This article will cover the creation of the plane’s animation, camera, and HUD.

I’ve been playing Ace Combat and Project Wingman recently. This inspired me to write my own flight simulator using Unity3D. I wanted to make a flight sim with more depth than the arcade flight sims, while still being accessible.
You can think of realism as a spectrum. On one end is Ace Combat and at the other is more serious sims like Digital Combat Simulator. While researching I found Tiny Combat by Why485. This game sits somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, which is basically exactly what I want. The game requires the player to understand concepts like energy management without needing several semesters worth of classes to get the plane off of the ground. It’s got a pretty slick art style too.
So I set out to make my own. Here’s a demo based on what this blog series will cover: