Two organized multiplayer events in the IL-2/Rise of Flight community have decided to go back to Rise of Flight from Flying Circus. If you wanted to check out and get a feel for what Rise of Flight was like in its heyday, now may be a great time.

Two ways to play

There are currently two different multiplayer organizations that are planning events using the venerable Rise of Flight. A sim that I called ahead of its time, it has aged well and still looks and performs well on modern systems although it is falling behind when it comes to features like VR and 4K textures it still offers plenty of enjoyment.

The organizers of the long running ‘Flanders in Flames’ multiplayer event have switched over to Rise of Flight for their campaign after running a poll a few weeks ago. The event is likely to begin on October 10, 2020 at 2:00 pm eastern North American time and features a varied aircraft set from the late war period.

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If you wanted to get involved, you can look at the thread here on the Rise of Flight forums for more information.

The Syndicate Vintage missions is set to resume Rise of Flight experiences again as well. They announced yesterday that they would be running missions starting on the 20th of September with a 16:00GMT start time and running earlier in the day before the regularly scheduled Flying Circus Sunday Furball gets underway. No.42_Cuban took the forum to also say,

I’d like to make very clear, this is not an attempt to drive people away from Flying Circus, nor to drive people away from the Jasta5 Flugpark Sunday event and create a division in the WWI flight sim community.

Bringing back the Vintage Mission server is simply providing to our small community what is a viable, working WWI sim that gives us wide ranging options in terms of maps, early-mid-late aircraft sets and historical missions.  FC is a work in progress with great potential and hopefully we are only in the early days of the sim, but in the meantime there is nothing wrong with using what we have. 

No.42_Cuban

Rise of Flight vs Flying Circus?

Most of you who read Stormbirds know that I’m a big fan of Flying Circus and still hold out strong hopes that it will stay strong and keep on going well into the future. Just last Thursday I was online flying a combination of aircraft including the Fokker D.VIII and having a great time of it. Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons with Flying Circus remain a busy and fun time to everyone who joins and player numbers have stabilized around 30-40 during these sessions. It’s enough to get into some great battles.

Rise of Flight is still absolutely a brilliant sim but I see it as the past. Should nothing more happen with Flying Circus I can see it’s life being prolonged for a while more with plenty to like about the variety and scope of the older sim. Right now it seems that WWI fans are faced with a choice of newer technology with some teething issues with the damage model and an older and well known sim – one that also has a few issues and has some signs of age but which also still offers a great experience.

I can see this being a source of tension for some time to come. Either way, good WWI multiplayer experiences are out there on both sims and that’s good for virtual pilots.