Ace of Aces

My all-time favorite aerial combat game is Ace of Aces. 

Each game included two booklets, each representing a single aircraft. The Handy Rotary edition featured a Sopwith Camel vs. a Fokker Triplane. Players chose maneuvers; then there was a neat little algorithm which took you to a page in the book. The page showed you the view from your plane’s cockpit.

The Allied pilot gets a shot at the Hun

I loved this game and played it to death in high school (even during some really boring classes). Unfortunately, it doesn’t really lend itself to multiplayer games. Years ago, I decided I wanted to transfer Ace of Aces to a board game. I managed to translate the maneuvers to a hex-based movement template.

The letters on the template refer to a maneuver as labeled in the Ace of Aces Balloon Buster set. The starting position and facing is shown by the colored arrow and the other arrows display the final position and facing based on the maneuver.

With this template, I think it would be possible to play Ace of Aces as a multiplayer board game or pbem (play by e-mail) game.