

"I enjoy the tactical aspect. I'm not a warmonger," said Estephanian. "This is the wave of the future in entertainment."

"We don't try to glorify war," said Liz Rich, Spectrum HoloByte spokeswoman. "It's more the realism of what it feels like to fly an F-16."

It's not kids' stuff either.

When the first video pictures released by the military of successful U.S. bombings in Iraq immediately were compared to Nintendo games, both the military and the makers of computer simulations were offended.

"It doesn't resemble Nintendo," said Microprose founder and President J.W. "Wild Bill" Stealey, a former Air Force fighter pilot. "Nintendo is right, left, flash. It's for young people."

Stealey, whose company makes the top-selling F-15 Strike Eagle and F-19 Stealth Fighter, say 99 percent of his customers are 25-to 55-year-old men.

"Flight simulators have replaced the golf putter in corporate America," said Weksler. "Guys take a lunch break, call up someone in New Jersey, blow them out of the sky and go back to work."

Tim Edwards, manager of a Washington, D.C., computer software store and member of the Air Force Reserve, attests to the simulations' authenticity.

"The fighter pilots I know are flight simulation fanatics," he said.