| AVSIM Panel Review MD80 Panel |
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Before I start, I'd like to thank Peter Frei for letting me use the fabulous photograph of Alitalia's MD-82, on approach into Zurich International Airport. Peter runs a website where he posts pictures of airlines that fly in and out of Zurich, along with photographs from photographers from around the world. Check it out at aerpix.
It's been quite some time since I wrote my last freeware panel review. But Paul Golding is one panel author whose panels I have to write about. Back when Paul was with the Project Freeware group, I got the chance to test his A300/A310 panel. That panel is a year old and I still use it because, in my opinion, it's the best out there. Paul's latest offering is the MD80 panel, and this one is a jewel. If you love flying the DC9 or MDxx series of aircraft, this is your panel. Let's take a look at this masterpiece.
The Package
When you download the 10 meg file from Paul's website, you get the panel and two aircraft along with it, optimized to work with the panel. You get a North Central DC9-51, and an Evergreen DC9-33, both from the Project Freeware Group. Both are fabulous aircraft both in their visual effects and in their flight models. The engine areas are slightly dirty, showing soot from the engines. Flying is no different than any other twin engined jet. Rotation speed is around 140 knots. What I found when setting up for the climb was to go by the fan setting rather than the airspeed. By keeping N1/N2 at around 98%, the climb up to FL290 goes smoothly. If you're flying the aircraft with a full load of fuel, it would be a good idea to level off here if you want to go higher since your airspeed will be around Mach 0.60. Build up the airspeed and continue your climb. The DC9-33 is smaller of the two, but after FL290, it loses airspeed like a brick if you plan to go higher without leveling off, so watch out for that.
And Now, Our Feature Presentation
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 I'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. There's one thing worth noting about one of the gauges: the fuel flow/fuel used gauge. While testing the panel, I was always wondering where the fuel flow gauge was hiding. Then, while taking a close look at the screenshots, it hit me: the orange arrow in the fuel used gauge was referring to the fuel flow, and the numerical indication was referring to the total fuel used for each engine.
Another notable feature is the night time background lighting. I like flying at night, but most of the panels in my inventory are near pitch black at night, with the only light coming from the gauges. The night lighting in this panel 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.
Finally, thank heavens 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."
And when he says no shortcuts, he means no shortcuts. If you try pressing CTRL-E, what will happen is N2 will rotate, but when the sequence goes to start fuel flow, the engine will sort of hiccup, trying to light off, but not succeeding. So what's wrong? You need the APU running, and then you can start the engines. Just a note: first start the APU, then move the selector switch from the center position to APU. You should see your duct pressure come up, and your electrical gauges come to life. Now, you can proceed with a normal engine start.
Jane's Meets Microsoft
No, Microsoft didn't go out and buy the Jane's franchise (or at least not yet), but Paul has added something to his panel that is a first: a HUD. Now, you might ask "What's the point of a HUD in a commercial airliner?" Well, nothing really, unless you're coming in for an approach, and you need maximum visibility or you want an unobstructed view during a visual approach. But how many real world airliners have heads up displays installed? I don't think any do, and at this point in time, it doesn't serve a practical purpose both in the real world and in our virtual world. Something that is relevant, both in the real world, and since the release of FS2000 is the windshield wiper. Hands down this is the best new feature I have seen in quite a while, and in my mind, something that is long overdue. 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. Just don't turn it on when the windshield is dry otherwise maintenance won't be too happy.
Finally, Paul released patch 2.0b a few weeks ago that addressed 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. The airspeed section was tied in with the autothrottle system, but has been removed in the patch. The rest of the sections are pretty self explanatory. What you will notice though is 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. With more and more panels coming out that incorporate aircraft systems into the design, it's a shame it's still missing here. Air Conditioning and pressurization are a major one, and it would have been nice to include that system into the panel. I guess that's for the next version.
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.
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