In a nutshell here's what makes this panel and aircraft combination
(see also the Douglas DC-3/R4D-6/C-47 Aircraft award category) stand tall over everything else in the FS world is "attention to detail." A simple but critically important concept. There is quite literally no detail of the real aircraft that has been overlooked on this product.
When you're sitting in front of this panel or viewing the exterior of the aircraft you are for all practical purposes sitting in the cockpit seats of the real aircraft or flying formation on the airborne real bird—the line between reality and simulation is beginning to get a little blurred! Which is why we say this panel and aircraft combination have brought a whole new level of realism to the FS flight sim experience. The fact that the whole thing is freeware and was done by non professional, non commercial flight sim developers makes it all the more impressive.
Just like in the prior Version 3.0 the #1 feature has to be the total authenticity of the panel layout. All of the gauges and controls look and work exactly like the ones on the real airplane. Not approximately – exactly! The reason for this, of course, is that Bill Rambow painstakingly took all new digital photos of every single thing on the panel to get the appearance right and Roy Chaffin did a lot of unique programming magic to get them to function exactly like the real things. As an example take a look at the throttle quadrant screenshot – almost looks like you can reach out and touch the levers – and everything works the way it should - simply magnificent! This goes to prove that it's possible to produce detailed and totally realistic panels in FS2000 And now that the FS 2000 panel SDK is on the street it can only get better.
The #2 super cool feature is the ability to select either the Captain's or First Officer's panel "on the fly." That means without first having to exit and reselect the aircraft. A hot button click will do it. When you first start up the panel you get a screen that let's you make your choice for startup. After that it's easy to switch back and forth in the air—something you'll need to do since some functions are only on one side or the other of the panel. As we said in the earlier Version 3.0 review "...although a switching capability has begun to creep into some FS panel releases to the best of our knowledge Bill and Roy were the first to perfect this technique and they deserve credit for a major advance in FS panel capability.
One of the biggest improvements over the previous panel version is the new night instrument lighting - totally realistic. After seeing it you'll be very reluctant to do any more daytime flying - it's that good! Check the screenshot and just think about how far we've come since the original FS "orange all over" night lighting!
Please visit the RCS Panels website to obtain the current FS2000 panel and aircraft files.
Additional credits:
–Keith Maton – Chief beta tester
The Finalists ...As was the case last year, this Panels category proved to be the most difficult in deciding which are truly the "best of breed." Not only are there so many excellent panels again this year from which to choose, but we're at the point now that the accurate depiction of aircraft systems other than just the basic flight instruments and engine parameters are starting to get serious attention from panel designers. You see this in the increasingly common inclusion of overhead panels, functional system annunciator light panels and even flight engineer panel depictions in FS2000 panel designs.
What particularly distinguishes each of our panel finalists? All are highly accurate and well executed. The differences are in the innovations they created or applied. Of course you're invited to revisit the published reviews for more complete descriptions. Here we single
out the one or two features that assured each one a place as finalist in our "best of breed" review. Here they are, in alphabetical order by aircraft:
DreamFleet and FlightSim Developers (FSD) teamed up to give us a 172 that we think is remarkable. External visual models are nice, but in the end, we do fly these airplanes, not watch them fly, so the panel is where it's at. This panel does a great job in the feeling of perspective of looking over the cowl of a real 172; we give major points for the fact that there is a cowl view with instruments that are usable.
The primary panel is a thing of beauty, and is one of the best-executed photo-real panels we've seen to date—and this is the best 172P Panel that we've ever seen. Overall this is an impressive panel/aircraft combination. The instruments are correct for the airplane that is modeled and differs only slightly from anything you're likely to find at your local airport. The radio stack is classic Cessna with its Bendix King radios.
Externally, the visuals are quite nice, and well done. The flight model is very good. In tests the basic performance was about right. Stalls however, were 'creative'. Power on stalls worked ok, but the power off stalls are something else—we feel confident in saying that this issue is not due to FSD, but is more a function of FS2000 itself as we have been able to duplicate this in multiple flight models.
We think that this is an excellent GA panel worthy of anybody that likes to fly the bugsmashers. It is not a ‘go fast’ airplane and it's certainly not as fashionable as the PSS 777 And 747, but we all needed to start somewhere. Download this one from the AVSIM Library, and visit Lou's DreamFleet website to see what's next!
Panel Credits:
–Louis Betti –Panel Graphics and original photography Aircraft Credits:
–Jim Goldman – Aircraft Design
McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 - Paul Golding (Project Freeware Group)
This is one of those panels that contains gauges that you have seen before, but for some mysterious reason, has them placed in such a way that it looks beautiful. The panel itself is actually trying to replicate the MD80 series of aircraft. And it does it quite unlike any other panel we've seen. The background color is the perfect shade of blue. Gauge placement is perfect. They are so close to the real things, it's almost like you're there. Almost, because technology hasn't quite reached the stage of virtual reality on a home user level. But we're getting there.
The overhead panel is small and fits in the upper portion of the screen. Some overhead and pop-up panels are so big, they block everything but themselves. Says Paul, "The worst part was the overhead. I don't like these at the best of times as they usually take up too much screen space, and are full of at worst, just artwork, or at best, fake switches. To top it all, even though they take over your screen, you often find that they do actually contain something important like fuel gauges or radios so every time you want to make a frequency change, you lose the main panel under the overhead. So after looking at the panel drawings, I decided to make a small overhead and try and get the look and feel of the MD80 but without all the candy. As I'm no gauge programmer, I always try and work with what's available. So in the case of the engine start gauges, for the overhead I used existing gauges that have to be used correctly to get the engines started. No shortcuts."
Another notable feature is the night time background lighting, which is totally awesome. It actually lights up the whole panel. The screenshots below are of the panel with all the lights turned on, and it's simply breathtaking.
Something that is relevant, both in the real world, and since the release of FS2000 is the windshield wiper. This is one of the best new features we have seen in quite a while. Flick on the switch on the overhead and the wiper you see on your screen starts to move, along with a pretty realistic sounding wiper motor.
Paul released patch 2.0b that addresses some issues that users brought up, but mainly brings a new flight mode annunciator to the panel. The gauge is split up into four sections: airspeed, ILS-GS/VOR-HDG, and altitude. You'll notice that the display will be orange at first, and then change to green once captured. When tracking a VOR, the ILS/GS/VOR (2nd section) will change to VOR TRK. When you're flying a particular heading, or are tracking an outbound radial from a VOR, the 2nd section displays an orange VOR, and the 3rd section will display HDG HLD. When a VOR is tuned, the display will automatically change to VOR TRK. But more and more panels are coming out that incorporate additional aircraft systems into the design; it's a shame some are still missing here.
Credits
This panel isn't the sole creation of Paul Golding; a whole team of people came together to assist Paul with this project. Paul's team consists of Eric Ernst, Andreas Jaros, Chuck Dome, Hans Hartman, Chris Grall, Chris Coduto, Konstantin Prokopieu, Christian Koegler, HGHB, Richard Probst, Dai Griffiths, Wade Chafe, Stan Winke, Bryan Shirota, and Don Ackerly. A special menton goes to Mike Hambly for his fabulous DC9 sound package. Be sure to download those when you download the rest of the package. They are a welcome change from the default 737 sounds. You can download the package from Paul's website. While you're there, check out his next project: a recreation of the MD90 flight deck.
Continue Bravo Zulu Special Feature with Best Scenery Award page;
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