I had a pleasant birthday surprise on Monday of this week. My son purchased the d/load link for the JS41 for me and fowarded the e-mail with all details to me so I was able to d/load, install and activate it. (I'm telling you this in case the PMDG guys are checking the customer lists looking for my name. They won't find it but will find my son's - Phil Smith. :( )As to the JS41 - wow! What an impressive piece of work guys! Well done indeed! And what a lot of reading I have to do. Because of other things happening (grandchildren, etc) I've only just printed off the tutorial and am about to start that flight.I did what I always do with new planes - took off without reading anything, for a short flight. I got away with it on the 737NG, the 747 and the MD11 but with the Jetstream it wasn't a happy ending. This is one realistic model. Did I read that it's only been in development 9 months? That's incredible!To all of you with FSX who haven't yet bought this bird do so. Also, considering the price it is fantastic value - even better for me of course! :( Iain Smith

There should be a fire hose celebration for a first flight without melting engines.

And the first landing without having to go around 3 times lol. Be even better when the update comes along but it sure is one impressive bird.After a few flights I can just about remember where all the switches are now without having to magnify them first so getting there. Still a bit sketchy as regards the de-icing though lol.John Ellison

Congrats on your wonderful birthday present and Happy Birthday to you! :(

This is my first post in the AVSIM forums and in the PMDG section. Happy birthday Iain, it sounds like your son has excellent taste in gifts! I also wanted to take a moment thank the PMDG team for an excellent rendition of this aircraft and share a bit of my somewhat relevant experience. The JS41 was my second PMDG product after the MD-11 (which I still fly often). This aircraft, or at least its engines, has a sentimental value for me. Some time ago I was afforded the privilege of co-piloting a Cessna 441 Conquest II, which also uses the Garrett TPE-331 (we had -10s in ours, compared to the -14s in the JS41). I was floored by the accurate rendition of these tricky engines. I don't know how PMDG managed to model things like the propeller start locks or the TPE-331's characteristic scream. I didn't think such things were possible given the limits of FSX.Managing the Garrett engines was the trickiest part of flying the 441, much like PMDG's JS41. I still remember having to take wind direction into account when towing the plane out of the hangar so we didn't get an overheat from wind blowing up the tailpipe, and having to watch out for a "bog down" of the engines during taxi. We also had to hit the un-feathering pump switch before and reverse our engines after start, just like in this model. The loudness of the engines is also well-modeled- the 441's engines were quite loud, even with hearing protection. The 441's props were right about at the level of my knees, and I spent some time during flight contemplating what would happen if one of those hefty props broke loose...The 441 lacks the IECs that limit torque on the JS41. We had to stand on the brakes and set take-off power manually. This became more difficult after a brake replacement decreased their "grip factor." If you pushed the power levers to the firewall on the 441, you would over-torque the engines very easily. We also didn't have the convenient white-line system on the EGT gauge to aid us in setting the condition levers to cruise.Conversely, the 441 is a very forgiving airplane to hand-fly, and it handles much like a 310. The Conquest (thankfully!) slows down much faster than the JS41. It's taken some time to get used to the tendency of the JS41 to remain at speed. The TAS of both aircraft is comparable (we usually hit about 300kts true at FL270-280 in the 441, which was not RVSM equipped).Anyway, I'm very happy with my JS41 purchase from PMDG. Flying this aircraft in FSX brings back many positive memories. Thanks for listening to my rambling reminiscence, and thanks again PMDG team for this astonishing aircraft!

That's cool, I still need the computer to run FSX.Michael Pare.

There should be a fire hose celebration for a first flight without melting engines.

Well Dan, to be honest when I loaded it up the engines were running so I didn't have to go through the start procedure. And John (Cuddly1956) it wasn't so much a landing as an excavation of the runway! It was the old "if you don't slow down it won't go down" thing!I've just been going through the tutorial and must have turned over two pages at once as I missed a vital step in the pre-start procedure - moving the power levers out of reverse to ground idle! Needless to say I blew both of them up! :(Iain Smith

Happy birthday Iain, it sounds like your son has excellent taste in gifts!

Thanks. Yes he usually surprises me. And thanks for your interesting post. It's good to read that the engines are accurately modelled. I'd imagine that applies to the rest.I must say that although I haven't managed to get far in the tutorial yet I keep looking around the cockpit and around the outside just in awe of the detail. When my son saw it he was blown away. As he said "back in the Commodore 64 days if someone had said flight simulators on home computers would look like this we'd never have believed them!" How true.Iain Smith

I love birthday surprises of this nature! Congratulations...It was mine a few days back... my brother got me an hour in one of the Lufthansa Flight Training full motion sims in Frankfurt...Doing a spot of brushing up in the MD-11F... :(Going to need it for that 160KIAS approach!Andrew

I love birthday surprises of this nature! Congratulations...It was mine a few days back... my brother got me an hour in one of the Lufthansa Flight Training full motion sims in Frankfurt...Doing a spot of brushing up in the MD-11F... :(Going to need it for that 160KIAS approach!Andrew

Wow, that's great Andrew! I'm sure you'll have a fantastic hour that will probably pass far too quickly.Iain