The Jumbo Jet

'Building A Legend'. This is what it says above the Boeing 747 assembly line. How right it is. The 747, or 'Jumbo' as it is more commonly known is the world's largest commercial jetliner, and the first widebody to allow vast numbers of people to travel to distant parts of the world.

Did you know that the 747, as we know it, originated when Boeing lost a US Air Force competition to build a large transport!

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The gear retracting

Wow! That's close enough!

One of the many repaints available – Korean Air in this case

The visual element

Do you remember? It was not all that long ago that we were stunned by the 12 sided fuselage that Aircraft Factory '99 allowed. Unprecedented levels of visual accuracy. Then along came the likes of Sandro Bernardini with a 32 sided fuselage!! Wow, the aircraft now looked rounded and real.

Well now the ante has been upped again, slightly, this time by Melvin Rafi. The fuselage is made of a 32 sided cylinder, while the engines get a 64 sided makeover!

It's happened before that we get a great rounded model but at the expense of other things. Too often before the textures seemed to be something of an afterthought with the authors. Fortunately Melvin hasn't forgotten all you eye candy lovin' jocks out there, and the 747's rolling out from his factory all boast textures of a high high quality. Better still, his 747s seem to be attracting plenty of Flightsim Artists to repaint them.

Fortunately, this being FS2000, and with the likes of FSDS, we have all the moving parts that seem to be taken for granted these days. These range from flaps, aileron, and rudder, to elevator animation.

Edinburgh by night!

You know you want it!

Leaving Amsterdam

How Does She Fly?

Yes siree Bob. Quite the bane of many a flyers life, all looks and no go. Fortunately, that's not at all the case here. Melvin has fused his great 747 model with Johan Dees' ongoing 747 flight dynamics. Between them they form quite a formidable package.

Being the largest widebody about—you'd expect the dynamics to reflect this. Taxiing is a nightmare; it's a big cumbersome plane, and crawling is a must—don't think of going any faster than the limit of 25kts. In fact, don't even go that fast.

Sitting on the runway ready for takeoff is great fun. I don't know what it is, but there's just some kind of satisfaction about flying the 747. There's a certain 'something' attached to it. Even if you don't know anything about aviation or aircraft, most likely you'll know, and certainly recognize a Jumbo.

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Sit back in the captain's seat, flaps at the ready and let that throttle go, and go and go. Being a little bigger and heavier, and essentially an old design you'll need slightly more runway than usual. You should hit take off at around 145kts. When you do you'll find she lifts from the tarmac superbly and with much grace, leaving the earth quickly behind. With all going well, and conditions being optimal, you should find yourself able to drag out the range of this bird to 7,000 miles. Perfect for an all nighter!

This is one of the things to be admired most about Johan's dynamics. They really seem to bring out the grace and style in the 747. Perhaps best of all, he is continually developing them and striving to give us the best and most realistic 747 experience along with the other dynamics that he develops.

Isn't this superb?

The Korean Air repaint

The rating

Well it has to get 4 stars. It hits the spot superbly. I absolutely recommend that you head on over right now (yes now—before you've even reached the end of this review), to the AVSIM library, and team this excellent model up with one of the many Boeing 747-400 panels that have been thus far released for FS2000. By combining the two, you are sure to enrich your simming experience no end!

Here's a sampling of various liveries available for this plane in the AVSIM Library; simply click to download now:
Air Canada Boeing 747-400
Air France Boeing 747-400
KLM Boeing 747-400
Lufthansa Boeing 747-400
Northwest Airlines Boeing 747-400
Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400
United Airlines Boeing 747-400.