Queen of the Skies
The 747 was a bold move for Boeing in the mid 1960s. The military had placed many aircraft manufacturers to task to design a large transport aircraft to fulfill its heavy-lift needs. While Boeing lost that contract to Lockheed, the exercise was to prove fruitful for Boeing in the long run as they brought their design to market with Pan Am as a launch customer in 1969. Nothing had been so large, so ambitious and so costly to Boeing or to commercial aviation than the 747.
Ralph Toffelmire and Ralph's Panelshop undertook the similarly extensive project of bringing the "queen of the skies" to our desktops for Flight Simulator 2000. So many features present in this aircraft and panel package are groundbreaking and innovative that this project was close to a year in the making and had to be modified as Flight Simulator went through a version shift during the course of making this package. Known for his freeware and commercial work on panels for the Boeing 737-300, McDonnell-Douglas MD-80, and Dassault Falcon, Ralph and his team have collaborated to bring the most complex and demanding package for heavy aircraft to Flight Simulator yet.
Before we continue some words should be said about this package and its complexity. A visit to Ralph's web site will give you all the warning you need about this package. This
package is based on the the hard work of Ralph and a cast of support or
contracted contributors that reads like a who's who of flight simulation
developers: Chraig Mosher and Laemming Wheeler (visual modeling), Hans
Van Whye (flight dynamics modeling), Chris Koegler and Harry Greier
(gauge programming) and a team of consultants and beta testers of whom
many are operators of the real aircraft. All of this work and effort
has produced a product that is high in fidelity to the operation of the
real aircraft and one that feels solid. This is a large commercial
aircraft, one that you would not just kick the tires and light the
fires with. Having some experience with flight simming in
large aircraft, navigation and airspace procedures, and patience to read
and reread the manual are essential to derive full benefit out of this
package. Those who ignore this will not reap full enjoyment and will
become very frustrated. This cannot be emphasized enough.
The Aircraft
So what of this beast?
How does it fly? I spent more time hand-flying this aircraft in the pattern than
would a captain in the real world. This aircraft is operated—like
most transport category aircraft—almost entirely on autopilot
700ft - 1000ft AGL. The control response in this aircraft is heavy, which is
appropriate for the 747, and this makes for a very realistic experience
with excellent handling. This heavy feel also forces the pilot to
plan his next move and stay ahead of the aircraft. The throttles are
sensitive, with the N1 and N2 gauges on the panel reading off precise
readings to factions of percentages. As with the real aircraft,
throttle adjustments require some delay for the engines to spool up and
the N1, N2 and EPR gauges will all vacillate for a short period after
adjustments. The Attitude Director Indicator (ADI) is very smooth
and enhances the controllability of this aircraft.
In all the pattern work I did, approach speeds made according to those
published in the manual provided a reasonable approach angle with good
visibility, making a very stable approach possible. Unless you are
planning to use the Auto-land feature, I would recommend trying to
hand-fly this aircraft some below 10,000ft on takeoff and approach.
This will really hone your skills and give you the impression that you
could actually handle this beast if you had to in real life. You
know that fantasy where the head flight attendant comes on the PA after
the crew all ate the bad fish... "is there anyone that can fly this
thing?" While following the procedures in the manual for proper
autopilot operation would ensure this fantasy could have plausibility,
hand flying this flight model can give you the confidence that you could
really land this beast. Well... okay, at least that is part of the
fantasy too. Take the 747-200 out for some pattern work and you will quickly see what I mean.
Laemming
Wheeler and Craig Mosher partnered to update the 747-200 for FS2000 and
have done an outstanding job. The proportion of all the parts are
very realistic and give a good rendering. There are moving parts
everywhere you would expect them and the animations are very realistic,
with gear doors opening an shutting in proper sequence and realistic slat extension. The wheels are very round in appearance and are expertly textured. The now-familiar high resolution body textures, complete with night lighting are a feature of the aircraft which comes in Northwest, KLM and Air Canada liveries. While it would have been nice to see more liveries, these should cover the spread and are all visually pleasing.
What I really like about the visual model is the attention to detail on the engines and nacelles. The fan blades spin and each are very round and well proportioned. The sight of this bird on approach to landing is breathtaking and really gives a sense of the magnitude and majesty of the Queen. As with most FS2000 aircraft (other than the stock aircraft) this model does not come with landing lights. This is not so important, but would really add to the ambiance. The tail lighting is fantastic and separate set of night textures that accompany it kick in sometime just after dusk. While Ralph Toffelmire is known for panels, this product can truly be considered a full package; sounds, visual model and panel. All are exquisite and the fact that Ralph contracted some of the best out there to get this visual model together puts this package over the top.
Panel Features
The panel is a breakthrough
in so many ways it is hard to know where to start without regurgitating
the manual. I will hit the highlights that impressed me the most. It
would be hard to not point out the fully functional engineer's panel,
overhead panel, and wide-angle "cruise cockpit" panel as obvious
standouts, but the real gems are the little details about the panel.
There are over 100 custom gauges on this panel, which is a source of this
panel's magic and a source of its extreme complexity. Many of the
gauges count on proper use and operation, in the proper sequence, to
work. If you start with the aircraft cold with no power or engines
running, you must follow a start up procedure that takes you all over each
sub-panel in preparation. There are several subpanels: The radio
stack, the GPS, the INS, the overhead, the flight engineer's panel, the
high-altitude cruise panel and the throttle quadrant.
What other package allows you to play the role of Captain, First and Second
(Flight Engineer) Officers all at the same time? But, then again,
who wants to be that busy? You do! Because this level of
complexity and realism is what most of have clamored for all along.
While the advanced user (who buys all the charts, reads all the
books and even picks up an Airman's Operating Manual – AOM – for the types he
likes to fly) is the target audience for this package; it also has great
potential to create an advanced user out of the simmer who is willing to
have the patience to learn to fly this package.
Some highlights of this panel's features include the custom pushback gauge, the
audible checklists that are read for critical phases of flight, the
authentically modeled Litton LTN-72 Inertial Navigation System, The
Ground Proximity Warning system, The startup sequence, the auto-land
feature and the night lighting on the panel bitmap itself.
The Overhead Panel
The overhead panel contains many
features that are critical to successful operation of this panel.
While some features are placebo gauges and there to enhance the experience
(most with clickable sounds), some are examples of new innovation in panel and gauge
design. Proper startup of the 747-200's engines relies on the
overhead panel and having the throttle quadrant visible. You can
select from two startup sequences; one has audible checklists read that
correspond to what is happening on the panel and will give you cues for
when to start fuel flow during startup. Another set of startup
gauges lets you handle things on your own.
There are other items here, such as a
selection of ignition systems that are reality enhancements, but are not
as critical to the operation of this package in FS2000. Ralph has
designed the checklists and gauges so that proper execution is required
for full operation. Generally, if an item is called for in the
checklists, go ahead and comply; one can't be too sure that a gauge that
appears to be a placebo does not actually have a dependency with another gauge. Again, strict
adherence to directions will produce the best results. What is nice is how the audible checklists will correspond
to most of the switches and buttons on each sub-panel, making some of the
"dressing" gauges take on some importance regardless of actual
use by FS2000. The panel is a testament to innovation in the face of the limitations of the underlying simulation.
The Engineer's Panel
Proper startup really depends on
this sub-panel as it contains the APU and a very innovative payload gauge
(Gross Weight/Fuel Total). One of the new features of FS2000 is the
ability to override the Empty Weight of an aircraft in a config file rather
than being confined to the figure in the .air file. Most designers
in the past set Empty Weight such that full fuel would produce the Maximum
Takeoff Operating Weight. This does not provide the flexibility in
flight planning that most of us would like. Ralph takes advantage of
this capability in FS2000 with the Gross Weight/Fuel Total gauge that
corresponds with a set of speed bugs on the airspeed indicator on the main
panel. This, by far, is my favorite innovation on this panel and
simplifies flying greatly.
Experienced commercial pilots will often claim that they fly primarily by "rules
of thumb" and other shortcuts, and this gauge setup allows for
that. In the manual Ralph describes how you can use these gauges to
fly proper departures and approaches by the numbers consistently by
reference to the speed bugs on the airspeed indicator.
The APU controls are on this sub-panel, making the APU a key
component of a proper start. Part of the strength of this package is
the realistic startup sequence, so it is not a surprise that so many
features support this. The fuel system and pneumatic system are
located on the flight engineer's panel as is another specially modeled
feature of the fuel tanks. Many of the routes that the 747
"Classic" was (and is) employed on were long distance trans-continental/trans-oceanic
routes that require long hours at altitude. While jet fuel does not
have the same freezing point as water, exposure to long periods of
temperatures well below freezing would cause the fuel in the fuel tanks to
gel, as the wind across the wings also had a cooling effect. Ralph
has implemented a fuel tank heating function to model and combat this
tendency. This is another realism feature that really assists in the
immersion factor. While I did not encounter this during my testing,
the phenomenon will occur at very high altitudes on long flights. The 747
can't get straight up to those altitudes initially and will require a step
climb.
The Main Instrument Panel
The "front office" is
the main panel, it is the panel designed for use below 10,000' and an
early beta incarnation of this panel would have had an automatic switchover
to the cruise panel above this altitude. This feature is optional and instructions are provided should you desire to operate this way. I found it just as easy to select this manually and generally preferred to
stick to the main "close up" panel. The only extra you get by
using the cruise panel is the simulated weather radar. As this does not
correspond to what is really happening outside, it is eye candy.
The panel is laid out as it is on the real
aircraft; it has a custom autopilot that does not behave as does the default FS2000
autopilot. The features that most differ with what you may be used to are
the auto-land procedure and the method for the selection of vertical speed.
The custom of setting a vertical speed and an IAS or MACH setting on the auto-throttle
that we have adopted for flightsim is not the best and most realistic way of
doing things. Often, on departure and approach, a pilot will use pitch
to control airspeed with the engine running at a constant setting. This
will cause a variable setting with vertical speed and thus our selection of
constant vertical speeds is not always the best practice. The 747-100/200 did not have a
vertical speed window by which a certain speed could be set; rather there is a
wheel to give more "up" or "down" and the pilot would have
to monitor the results on the VSI. This is tricky to master at
first and is compounded by FS2000's tendency to violently jerk downwards once
vertical autopilot has been engaged. I found this behavior in my testing
and was advised, both on forums and by Ralph, as to what would be good fixes;
they essentially boil down to a need to experiment and finesse until you get
it right. The wheel gives little indication of relative position short
of a little white line that would represent whether you are above or below
center. I honestly could barely perceive this line and had to rely
mostly on trial and error in the end.
As I said, everything you would expect as standard on
the main panel is there, all custom gauges: the HSI, ADI, AI, VSI, RMI engine
gauges (N1, N2, EPR, EGT). The layout is logical and allows for a good
scan. One of my beefs with the panel, especially the main panel is the
photo-real texturing. While I have come to accept this as characteristic
of Ralph's panels and as such a signature of sorts, the background bitmap is a bit
pixilated and "messy" looking. Many freeware designs are
smoother in appearance and that smoothness gives a better impression to
me. This is purely a matter of taste and I find that when I am in the
"heat of it" I am not looking at the window dressings. I
suppose this may be another function of the cruise panel as it does reduce
some of this pixilated look. The main panel has a daytime and nighttime
setting selector (which is activated automatically just after dusk) which adds
a nice artistic touch at night, with the "pink" lighting on the gauges
and some subtle lighting on the background bitmap.
The Litton LTN-72 INS
The LTN-72 modeled in this package is not for the faint hearted. It is not all that complex, but as it is outside the normal paradigm of the average simmer, it will present somewhat of an impediment at first. As with the rest of the features in this package, adherence to the instructions is key. The LTN-72 INS will only hold 8 waypoints, not including your start point, and must be programmed by the input of lat/longs in a specified format (no fancy FMS database where you can pick the name of the navaid and be done with it). The level of realism that this gauge introduces really makes this package stand out. The steps you must use to program the INS and the waypoint limitations actually add to the experience. Luckily Ralph left those of us who don't want to be bothered with the INS the GPS gauge that comes with FS2000 and the GPS/NAV selector. So, if you do not want to program the INS, you can use an FS2000 flight plan and let the GPS be your guide. You can also use an FS2000 flight plan to obtain the coordinates that you must feed to the INS by opening the .pln file in the ./pilots directory. The INS will have to be reprogrammed along the way if you have more than 8 waypoints and you must always leave waypoint one as your starting point. The INS will give you good data about your next waypoint while enroute: distance and time, ground speed, cross-track error, etc. What I did not like about the INS, but was told it was how it really operated, was the inability to get information about waypoints beyond your next waypoint. This information would be useful for judging your ETA. Again, you can always substitute some of the functionality from the GPS gauge if you must. The INS will couple to the autopilot or will merely update the headings you should fly, so you have an option there as well. Caveat Emptor At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you must pay attention to the documentation in this product. Even at times when I really thought I had things down, I would discover I was skipping some vital step in procedure, causing mixed results while operating the aircraft. Among the main gotchas that ignoring or brushing quickly over the manual presents is in the use of the auto-land feature of the autopilot. This proved to be my most difficult task while testing this panel and made me feel the most idiotic as I would always discover that I was skipping a step that was clearly spelled out in the instructions. Part of the problem are the habits formed from using the majority of panels for flightsim. Some of the techniques you are used to will be of disservice with this panel when using auto-land. While I won't go into the nitty-gritty of auto-land I will say that proper use of the three autopilots and two nav radios—and awareness of GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System) issues—are key to success, as is sticking to the published sequence in the manual. This is indicative of how far we are coming with our hobby and how innovative designers are making use of advances in technological capability. The desire for more intricacy and complexity in our sims is now surfacing; the popularity of PS1, Airline Simulator, and new plane/panel packages for FS2000 is evidence of this. You will be disappointed in this product if you do not keep an open mind and a willingness to reread the manual. The manual deserves some discussion as it may be confusing to some users. The manual could be thought of as an "AOM-lite." It is like the flight handbook for the 747-200 in many ways, but is very abbreviated and only covers topics absolutely necessary for using this package. If you have bought any Precision Manuals products for FS98 (or own a real AOM), you will be disappointed in the portions about flight and fuel planning that Ralph's manual leaves out. The advanced user will be left wanting more and will have to seek other sources or develop a personalized schedule for fuel planning. On the other hand the newbie will be lost in some of the technical terms and concepts presented by the manual. Ralph has indicated that these tradeoffs were necessary in compiling the manual and that some data could not be verified for accuracy (such as fuel planning data) and was omitted. Another problem I found was comprehensive data present in the "Quick Start" manual that was not present in the main manual. The quick start manual is "how-to" for a flight from Detroit to Chicago in which all the steps you would have to take for a normal flight are outlined clearly. The section on INS programming in the quick start manual is more comprehensive that what is in the main manual; a good understanding of the package is gleaned by skipping between the two. While this is fine, I would think that the highest amount of detail would be present in the main manual. While I indicated that some elements are missing for total operations, Ralph gives very detailed takeoff, departure, approach and landing procedures with charts, diagrams and step by step instructions. Most of the shortfall is planning for the portion in-between those phases of flight. One last nagging problem—present in the use of Ralph's FS98 products as well—are sound problems, especially on Creative Lab's SoundBlaster Live! (which is a widely popular sound card). While Ralph does offer support for these problems and most will not surface if you follow each step in the procedures carefully, I encountered these problems periodically throughout testing. Common anomalies are squelchy and speeded up versions of sounds, demonically slowed down versions, sounds firing off out of sequence or sounds firing off randomly. Some percentage of this can be explained away by driver/DirectX issues and some by improper use. However I am of the opinion that some are just a result of the use of the SBLive! card. I am not aware of other sound cards giving this problem, but I personally had to learn to live with this with the Boeing 737 package from Ralph for FS98. This package is taxing on your system, with many custom gauges and sounds, but the problems with this sound card are just annoying enough to distract from the experience. As it can not be proven that this problem is universal, and as each setup is unique, I will not let this point dampen the rating I give this package, but you may have problems with this sound card. Get your latest drivers and visit >Ralph's Panelshop for details. Conclusion The places where this package may fall short are so minuscule and far between that the sum of its accomplishments is adequate compensation. As perfection is such a subjective concept, I will say that Ralph and his team have hit new marks and have set new standards with this package. This is a complete package with an eye towards affording a complete experience in and out of the cockpit. From startup to shutdown, the details that culminate in a submersive experience in realism sets this package above the crowd for FS2000 commercial add-ons. While there are others that are in Ralph's league, what Ralph has succeeded in doing here is offering a total experience. I asked Ralph a few questions about this package to get the author's perspective on things. His answers are a good way to cap off this review and let you mull things over in your mind. I can find few reasons not to recommend this package to you; if you want to fly the big iron, the way it was done in real life, you can't go wrong with the 747-200 from Ralph's Panelshop and AETI. You can find more information about purchasing this package at Ralph's Panelshop or at AETI. Q: Which innovations were the hardest to implement? |
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