We can set our calendars for whenever we want.What year gives you the widest assortment of airplanes? I'll have to do some research, but there was probably a year when there was everything still flying from DC-8s to glass cockpits. DC-8s, DC-9s, MD-80s, the entire Seven Series except for the 777... even A320s I'm thinking somewhere in the late 80s might be the sweet spot. As late as the first Gulf War, I flew a Hawaiian Airlines DC-8 to the Gulf :-) And Kai Tak was still open!Related topic: why hasn't anyone made a "classic" option for AI traffic? It bothers me to see my B377 Stratocruiser next to a 767. In my dream flight sim, if you set your date to 1957, you would not see any aircraft not in use then. (And since it's a dream, your airports would be in period, too.)

I'm sure that one of the Traffic packages did have some sort of 'period' option, although for the life of me I couldn't tell you which one it was, as I can't even stop getting Traffic X and Ultimate Traffic mixed up, let alone keep track of which can do what, but I'm sure I recall seeing that capability in either one of them, or possibly the original FS Traffic.If you have older aeroplanes and the right paint jobs and schedules, and go to the right places, you will still see some of the old bangers from Boeing doing passenger flights, and certainly freight flights. I think both the 727 and 707 still do passenger flights in Iran and one or two African airlines still fly some of the older ones too. The DC-8 has only just been retired by UPS, which had a very large fleet of them (they retired them last month if I recall correctly).Some of the aircraft engine and avionics companies etc use older stuff as well. I think either it is either General Electric maybe Pratt and Whitney that have a Boeing 747-100 which they mount their engines on for test flights, and until a few years ago NASA had the original prototype B737-100 that Boeing used to certify the type in 1967; NASA bought off Boeing cheap, as they just 'had it lying around' and offered it when NASA didn't want to pay full whack for a new model.Some European airlines flew some of the older Boeings for quite a long time. Monarch, for example had two Boeing 720s in service for a while and I was lucky enough to get a ride on one of those back from Spain to Luton once, in some very thundery weather, which made it an exciting trip. Dan Air London had 727s running for a long time too and indeed they operated the DeHavilland Comet as well for a very long time. I managed to get several rides on both those types around the time I was a teenager. Straying from Seattle, about the same time as that, Air France were still using the Sud Aviation Caravelle, which I never got a chance to ride on, however my wife did and she said it was a lot like the DH Comet. She also got a ride on the Dassault Mercure with I think Air Inter, which I'm very jealous of, and worst of all for my jealousy, she got to ride on an Air France Concorde too.I reckon the 'golden year' for Boeing 700 series airliners would be 1982-3. It would be a fab year for variety in FS: the 757 and 767 were in service by then and there'd still be a lot of classic 700s such as the 707, 720, 727, 737, 747 variants in service, as well as the 757 and 767. Plus you'd have many Airbus types and still have a few early propliners and jets such as the L-1011 Tristar (come on PMDG make that one), Trident, BAC-111, DC-8, DC-9, DC-10, Viscount, Vangaurd VC-10 and all those funky Russian Tupolevs, plus the occasional Convair. It'd be good for liveries too, with many still wearing the cheatlines, but with newer paint styles beginning to show up.Al

Move to 1994, though and you get the MD-11, and the complete line of Airbusses. You still have 747s of all sorts flying, as well as 767, 757, 737 in both classic and glass cockpit formats, DC-9s, and MD-80s. Looking back toward the other direction, you have probably lost the 707 (nothing for FSX there anyway), also the DC-8 (same), but still had many 727s. Heck, bump it up to 1995 and the 777 starts coming on line, and you still probably don't drop off too much older stuff.So 1995 would favor introduction of the new stuff, and I'm not sure we would not lose too many of the 727s. And there are entertaining products covering these airplanes.1995 provides maximum overlap of planes that are out of production, but still used (727, DC9) plans in their prime, 737, 747, 757, 767, and brand new ones just coming in, the 777, A330 & A340. All of the other Airbusses should be in play.

Hello Tim Have a look at MyTraffic X, it has the ability to choose the year and use the period aircraft/airlines

Yup, 1995 might be interesting, but not for the MD-11, since there would be the L-1011 and the DC-10 for big tri-jets in earlier years, and the MD-11 is nothing but a glorified DC-10 with worse aerodynamics, which in any case looks the same as a DC-10 when viewing an AI one from 500 yards across the apron. Going a bit later than the early eighties and up to 1995 would certainly mean more 727, 737 and 747 variants, so there is that, although again, a 737-400 and a 737-800 don't look different from 500 yards away unless the 800 has winglets, which the 400 could have had retrofitted, so variety of that kind does necessarily make for visually different panoramas.It is true there are one or two payware aircraft types for FSX lacking, but we were talking about AI programs displaying traffic, and there's no lack of a 707 or a 777 on that score, or pretty much any other aircraft really for that matter. Personally, whenever I tweak AI, I never really worry too much about genuine authenticity on this score though. I'll happily have DC-8s 707s and 727s all over my airports, as they look more interesting than a lot of Airbuses (or should that be Airbi?), which are often virtually identical and were in fact specifically designed with commonality in mind, which means variety is not their strong point and again might make for less visually different vistas. You can tell I'm a bit of a luddite on that score, my favourite Airbus is the 340, and that's because not only is it very similar in layout to a scaled-up 707, but is it is about the only EADS product that you can identify in a microsecond from any distance, discounting the A380, which is of course not an oldie.All these older craft are one of the main reasons why I tend to do freight operations in FS with airliners with my own (Atlantic Bridge) livery, since it is at least more authentic to be flying older types when doing that sort of thing, and of course it doesn't preclude me from using modern stuff, which I do also use to keep things different. Just finished painting the LDS 767 in that livery in fact for that very reason, and the CS 757 is due for that treatment too shortly...Al

Al, you continue to amaze me. I wonder when you sleep.Well, it wasn't only AI traffic I had in mind. And I like the MD-11 only because it is probably the state-of-the-art FSX add-on right now. But you make excellent points, as always.Now that I see that my own traffic program Traffic X is advertised to have this very feature.

Nah, most of the time I talk utter b******, it's just because I used to write for a newspaper, I am used to making it sound as though it makes sense LOLTo be fair to the MD-11 and to PMDG's incarnation of it, I suspect it probably is the best FS add-on, but I don't have it myself, so I'm only going off what people have said. One long hauler in the form of their 747 (well two actually if I include the CLS classic 747) is enough for me, because I tend to prefer flights not much over 1,200 nautical miles, so if I got the MD-11 it would probably end up undeservedly being a hangar queen.I really would like a good Tristar though, and purchase logic would go out of the window if someone had a decent crack at it, I always think that's a very handsome aeroplane. There's a good feature on the L-1011 in Airliner World this month too by the way, if anyone is similarly enamored with it.Al

Yes, the long-haulers see limited use for me, too, which makes a complex add-on like the MD-11 a "get around to it" airplane. It isn't something I can hop into on Saturday morning because I have the time. Something simpler like the CLS 747 is more likely to see action in that situation. So I'll have to set my mind to studying up on the MD-11. I am trying to settle on three airplanes: a short haul, a medium haul and a long haul. With two excellent MD-80s, the first is covered (and I'm an Ejet fan, too, so I actually have three airplanes already); the 757 is, of course, my choice for medium hauls, and I have the MD-11 for the occasional long haul.That would be my ideal.But I know that I'll want to fit my 727 in there somewhere, and the aforementioned CLS 747 for old time's sake, and Airbus commonality makes the Wilco collection attractive, because I can hop in a A320, A330 or A340 and, before you know it, I'm back to a whole hanger full, let alone my 172, new Razorback, B377, and one of the new small private jets that looks so nice.I am looking forward to seeing how well Traffic X rolls back the clock.