Take to the skies with a vengeance — Atari’s Airborne Avenger is a fascinating slice of pinball history, a solid-state four-player from the video-game giant’s short-lived but memorable venture into the flipper business. The pedigree here is remarkable: it was designed by a young Steve Ritchie, who would go on to become one of pinball’s most legendary designers, with software by Eugene Jarvis, the future video-game icon behind Defender and Robotron, and art by George Opperman, the man who created Atari’s famous logo. With an approximate run of 3,420, it’s a genuine collector’s curiosity.
The layout is a busy, feature-rich early-solid-state spread: two flippers, three pop bumpers, a pair of slingshots, four standups, two kick-out holes, star rollovers, a spinning target, a captive ball, a left kickback lane, dual outlanes, and a free ball return lane. In standard mode, the central objective is to spell AIRBORNE AVENGER for an extra ball, giving a focused player a clear goal to chase across that combat-themed playfield. It’s an aggressive, well-appointed machine that hints at the design talent that would soon reshape the whole industry.
Airborne Avenger is a must-know for anyone fascinated by pinball’s history and the crossover between the arcade video and flipper worlds. That Ritchie-Jarvis-Opperman lineup is the stuff of legend, making this Atari-era machine a genuine piece of the story. For the collector who values pedigree and rarity, it’s a treasure. Spell out the name, work that captive ball and spinner, and chase the extra ball. It’s a spirited, historic machine from the dawn of some very famous careers, and it still flies just fine today.