Good afternoon all For my birthday next month my wife has told me I can get 1 add on for FSX.So I have narrowed it down to the Following productsPMDG MD-11Captain Sim 757Level D 767Right now all I have on my Sim is the PMDG 747-400 pax and Freighter and I enjoy it my System specs are as followsGateway FX530S Windows XP Intel Core 2 Quad Processor q6600 2.4GHz, 1066mhz FSB 8MB cache 2048MB 667Mhz Duel Channel DDR2 SDRAM NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT 512MB Dual DVI w/VGA adapter Thanks for all your help in advancea3ifs40Ian

Good afternoon all For my birthday next month my wife has told me I can get 1 add on for FSX.So I have narrowed it down to the Following productsPMDG MD-11Captain Sim 757Level D 767Right now all I have on my Sim is the PMDG 747-400 pax and Freighter and I enjoy it my System specs are as followsGateway FX530S Windows XP Intel Core 2 Quad Processor q6600 2.4GHz, 1066mhz FSB 8MB cache 2048MB 667Mhz Duel Channel DDR2 SDRAM NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT 512MB Dual DVI w/VGA adapter Thanks for all your help in advancea3ifs40Ian

I have all three of the ones you mentioned and enjoy the PMDG MD 11 the most. Great system depth.Bernd

Good afternoon all For my birthday next month my wife has told me I can get 1 add on for FSX.So I have narrowed it down to the Following productsPMDG MD-11Captain Sim 757Level D 767Right now all I have on my Sim is the PMDG 747-400 pax and Freighter and I enjoy it my System specs are as followsGateway FX530S Windows XP Intel Core 2 Quad Processor q6600 2.4GHz, 1066mhz FSB 8MB cache 2048MB 667Mhz Duel Channel DDR2 SDRAM NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT 512MB Dual DVI w/VGA adapter Thanks for all your help in advancea3ifs40Ian

Well you seem to catered for long haul with the 747, so I'd suggest a high fidelity short/medium haul. The 757 can fit this bill but so can the MD-80 Pro, from Maddog or Flight1, which would give you a different cockpit to fly.

MD-11. Also great for short hauls btw: I almost always use it for real life FedEx flights that take no more 45 minutes or so! I don't like flights that take too long... ;)

My advice is that no matter what add-on you chose (those are good choices), name your aircraft after your spouse i.e. N-LILY, G-TINA, etc. How are you set up for hardware? Jeff ShylukSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

Anything from PMDG is fantastic! One caveat though, is that they are intensive and it is documented that you might run into out of memory errors. In fact I had to upgrade from Win XP to Vista 64 to avoid the memory errors. The MD11 is amazing!!

I have had all three of those, and currently have the MD-11 and 757. I happen to prefer the 757, and it will give you a very flexible airplane: everything from 100 mile jumps to transatlantic crossings. If you're looking at one airplane, that could be important. (If you haven't caught my review of it, you may want to check it out.) It is a bear on frame rates, so if you have a marginal system you can cross it off your list, which would make your job easier.On the other hand, since you're looking at only one, either the MD-11 or LDS767 are maybe more solid when it comes to not having issues. The 757 is very stable in the current release, but I still meet occasional quirks that I don't find so much in PMDG products. It doesn't bother me, but I am a pretty tolerant guy. But like he said, all three are good choices, and each has different strengths. If graphics are important to you: 757. If system fidelity is more important: 767 or MD-11. This is not to say the 767 or MD-11 have bad graphics, or the 757 bad systems, there are just different emphases. Happy long-hauling! EDIT: Or get the 757 and convince her that the Freighter version (which is way cool) falls within the "one airplane" rule :( Another point that bears mentioning is that there is a 30-day refund on the LDS767 from Flight1, so you can try it on for size risk-free.

Or better yet if you buy the Justflight version of Captain Sims 757 you get the 100,200 and Freighter all in one package for $35 at Frys if you happen to have one of those close to you. Just picked it up last weekend. I couldnt believe it came with all three birds for less then what Captain Sim wants for just one. Same plane same developer. Oh and package comes with FSX and FS9 versions on the same DVD.Who would have thunk it :)

Hard question to answer. I enjoy all 3 of them and they have their own pros and cons. But I must say, since you have a long hauler already you might as well go with the Captain Sim 757. I've been putting in a lot of hours with it myself lately.

I would highly recommend the PMDG MD-11. I own products from Flight1, Captain Sim, Digital Aviation and Ariane Design. I spend the most time in the MD-11.Question for Tim_Capps:In terms of system modelling on the aircraft, how would you rate the 757 in comparison to the MD-11? I am really digging into the FMC and I really enjoy the SID/STAR aspect and programming of the FMC as well as being able to do everything from change fuel flow to air flow in the cabin on the overhead. How would you compare that to the PMDG products. I am looking at the CS stuff and the 757 caught my eye but my wife has an iron fist when it comes to expenses and I can only get one aircraft in the next few months. I am also looking at the PMDG BAe J4100 for those really short hops.

The MD-11 is smooth, solid and deep. It seems like a more complicated airplane. It takes more steps to get the MD-11 off the ground properly than it does for the 757, but that might be the case in real life, too, for all I know. The MD-11 really has a pretty impressive set of bells and whistles, as befits the most evolved of the tri-jet dinosaurs. I have flown the 757 a lot more, because I don't have time for a lot of long hauls and when I do I am testing out the 767 nowadays. The flight management system in the 757 is nice, and it has native Navigraph support. It is plenty realistic enough for me, and you can select SIDs and STARs and fly some pretty complicated procedures like conditional fixes. There are instructions on how to make your own procedures, too, but I haven't tried it yet. Speed and altitude restrictions are quirky, and sometimes unless you actually type them in (as opposed to using the information drawn from the procedure) they are not respected.MD-11 has a substantial edge in systems modeling, I would say.If the 757 has failings, I think it is in the "real for realness sake" area with things like fuel dumping (which it doesn't have). I call them "failings" but they are not so to me, because I don't care. I like the graphics and they are better than the MD-11, which is pretty darned lo-res. It is a beautiful airplane that hits the sweet spot for me. And don't forget that McPhat is coming along with some payware livery packages that will be even better than the MD-80 AAL & TWA.I don't know if that answers your question. The MD-11 remains my favorite long-haul and I would like to get back into it, but my head is spinning from all the different airplanes I have flown in the past couple of weeks! Tonight I learned how to start and fly the C130, at least the basic stuff. my hed asplode The 757 is like comfort food to me. We get along fine and if she doesn't complain too much about my piloting skills, I don't complain about her VNAV.

The LDS767 is a wonderful aircraft. Solid and reliable, it has given me a lot of pleasure. The VC is very bare and outdated though, compared to other addons. Although I really like that 767, the MD-11 might be a smarter choice for now. The CS757 also is pretty good, but I find there is a giant problem with it: there is no save/load panel utility with it, meaning that if you want to do a flight for 4 hours and don't have the time, you have a problem. That's why I didn't reinstall it when I reinstalled FS2004: I simply would not be able to ever finish a flight it, unless it's short haul. And yeah, short haul with a 757? No, not really. Although it's certainly possible, I'll take a Boeing 737 for that.