F/A-18 Hornet 3.0 is Graphic Simulation Corp (GSC)'s first flight sim released on PC, and it is a very realistic and highly underrated sim.
Jim Pedicord's review for CD Mag explains why die-hard armchair pilots should take a look:
"Every so often an unheralded product will show up that turns out to be a real eye-opener. F/A-18 Hornet 3.0 is Graphic Simulations Corporation’s first foray into the PC sim market and it is a very pleasant surprise. Not that GSC is lacking in sim experience, having released three successful versions of the F/A-18 on the Macintosh.
Designed for the experienced flight sim pilot this product has most all the standard features you have come to expect in a flight sim and more. Detail is the name of game in Hornet 3.0 and with three previous iterations to build on most have been thoroughly addressed. From the fresnel lens system ("meatball") on the carrier to the beautiful full-screen cockpit display complete with moving maps and digital displays, even the minute details are carefully portrayed. Everything from inlet temperature to engine vibration is monitored on the Digital Display Indicators (DDIs) and the amount of information available can be overwhelming.
Of course with all the detail involved, this sim ends up being somewhat complex and could be quite daunting for a beginner. The manual, which is rather short and desperately needs an index and glossary, is laid out and reads like an actual Department of Defense document. To help get you up to speed there are excellent tutorials built right into the sim, covering such topics as carrier landings, air-to-ground attacks, and navigation. These training tutorials come up on a mock TV/VCR and give actual sim camera footage as well as informative blackboard diagrams to help explain various aspects of the F/A-18.
Do not be fooled by the slightly outdated graphics; the flight model on this baby is excellent and after several hours of flying around you can almost imagine you are in the real thing. Landing on the carrier for the first time with the Landing Signal Officer giving you verbal directions as you focus on the meatball is quite an exhilarating experience. There is great sense of engine power when flying around, especially when you kick in the afterburners and get the satisfying muffled roar; the little details are what make this sim fun.
I cannot ever remember playing another sim where I was waved off on a landing because of traffic on the flight deck. Most all features that are routinely expected in a flight sim are present in this one: video replays, multiple views including padlock, network and modem play, taxiing on runways, excellent control of wingmen, radio messages and a wide variety of ordnance. HARMs make an appearance in this sim as well as a few tactical nukes, all assigned on a very well designed ordnance screen.
Though a great deal of attention was spent on details there some general areas that are lacking. First and most important are the number of missions; there [are] only 28, playable as a single campaign or individually. Though there are also six multiplayer and training missions, there is no mission builder/editor and thus the hard drive "life" of this sim may turn out to be rather short. Mission briefings are also short and non-descriptive, with no detailed maps or information given out. Debriefing consist of only a dot-matrix print-out to the screen showing number of kills; very life-like but not that useful, especially when compared to other sims. Missions tend to be very difficult with plenty of SAMs to make life difficult and an enemy pilot AI that can be very challenging in a dogfight.
F/A-18 Hornet 3.0 is an excellent flight sim for someone looking for a serious and challenging flying experience. Though a little short on missions and slightly dated graphically, it is fun, interesting, and full of surprises. GSC has made a solid entrance into the world of PC simulators."
If you like the game, check out the superior sequel F/A-18 Korea also on this site.
Review By HOTUD
English 
Comments and reviews
The portable repack worked great with my modern flight stick. I did have to go into my "set up usb controllers" page and set my stick as the default; before, the game wouldn't register my inputs at all. Now, it registers all the axis that comes on a stick-only thrustmaster: x, y, rudder twist, and throttle.
https://archive.org/download/game-gallery/01.%20FA-18%20Hornet%203.0/
Thanks PETC for the repack.
I noticed sometimes it would fail to Exit Mission (Shift-ESC) properly, so I added dgVoodoo2 and it seems to solve that.
One other thing I noticed is after Exiting a mission and going back to the main menu, the mouse selection area is cropped to game engine's 1024x768 pixel frame, but this is fixed by a quick ALT-Tab.
For dgVooDoo2, I just copied the following files to the game directory.
dgVoodoo.conf, dgVoodooCpl.exe
From MS x86 folder copy: DDraw.dll, D3DImm.dll, D3D8.dll, D3D9.dll
I kept the original game aspect ratio by editing the dgVoodoo.conf
ScalingMode = stretched_ar
Blast from the past!!
how can i play on windows 11?
beside f18 , what else aircraft can we fly in this game?
i was running this last year on a virtual winxp through oracle box , but has anyone figured out the network gameplay? would be epic to get a server running for team missions and dogfights
The repack works great in Win10. I also had problems with memory error and the training missions not working but I solved it using djvodoo2 as a wrapper.
Repack working on Windows 7 mostly. I am having issues getting the training missions or selecting a theater. Anyone else seeing that or have a workaround?
The repack version works on Windows 11 for me (Thank you PETC!), but I initially got an out of memory error from the in-game fax machine thing whenever trying to start a mission. Solved by running the program as administrator and enabling windows xp compatibility, in case that helps anyone.
ARCLINE: I do still check back here occasionally! Unfortunately I've never played this game multiplayer. Because of that I never even tried to get it working online or start a network game. I'll spend some time trying my luck this weekend and if I learn anything I'll let you know.
PETC, I hope you see this. I'm trying to connect with DirectPlay on Network. While I can see my hosted network games, I am unable to select a team to join. I am running both copies on a LAN through TCP/IP For DirectPlay. Do you have any idea why? Game is running perfectly otherwise, thank you!
Hi, any one mind sharing how to play this game on Windows 10? I am a newbie
I've been able to successfully install the game on Ubuntu with Wine, but I am not able to fly any missions because of the CD copy protection. I actually have the ISO mounted, so I'm not sure why I'm getting this error. Does anyone know any way around this?
CTEP: I wasn't able to edit my post unfortunately but I did manage to find a way to get a hold of them and I believe my download is listed as "Portable Repack for x64 Systems"
We all know the ISO download is corrupted and the 9mb download is a 16-bit installer that requires quite a lot of fussing to get to install on WIN10 64. Over the past few days I have been collecting versions from as many places as I can to try and compile a working version of Hornet 3.0 on Windows 10. I've succeeded. All movies are working and the game seems to run with little to no issues. One issue I've run into is when ejecting and letting the game end the mission itself the game locks up. This can be avoided by pressing SHIFT + ESC after ejecting to manually abort the mission. How do I get in contact with someone here to make this archive available to everyone else?
Graphsim's F/A-18 3.0 was the most realistic F/A-18 combat flight simulator of its time (c. 1995 for the Mac, c. 1997 for the PC). I had seen screenshots of this in a late '90s Computer Gaming World magazine, but wasn't initially impressed (texture mapped graphics were all the rage). But when I saw this at a friend's house and tried it, I became hooked on the super-crisp flight model and graphics. The stunning 2D cockpit is a true work of art. The 3D graphics, even while not texture mapped, still made good use of lighting/shading and could run at 1024x768 (a huge deal in the late 1990s). The high resolution and lighting effects, combined with the polygonal models, were so well done that the sim's graphics actually looked better than competitive flight sims which offered texture-mapped graphics. The sim's video tutorials are easy to follow. For a high-fidelity combat flight simulator, the keyboard commands are very easy to learn and retain. While a PDF manual is available, I highly recommend finding a boxed copy with a physical manual and keyboard reference. In my experience, this sim is best run in Windows 9x/ME or XP using Daemon Tools to mount the CD-ROM image. I have been able to run this in Windows 10, but on a much older machine (a ThinkPad T60, with ATI Radeon x1400 graphics), and with graphical issues. The sim's frame rate is locked at either 10 or 20 FPS (set by the user), though I wish 30 or 60 FPS were also available. This works very well with both USB and legacy MIDI-style 15-pin joysticks. This sim is fantastic, and offers a very good networked multiplayer experience. Its only real drawbacks are the lack of midair refueling and a dynamic campaign. Still, the missions offer plenty of variety, and the enemy AI skill levels offer a decent amount of replay value.
i havent been able to get it installed in windows 10, but i could install and run it easily in an emulated windows 98se in Oracle VM - there is a good guide on the youtube channels nevets for getting windows 98se working on Oracle VM as a virtual environment and doing it right so that it performs well.
I got a corrupted iso image from the download. Such a shame as I really enjoyed this game on the mac
If this works It will be a godsend. I still have the original disc and "flight manual" that came with the game.
airplane and tanks
This game is the business
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.