Aerosoft Catalina or RealAir Duke?

[Guest Erich22]

Looking for a new addon (Catalina or Duke). Which is better in terms of quality, complexity (ie., failures, engine management, IFR) and overall fun to fly? I already have the Aerosoft Cheyenne and I am wondering if it will be too similiar to the Duke? Thanks.

[vgbaron 3,486]

Can't speak to the Duke but the Cat is awesome. Totally different type of flying and very realistic in the way of engine management and failures. Just getting her fired up without reading the manual is an exercise in frustration. The attention to detail and the quality is typical of Aerosoft - very very good.Vic

[Guest realatp]

Duke makes the Cheyenne looks like a childs work. The Duke is fricken sick, the guages are smooth and real, there tons of liveries and the avionics are awesome, night lighting is sweet, its defentyl an IFR platform and the manual has TONS of performance charts for calculations. Its an awesome bired and I use it ALL the time, its comes with several differnt cockpit colours, not to mention RXP intergration if you own some RXP stuff. All of the buttons in the Duke work and she is pretty good on performance. They also just released a service pack to you can adjust levels of detail to tune her for performance, you'll love this plane man, go get her.

[PingPong 60]

I have both, I love both, but they are very different planes, so as always it comes down to what do you want.The catalina is easy on the frames, very nice to look at, and slow in all phases of flight. It'll require constant monitoring of engine parameters like any old warbird, and of course it's amphibiousThe duke is a little harder on frames, it has a beautiful and simple panel and makes for a very nice office, it's flight dynamics are amazing(RealAir baby!), it's great for IFR cross country trips. It's doesn't require engine monitoring to the same degree as the Catalina.It's a tough choice...

[badaboom 0]

I can only speak for The Duke as I don't have the Cat,The Duke's cockpit is one of the most immersive and lifelike I've ever been in,in any sim.

[ryanbatc 12,773]

The Duke....-Fast-Great with IFR/VFR-RXP gauges integrated

[Syd Weedon 11]

I guess the only real solution is to buy them both. Both are great and completely different. From a utilitarian point of view, I think the Duke is probably more useful for more types of aviation. The PBY is a masterpiece of mechanical accuracy and its engines will catch fire if you don't manage them right. The Duke is a lovely airplane to fly. I don't know of any plane that has a better cockpit. If I had to pick one or the other, for me it would have to be the Duke.

[bsmfinegan 12]

I guess the only real solution is to buy them both. Both are great and completely different. From a utilitarian point of view, I think the Duke is probably more useful for more types of aviation. The PBY is a masterpiece of mechanical accuracy and its engines will catch fire if you don't manage them right. The Duke is a lovely airplane to fly. I don't know of any plane that has a better cockpit. If I had to pick one or the other, for me it would have to be the Duke.

This is not an attack on the Duke, but for me it is a magnificent piece of eye candy.On my system at least this causes a significant loss of frames, surprising really considering system modeling is no more sophisticated than the 260 for example which has excellent FPS. When compared to the JS41 from PMDG which a huge amount of systems modeling and a tremendous visual model as well (yet frame rate friendly) I can't help feeling that Real Air dropped the ball with this one.The Catalina too has great visuals inside and out, but has the added bonus of engine management which does make for a more realistic flight in my opinion.Oh, I forgot to mention that you don't have to manage the Cats engines if you don't want to, you just turn of realistic engine management and go fly.Bryan.

[woodhick 504]

As mentioned elsewhere above, the two are not directly comparable. If you like to get somewhere in a (relative) hurry and want a great piece of eye candy go for the Duke. I have flown nothing else since it was first released.If you like to manage systems and don't mind doing the work of pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer, want to float around (in the air as well as the water) then you might want to go for the PBY. You will also be able to view the scenery below in the Cat. The Duke definitely is not the airplane to take if looking down below is your piece of cake.I have an idea!! :( Get both!!

[Lmaire 38]

I too, own both planes and like them a lot. The one weakness with the Duke is that it does not correctly model turbo-charging (an internal FSX programming limitation), and as a result you have to unrealistically lean the mixture MUCH more aggressively than in real life. I guess I'm a stickler for details in this regard, but oh well. They are both fun planes though, especially managing the Cat's engines! The Duke doesn't float so well (I've tried), so the Cat has it Trumped there, hehe. As was mentioned earlier, the Duke is also an excellent instrument platform (very stable when trimmed off correctly on the ILS). Decisions, decisions.... :)

Real Air is working on a turboprop version for the Duke...see video below

Lmaire

[ryanbatc 12,773]

On my system at least this causes a significant loss of frames, surprising really considering system modeling is no more sophisticated than the 260 for example which has excellent FPS. When compared to the JS41 from PMDG which a huge amount of systems modeling and a tremendous visual model as well (yet frame rate friendly) I can't help feeling that Real Air dropped the ball with this one.

And you're sure you have the latest patch? That increased my performance. Another thing to consider... is your mouse cursor on the screen when in the VC? Some users, myself included have issues whenever the mouse cursor is visible. I get a large drop of FPS, sometimes 30-40%, but it's not only in the Duke, it's any plane, payware, freeware, or default.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

This is not an attack on the Duke, but for me it is a magnificent piece of eye candy.On my system at least this causes a significant loss of frames, surprising really considering system modeling is no more sophisticated than the 260 for example which has excellent FPS.

I'm surprised at this... I hardly have a high end system, and yet the Duke performs well.For me, the RXP integration is what makes the Duke stand out... This is the plane I fly,when I go cross country IFR and want to fly GPS approaches, using the 530W.Q6600@3.2 - 2 GB PC800 RAM - 9600GT 512M

[Hitchhiker79 1]

Real Air is working on a turboprop version for the Duke...see video below

Lmaire

RealAir said they were looking into the possibility of doing this. Do you have concrete information that they indeed are?

[ryanbatc 12,773]

They are doing it. There's a post somewhere on the forums here...

[Guest Erich22]

Thanks all. I think I am going with the Duke. Will the Duke run on Windows 7 64bit? Can't seem to find the system specs anywhere.