This article is written with the Rise of Flight/Flying Circus community in mind but, it can be of interest to any PC gamer who is looking for a way to gain more immersion into their games.

Most all “flight-simmers,” myself included, have at one time or another run out of available buttons &/or switches on their joystick. Whether you have a simple joystick with a few buttons or an elaborate HOTAS with a multitude of buttons it seems as though we are always just one button short of what we need.

Because all joysticks have a finite number of buttons prioritizing them can turn into a challenging juggling exercise. By adding a program called, VoiceAttack, to your computer system your work load of trying to determine which flight management controls needs to go to what button can be simplified.

VoiceAttack is a small program that permits you to give verbal commands to your flight-sim program or, most any other PC game of your choosing. The software is simple to install and relatively painless to setup. If you have setup profiles for your games before, writing simple macros for your flight simulator games can become a breeze with just a little bit of practice.

For those virtual pilots venturing into the world of Virtual Reality VoiceAttack can be a great help. No longer will you have to blindly fumble for multiple key combinations on your keyboard to perform an action. By verbally speaking the command your hands can remain on your flight controls -- where they should be.

A user’s manual is available online (and, downloadable) if you would like to delve into learning more about how to construct “profiles” for your individual games. And, there are several tutorial videos on YouTube that can be helpful. Customer service is exceptional and the VoiceAttack website has a very active and responsive Forum.

As a preliminary, you will need to teach your computer how to understand your particular voice through the Windows, Microphone Setup and Speech Recognition programs. Both are relatively simple and should take you only about 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

An unlimited time trial version is available and recommended by the developers. Their idea is that you; “try-before-you-buy.” The trial version is limited to just one profile with only twenty commands.

VoiceAttack is compatible with Windows versions: Vista thru Windows 10.
A full version code key is available from their website HERE for $10. US
And, on Steam HERE for $11.99 US

The Steam version is more expensive and requires you to be signed into your account to use but, all version upgrades are automatically applied when they become available.

On 20 Nov 18, 1C/777 Studios released update (V3.007) for the IL-2 Great Battle Series simulator. This series includes the battles of: Bodenplatte, Moscow, Stalingrad, Kuban, Tank Crew and Flying Circus, which all use the same game engine.

Because this website provides information for the older WW1 Rise of Flight simulator we will try to keep you updated about changes coming to the newer WW1 Flying Circus simulator, as well.

All together there are 100+ additions and/or revisions in this version update. Please note: that not all of these changes affect the Flying Circus group so, those that are not specific to FC have not been included in the lists below. If you would like to view ALL of the 100+ changes they can be found on 1C/777 Studios website Here

Main Features
3. Sopwith Camel is available in you hangar.
4. Pfalz D.IIIa is available in your hangar.
10. Multiplayer: a kill will be awarded immediately only if an enemy pilot was killed, bailed out or the pilot’s aircraft is crumbled.
11. Multiplayer: a kill will not be awarded if a pilot manages to return and land at a friendly airfield (with the exception of item #12, below).
12. In mission statistics an aircraft will be scrapped only if is fuselage or a wing at its base has been ruptured.
13. More detailed damage modeling is used on simple (AI controlled) vehicles. It is now possible to damage engines, wheels, tracks, ammunition racks and injure crew members.

Multiplayer changes
14. Engine sounds of other players planes will not randomly disappear.
15. Gunfire sounds of other players planes will not randomly disappear.
16. Network traffic generated by multiplayer clients has been optimized which should improve the performance of multiplayer servers.
17. Other players position prediction routine has been optimized resulting in a smoother multiplayer experience.
18. The delay between a player pushing the fire button and other players actually seeing his aircraft fire has been minimized to the best possible extent.
19. Other players gun convergence displayed correctly.
21. Server ping values appear correctly in the server list.
22. The coalition flag in the game world switches correctly.
23. Binary mission logs are now saved correctly (needed for mission stats debugging).
24. An exploit linked to navigation markers on the fullscreen map has been fixed.

Visual changes
27. Frames Per Second (FPS) in forest areas with lots of trees visible has been improved a lot thanks to the tree rendering optimization.
28. Aerobatics smoke effect has been improved.
29. Wrong “black debris” effect issue while hitting enemy planes has been addressed.
30. Distant forests will not appear too white in morning or evening fog.
31. Water drops now appear on the pilot goggles in Virtual Reality (VR).
32. Dripping water on windshield has been removed during winter (unrealistic).
33. Oil drops from the damaged engine will appear on the pilot’s goggles only if he peeks out around the windshield.
34. Engine start effect has been improved.
35. New: Flying Circus aircraft have the fire and leak effects like the rest.
36. Mission designers can place colored smoke signals in custom missions.

GUI changes
39. Starting altitude should not reset in Quick Mission Builder (QMB).
40. Wrong aircraft type in QMB has been fixed.
41. Air turbulence and wind direction randomness works correctly in QMB.
42. Wind direction randomness near the ground works correctly in QMB.
43. Precipitation during bad weather works correctly in QMB.
44. Mission track records will be named correctly.
45. Mouse pointer will not disappear after opening Settings menu while replaying a recorded track.
46. GUI should no longer flash after an Alt-Tab.
48. Speed tool-tip appears correctly while hovering the mouse cursor over a waypoint.
50. Chat messages delay in singleplayer has been corrected.
51. A possible crash bug tied to changing settings during a mission has been fixed.
52. Technochat has been optimized making the game smoother in many situations.
53. Technochat tips have been moved to the main chat area.

Field Mods (FM) and instruments changes
55. Aircraft fuel tanks may detonate (the probability depends on the amount of fuel left).
56. Fuel tank explosion correctly nullifies the fuel reserve.
57. You need a greater sideslip motion to evade the fire on Flying Circus aircraft.
58. Collimator reticles have improved appearance.
60. In addition to critical aircraft damage or loss of controls on one axis (lateral or longitudinal) the tip suggesting to bail out will appear in the following additional cases:
a. no fuel left.
b. engine damage makes horizontal flight impossible.
c. fire onboard.
67. Bailing out tip added for Fokker Dr.1.
68. Indication errors corrected in Fokker Dr.I fuel and speed gauges.
69. Fokker Dr.I and SPAD 13.C1 descriptions corrected.
70. Bomb lever delay fixed on SPAD 13.C1.
71. The default amount of fuel in GUI corrected for different aircraft.
72. Detail for all Flying Circus airplanes colliding with the ground improved.
73. Fokker Dr.I and SPAD 13.C1 visual damage appearance corrected.
74. SPAD 13.C1 erroneous speed, water, temperature and fuel tank pressure readings corrected.
75. SPAD 13.C1 upper wing fuel tank leak and fire effects added.
76. SPAD 13.C1 bombs can only be dropped in sequence.
77. Oil leak effect added to all Flying Circus planes.

AI changes
78. AI fighters, AA guns, etc., will continue to engage a target even if critically damaged.
79. AI planes pursuing a target evades the ground better.
80. AI wingmen following the leader evades the ground better.
81. AI pilots check their speed and altitude before attempting a Split-S and downward spiral maneuvers.
82. AI maneuver more efficiently after passing each other in a dogfight.
83. AI wingmen keep formation a bit better.

Other changes
88. Pilots bailing out from Flying Circus planes are animated better.
90. Sound volume balance between engine and wind has been adjusted.
91. The issue when the first login attempt resulted in a failure message has been addressed.
92. Burning fuel tanks sound added.
93. Mouse control pointer (in mouse control mode) won't disappear if aircraft suffers heavy damage.
96. Steam locomotive explosion power has been reduced.