Flight

Flight, produced by Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) of Chicago in November 1938, is a flipperless electro-mechanical game with an aviation and aerial warfare theme - a popular subject in the years when flight still carried an air of adventure and the world was watching the skies with growing unease.

Gameplay followed the standard formula of the era: 5 balls for 5 cents, with each ball launched in turn onto the playfield. What set Flight apart was its presentation. The game was advertised as having a "new-type light-up playing field," and period pictures suggest the playfield carried around twenty illuminating posts rather than conventional passive bumpers - an eye-catching approach to playfield lighting for 1938.

No designer credits or detailed documentation for Flight have survived, leaving much of its creative history a mystery. Still, its aviation theme and unusual illuminated playfield make it an interesting entry in ESCO's late-1930s catalog and a small marker in the pre-war evolution of pinball presentation.