Name: Air Fighter - エアーファイター
Year: 1970
Company: 関西精機 (Kansai Seiki — Kasco)
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Air Fighter seems to have a bootleg version, Phantom-F-108.
Here is a message received from collector S Schrock about their Air Fights:
I’ve had a love for arcades and video games ever since the first time I played an Atari 2600 at a friend’s house. The year was 1982. I was 8 years old then. My friend’s parents took us to an arcade center one day, and I nearly died. I had NO IDEA that this type of electronic game entertainment existed on our planet. I was in absolute bliss. Fast forward 40 years, and I find myself with this uncontrollable passion to start collecting arcades! To relive the glory days of my childhood.Along my arcade hunting journeys, I came across an odd yet extremely attractive arcade machine. An arcade that was so rare, so vintage, and so unique that apparently it’s said to only exist in a quantity of no greater than around 10 units throughout the entire US. This arcade machine is called the Kasco Air Fighter from Japan. It’s based on the electro-mechanical (EM) technology of which came onto the scene in the mid 1960s-1970s. This was the period of the electro-mechanical golden age.Kasco was one of the first companies in Japan to make their own electro-mechanical games. The company was founded in 1955 by an engineer named Kenzou Furukawa. The name “KASCO” was shortened down from “Kansei Seiki Seisakusho”. One of these Kasco arcade machines could easily run you upwards of 800,000 yen back then ($8,000). Which was MORE than the price of a Toyota Corolla (600,000 yen/$6,000)!!The beauty of electro-mechanical technology is the mesh between simplicity and complexity, and the amazing fun factor. There are no digital graphic images/monitors, no digital sounds. Simplistic. Yet the electronic make-up of the wiring, circuitry, imaging projections, and amazing sound creation is quite impressive to say the least, and leaves so much to be appreciated. When I dropped a quarter into the coin slot, I was greeted with a cockpit and instrument panel that lit up and a rotating electronic lighted radar on the instrument panel. The depth of the cockpit looked about 3 feet deep! The illusion this machine creates is unreal. And then I saw several jet fighters fly across the background/sky, but in different formations, flying in different directions, and in different depths. Wow, I don’t know how Kasco pulled that off. VERY cool. And then I pulled the flight stick down a bit, pulled the machine gun trigger, and Da Da Da Da Da! Da Da Da Da Da! Crisp, loud, powerful, machine gun sound effects. Something that really needs to be witnessed in order to be appreciated. And if you get lucky enough to shoot down a jet fighter, BOOOOOM! Once again, the sound will blow you away. And your score is kept during play with the ultimate goal of reaching the status of ACE, which grants you another play through.So yeah, I feel absolutely blessed to have stumbled upon this Kasco Air Fighter arcade machine and to have had the opportunity to learn about this great, and somewhat forgotten technology that was light years ahead of its time, and to have learned about the history of its creation.
Many more pictures and video provided by S Shrock:
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