Sky Fighter

Sky Fighter is an electro-mechanical gun game manufactured by the International Mutoscope Reel Company of New York in March 1940. Its wartime aircraft-combat theme fit the tense pre-war atmosphere, and its gameplay was notably fast: an advertised 300 shots achievable in just half a minute. Despite that intensity, the cabinet had a compact footprint of just 30 by 23 inches.

As with many gun games of the period, Sky Fighter would have relied on electromechanical switches and relays rather than a ball-and-flipper layout (flippers did not yet exist). Its cabinet artwork reflected the aircraft-and-military theme common to gun games of the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The identity of Sky Fighter's designer and further details of its production run are not documented, but its rapid-fire gameplay and period aircraft theme make it a notable example of Mutoscope's coin-operated output on the eve of American involvement in World War II.