Three more seats

September 30, 2026 · feature

The Spitfire, the P-38 and the B-17 had the only seats in the house. Now the Bf 109, the Fw 190 and the Corsair have theirs: press C in any of them and the chase camera gives way to the cockpit, dial by dial, with a gunsight on the glass that shows where your rounds go.

Six cockpits now

Three of the hangar's newcomers now have their cockpits built out: the Bf 109 G, the Fw 190 A-8 and the F4U Corsair. Press C (or VIEW on a phone) in any of them and you're in the seat, the same as in the Spitfire, the P-38 and the B-17. Your own airframe flies on around you. The canopy you see from outside steps aside for the one you're sitting under, and the prop turns into the faint disc a pilot actually sees.

The view from a Bf 109's cockpit: a heavy grey windscreen frame with knee braces in the corners, the Revi gunsight on top of a grey instrument panel with an amber ring and cross on its glass, and a smoking cobalt bomber inside the ring with two more in formation beyond — The Bf 109's cockpit, coming down on a Cobalt bomber box. The lead is in the ring and smoking.

The Revi's broken cross

Both German fighters fly behind a Revi 16B. Its amber ring is crossed by a cross that breaks around the pip, as the Luftwaffe's was. The pip in the gap is where your burst meets: 320 metres out for the 109's hub cannon, 330 for the 190's wing cannon. Your guns sit below your eyes and the rounds drop on the way out, so the pip rides just under the middle of the windscreen. Put it on a bandit at that range and the burst goes there.

The 109's cockpit is narrow and boxy, and you sit behind a sight that's off to the right of the panel's middle, so your head is a hand's width right of the centreline. The Revi's glass is the biggest of the six, so its ring is the widest.

The Fw 190 puts you far back over the wing root, under a clear bubble hood, with a long cowl ahead. Its Revi sits low on the coaming, so its ring is small and the arms of the cross run out long either side. The gold lead diamond still tells you where a crossing target will be: put the pip on the diamond.

The view from an Fw 190's cockpit, banked left over green hills: a dark windscreen frame, a smoking cobalt fighter inside the small amber ring of the gunsight, and the black instrument panel below — The Fw 190's cockpit: a Cobalt Mustang reefs left through the ring, trailing smoke.

Down past the Corsair's nose

The Corsair sits you a long way behind its engine, and the nose ahead of you is huge. Its Mk 8 sight sits low on the coaming, so you fly ducked down a little behind it, the way Corsair pilots did. From there the orange ring floats clear in the middle of the glass, with range bars either side. The pip is where the fifties meet, 300 metres out past the gull wing's knees.

The view from a Corsair's cockpit low over a blue sea: a round black windscreen arch, a leather crash pad around the top of the instrument panel, the round Mk 8 gunsight with an orange ring and a cobalt bomber inside it, tracers streaking past on the right and a carrier on the horizon to the left — The Corsair's cockpit, low over the Brick Sea: a Cobalt Ju 88 in the ring, the fifties' tracers walking up his tail.

The Mustang, the Warhawk, the twins, the bombers and the jets are still waiting for their cockpits. Press C in one of them and the HUD tells you which airframes have a seat.