History VideoGame / JanesUSAF

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Being a flight simulator, certain abnormal flying conditions are realistically represented. Such as
** Think you can level off at any altitude, leave the controls alone and expect to fly straight and level till eternity? Not!! Your airplane will eventually run out of fuel, lose engine power, stall out and crash. But long before that, your airplane will be subjected to pitch oscillations which might cause you to crash or stall out.
** Go ahead!! Fly your aircraft up to its max service ceiling then try to climb just a bit higher! Now enjoy the stall and downward spiral before you crash.
** Yeeeessss!! Go ahead and load one wing more than the other wing by making it carry heavier bombs. Now see if you can maintain control of your aircraft!!
** Go right ahead and disobey those orders prohibiting you from entering a Demilitarized Zone in the Vietnam mission "The DMZ Deception". Congratulations YouAreGrounded.
** Go on, load your planes up with AMRAAM or AIM-9X missiles and waste them shooting down enemy fighters. You'll [[TemptingFate never ever run out of them, right?]] Wrong!! You may have to settle for the less effective AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. Use them all up too, and your final mission may have to be done with only your gun.
** Let your wingmen or your Buick and Corvette flights get shot down. You'll always be given the required complement of wingmen right? Not!! Lose too many wingmen, and you'll have to fly further missions without them.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent / DownloadableContent: The "Thunderbirds" expansion pack has you flying aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude over a runway, just like pilots do at air shows. The maneuvers you fly are the life-saving Split-S, the Cuban 8 and the AwesomeButImpractical Inverted to Inverted.

* TimedMission: The Khe Sanh mission, the first three missions of the Red Arrow campaign are all missions with hidden timers. Even “Fasten Seat Belts”, as well as the two downed pilot rescue missions in Vietnam and Desert Storm respectively have hidden timers - take too long and enemy ground units capture the downed pilots (or passengers), failing the mission. Then there is the Scud Busting mission in Desert Storm - dither too much and “It’s a bloody scud! And it’s heading for Tel Aviv!”

* UnwinnableByMistake: Be too cavalier about wasting your wingmen and missiles, and you may end up flying the final missions of the two campaigns by your lonesome with only your gun. This will put you at a severe disadvantage against enemy fighters and at the best case, you may end up "Winchester" - with absolutely no ammunition to finish the mission.

* RealityEnsues: Being a flight simulator, certain abnormal flying conditions are realistically represented. Such as

* BuzzIngTheTower: The training mission where you learn wingman commands has you do this. And the instructor chews you out until you do it “right”.

* DifficultySpike: Occurs during the "Guided Weapons" and "Night Operations" training missions. The guided weapons training starts off easy - the JDAM is a simple fire and forget glide bomb, the AGM-65 Maverick is a fire and forget ground attack missile, and then you have to guide the AGM-130 TV guided glide bomb to its target. Being a glide bomb, you don't have the same control authority on it, as you would with a rocket powered missile, so it handles ''extremely'' sluggish. And you are flying it in rugged hilly terrain, making it easy to crash into a rock face before reaching its target. To top it off, the game [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard throws you a curveball by marking the wrong vehicle as your designated target]]. Glide your bomb to the vehicle marked with an encircled T and [[spoiler: you only destroy a missile launcher, missing the intended target and failing the mission. You must recognize that the [[AttackItsWeakPoint mobile radar platform is the target you must hit, and guide your glide bomb accordingly]]]]
** The Night Operations mission has you practice laser guided bomb usage with both active and passive target designation. Then you must successfully land that plane. At night without a lot of visual cues that would otherwise help you flare the aircraft correctly.

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: You can shoot down friendly aircraft willy nilly with no comeuppance. Shooting down the tanker in the “Air Refueling” training mission only gets you grounded and dismissed, while shooting down Air Force One only results in a mission failure.

* TimedMission: The Khe Sanh mission, the first three missions of the Red Arrow campaign are all missions with hidden timers.