Release Notes

The approach guide line

A ribbon now shows the approach path down — to the carrier, to the painted deck, to a plain runway — all the way to the touchdown point.

It shows you where to fly, and its colour tells you what to do with your speed: red means slow down, blue means speed up. It appears on NORMAL only, and you can switch it off from the button in flight or from Settings.

Please note that the ribbon is a path the game calculates, not necessarily the right line for the moment — always fly by what the situation in front of you calls for.

A tactical map

A radar rose in the top corner, a full-screen map, and a live HSD in the cockpit — all three are the same map. The rose and the HSD show the next gate and the one after it.

Drag to pan the full map, pinch to zoom, tap the rose to step its range.

New view and quality options

The chase camera can hold the horizon, so the picture no longer rolls through a loop or a continuous roll and you keep your bearings. The view button now cycles chase, chase with the horizon held, and cockpit.

Settings has a new Game tab for the instructor radio and the guide line, and graphics quality and render resolution are now two separate choices.

A sharper cockpit

The HUD now sits on the combiner glass: the HUD horizon lies on the real horizon, and the flight path marker points where you are actually going.

The canopy tint seen from the seat is lighter for a brighter view, and the throttle gauge has a lever knob — the bar and the number are the engine’s actual output, the knob is where you put the lever, so you can watch the engine catch up.

Valley runs sized to the difficulty

The two low-level valley runs (SOUTHERN ALPS and AZUSA VALLEY) now change length with the difficulty you pick.

Also

• A one-time trailer plays on first launch — skippable, and replayable from the menu any time
• Clearer gate marker pulsing
• The stick sensitivity curve is now a −5 to +5 slider
• The rudder band shows before you touch it
• View distance tuned per stage
• An OVERSPEED warning when a dive passes the airframe’s limit
• A feedback window you can open from the menu any time

A rebuilt virtual pad

Three control layouts, each tunable in Settings. You choose where the rudder lives — pedals beside the throttle, pedals above the stick, or sharing the stick’s horizontal axis. The game asks once, on your first sortie, and the on-screen pad rebuilds itself as you pick, so you decide by looking at the real thing.

Settings is now full-screen with three tabs (controls, graphics, audio): how wide the rudder band is when it shares the stick, the stick sensitivity curve, the input mode (virtual pad / gamepad / auto), and three volume sliders.

Tapping the edge of the stick no longer snaps to full deflection — where you put your finger down is now zero. And the throttle commands the position you put the lever at.

More polished missions

The takeoff drill is clearer. It no longer fails you for touching the throttle out of turn — it shows you the procedure instead and lights up the control you need next, and the control check is split into pitch, roll and rudder.

The three valley runs are much longer.

Par times and the radar ceiling were re-measured by actually flying them. The low-level runs are now scored on four axes — how low you held it, gate precision, stealth and time.

And CARRIER LANDING on NORMAL is free again.

Badges and a squadron board

27 patches that fill in as you work through the syllabus, with an award card each time you earn one. Your debrief shows how the rest of the class did and where you placed. The board is opt-in, and the only thing it shows is your callsign — no free text, no chat.

Your record follows you

Sign in to Game Center and your badges survive a reinstall or a new device. We never ask you to sign in.

Also

• The prologue now says something when it beats you three times
• Labels that stayed in Japanese on English devices are fixed
• CLASS BOARD headings show mission names instead of stage ids

New: cockpit view

A fully modelled first-person cockpit — instrument panel, canopy, and a HUD projected onto the combiner glass in front of you, not pasted on the screen. Turn your head and the symbology slides with the world; pull g and your head goes with the jet.

A prologue and six chapters

A story prologue, and the missions rebuilt into a 25-stage training course with an all-new chapter and stage select.

Land-base training — 10 missions at Matsushima AB

Fly the whole thing: takeoff, circuit, approach, touchdown, full stop. Plus touch-and-go and wire traps on a painted deck marked out on the runway. Land-base missions go from one to ten.

Your instructor on the radio

In-flight callouts and coaching, across every mission.

A richer world

Real building footprints, trees and far terrain, greatly expanded.

Graduation

Complete the course and earn your wings, with a ceremony.

Also

• A one-line “do this next” guide on the HUD
• A view picker on first run
• Time-of-day and cloud knobs, plus music preview, in FREE FLIGHT
• Distance-aware engine audio
• A redesigned title screen

Difficulties unlock in order

Instead of every difficulty being available at once, clearing NORMAL opens HARD, and clearing HARD opens ACE. The purchase screen now says so, too.

A new opening for the formation chapter

The first mission of the formation chapter is now wingman station-keeping rather than aerial refueling. Refueling is the hardest thing in that chapter, which made it the wrong place to start.

Also

• Terrain data the game never loaded was dropped from the bundle, cutting the app’s size substantially

The first release on the App Store.

An authentic flight model

Angle-of-attack based physics, so holding a banked turn with back pressure emerges from the equations rather than a script. Roll is rate-command with no auto-leveling, and inverted flight is possible. Control response scales with airspeed, so the jet gets heavy when slow.

Assists live in the display, never in the controls. The FLOLS meatball, steering cues and gate rings guide you without flying for you.

Three mission categories

• CARRIER QUAL — carrier landings from calm daylight to crosswind, night traps and touch-and-go. Scored 0–100 on sink rate, centerline, wire and AoA
• WAYPOINT FLYING — offshore gate slaloms and low-level runs through real Japanese terrain. Stay under the radar, hide behind ridgelines, follow the river
• FORMATION FLIGHT — hold position behind a tanker’s boom, and fly formation

NORMAL / HARD / ACE

Difficulty rises through the environment — night, rain, fog, crosswind — and stricter judging. On ACE you manage the landing gear and afterburner fuel yourself.

Weather, replays and free flight

Clear, overcast or night skies, rain, fog, wind direction and speed — the same stage never feels the same twice. Every flight is recorded end to end, so you can review your traps from the LSO’s platform or a chase camera. Clear every mission at NORMAL rank to unlock free flight, with music.