Spectate with your ears: an engine note for every ride 715f0f9
Spectate mode (J) used to be a silent film. Now every aircraft you ride sounds like itself, three voices crossfaded by type:
- Jets — the Hornet, Tomcat, Viper, Eagle, Warthog, MiG, Flanker and the air wing’s jets — reuse the recorded Amiga engine loops, pitch following speed.
- Airliners get a turbofan whine, synthesized fresh: two detuned high sines over a band of compressor hiss that rises with speed. Ride a Liberty 737 up the approach and it sings exactly like the cheap seats.
- Props get a whirr — the E-2, the C-2 and the P-3, plus all four helicopters: twin blade-pass saws beating against each other the way two turboprops do, over low rumble.
- Ships, the carrier and missiles stay quiet — some rides have no engine note to give.
- Notifications come with you. Important messages — radio calls, trap calls, warnings — now print on-screen under the spectate title instead of staying home in the cockpit bar. They ride on-screen in the cockpit view too, no longer confined to the little strip in the panel.