Just a quick first impression of Just Flight's Comet 4...Weighs in at 87Mb for the download, and comes with a 72-page PDF manual that explains how the thing works in some detail.Frame rates are pretty smooth, it's about on par with their Constellation performance-wise, and in fact it is modeled and textured in a very similar fashion to their Connie, with about the same level of realism as far as systems go, that is to say, not up to PMDG-like obsession levels, but certainly not what you would call 'lite' by any means, with quite a lot of the engineer systems modeled at a dedicated station, although you can crank it up with Control+E if you like, so you can be up in the air in seconds if you really like.Sounds are pretty good (i.e. fairly noisy). Everything appears to function in the virtual cockpit, 2D panels are fairly limited, but there are several saved views in the VC which function as alternatives for anyone who is not a fan of VCs. There is a 'radar' of sorts, which is similar to the one found in the Wilco Harrier and a few other FS aeroplanes, i.e. it is more like an ATC or AWACs scope than the kind of radar an airliner really has, but fun nonetheless. As noted, apart from this one avionic novelty, all the other gauges and switches are as per the real thing, including the engineer's panel, which pretty much all works.There are wing views and the cabin is modeled too, including an air hostess (as they were called back then) in period outfit. This is very nicely done in fact.It flies as one would expect an airliner of this vintage to, i.e. it doesn't have the kind of control authority that a more modern jet enjoys, but is not tricky to handle, in fact it is easy to land and like the real thing, has bags of power to spare. I've flown on a few Comets over the years, but perhaps more importantly as far as flight model impressions are concerned, I spent the vast majority of my childhood living within three miles of Woodford Aerodrome, where the Comet-derived Nimrods were flung about in the pattern on an almost daily basis as they tested them out (you'd be surprised how steep they used to bank them), so I certainly know how a Comet moves about in the air, and it seems to me that Just Flight have got it about as right as one could hope for.At 20 quid, this is a lot of bang for your bucks. Some pics:Huzzah for British Engineering! Jolly good show!Al

I thought the download version was going to be released on June 3? Does this mean that I will get my boxed copy earlier than June 10?

No idea. They did say the third for the D/L release, which is what I was expecting, but I got an email today saying it was out today, so I downloaded it and there you go. Perhaps that was in tribute to how superior British engineering used to be, when they could actually beat a deadline instead of missing it LOL Al

Is that version 1 of Horizon's photographic scenery that I see in those screenshots? It looks very blurred compared to my version 2.

What a beauty this is. Thanks for the HU, Alan.I think that some scenery shots seem to look blurry because of the zoom used to get closer to the plane. The wing view shows sharp textures for example, using less zoom.

That's because they are FS2004 VFR scenery tiles ported into FSX and batch converted with some fancy trickery to speed them up a bit, but they are at a lower base resolution. They run a bit faster than the FSX ones, so I'm prepared to take the drop in quality for the slight improvement in FPS. But it is the Earth Simulations autogen trees designed for FSX over the top of it.Al

Hi Al. A great review,with accompanying images. Now just waiting for my boxed version to be delivered. Yet another aircraft to keep me occupied as if the iFly737NGX wasn't enough. Glad I took the plunge to buy this venerable 'old lady'.

including an air hostess (as they were called back then) in period outfit. This is very nicely done in fact.Huzzah for British Engineering! Jolly good show!

No pictures of the air hostess? Shameful! :(

Gave this a proper test flight this evening, from EGCC to LEGE, which is actually the first airline flight I ever made, and that was in a Dan Air Comet, so it was a virtual version of my rel-life introduction to flight. Kind of tricky to know what the fuel burn was going to be, so I just erred on the side of caution and took a lot LOL, which you can get away with because the Comet has a high power to weight ratio.Of course in reality there were four people on the flight deck of a Comet, so potentially the workload could be high in a sim version, however, JF have made some nice concessions to this to allow you to help yourself a bit, for example, there is a GPS panel, radio panel and an autopilot pop up panel all of which are more modern in layout than the real Comet had, and these can be a useful concession when having to do four jobs all at once, however, you can ignore these things and use the real switches if you like.I decided to fly it like the real thing though, but cheat a little bit in order to simulate getting assistance from the crew. What I did was plan the flight in EFB, including the SIDs and STARs, exported that as an FS plan, and pulled that plan into Radar Contact and FSX. That Radar Contact giving me the right vectors, and the SID and STAR also appearing on the FSX GPS, so I pulled up the GPS and displayed the flight plan headings, then flew these manually, treating them as though the radio guy was tracking the nav aids and giving me vectors to steer in order to fly the SID and the route. Needless to say it was not exactly perfect on the GPS track line when I checked it, but it was close enough, so that worked pretty well. If that seems like a pain though, the pop up autopilot panel will actually let you track the flight plan automatically in GPS mode, which is not realistic, but then again you don't have to fly it that way, but it is nice to have it as an option, as it makes the Comet accessible to a wider range of flight simmers.The JF Comet flies really well, it's very nice to hand fly and is easy to keep wings-level, so holding it on course is a doddle. It can actually climb very well and it is fast too (526 mph), so I was at LEGE in pretty short order. Theoretically you can do an ILS approach in it, and you can actually cheat and do a fully coupled one with the pop up autopilot panel, but in fact it is much more fun to land it visually after lining up with the radios. I had quite a big crosswind coming into runway 20 at LEGE, but the thing flies so nicely that it was easy to lay it off and easily track well enough to plant it right on the centreline.Full flaps is a bit risky because they lower a long way and in a high flare it looks to me as though you'd possibly risk scraping them on the runway, so I didn't use full flaps, which meant I ended up landing a bit further down the runway and had to use reverse thrust, and that is not as effective as it is on more modern jets, so it was pretty much all of the runway used up to come to a speed where I could turn off, but I guess taking less fuel would have solved that, so it was pretty cool all in all.One really nice touch, is that you can't hear the radio ATC very well in the pilot's seat, whereas in the radio operator's position you can hear it just fine, so I found it useful to hand off working the radios to the co-pilot in Radar Contact on the approach, which was a bit like getting the radio dude to do it.All in all it was an impressive experience, and with everything cranked up on full detail apart from anti-aliasing, it was managing smooth frame rates despite having ASE, Radar Contact and EFB running as well as FSX. Incidentally, the screen shots above on this thread were not on full detail, but there is a thread in the Avsim screen shots forum I posted of this test flight which does have stuff on higher detail, so check that out if you want to see some nicer piccies.This is a great toy if you want to use old-school navigation, but actually want to fly long distances, since it has the range and speed of a modern jet, but the nav aids from a much earlier era, although again, there is a more modern pop up radio panel should you want it.Great fun and such a pretty thing too. And how can you not love an aeroplane that has the switches above your windscreen labeled 'landing lamps'?Al

I really like this plane a lot but the VC looks bad.Is it my monitor does it really look like this ?Vic

Not being able to see your monitor, I wouldn't know.It's a pretty close representation of a Comet's cockpit as far as instrument and switch layout is concerned, and pretty much everything works in there too. Personally, I would have preferred them to depict the panels looking a bit greyer than they are, which was more typical for a seventies aeroplane as opposed to the 'wartime black' panels of the early Comets. Apart from that, I quite like it. I suppose it is one of those cockpits that is textured in the way which some people would describe as 'cartoonish', i.e. it isn't scuffed up and such in a CaptainSim stylee, but personally, I quite like the 'as new' look that it has.Al

Not being able to see your monitor, I wouldn't know.It's a pretty close representation of a Comet's cockpit as far as instrument and switch layout is concerned, and pretty much everything works in there too. Personally, I would have preferred them to depict the panels looking a bit greyer than they are, which was more typical for a seventies aeroplane as opposed to the 'wartime black' panels of the early Comets. Apart from that, I quite like it. I suppose it is one of those cockpits that is textured in the way which some people would describe as 'cartoonish', i.e. it isn't scuffed up and such in a CaptainSim stylee, but personally, I quite like the 'as new' look that it has.Al

Thanks Al,Yes, i would say it looks a bit cartoonish and/or fs5ish.I thought it was either my monitor or the resolution that made it look so ahemmm.I think you bought another JF plane that had a vc with those looks (the connie ?)--No matter how much I like the exterior that vc is a big turnoff for me.I found a comet with a great looking vc but unfortunately it is for fs9. here Comet. Scroll down till you see COMET_PANEL.zip.Vic

Yeah that's the DM Comet, which is good, but the JF Comet's VC is better than that. Flat 2D textures projected onto VC panels look awful.Al

Huzzah for British Engineering! Jolly good show!Al

Pity it kept crahing :(

Well to be fair, the design was actually a very good one, Comets only crashed until they discovered a few things about manufacturing processes affecting repeated pressurisation cycles, after that, it was a very sturdy and safe aeroplane. Both Boeing and Douglas bosses are reputed to have said to John Cunningham that if that hadn't happened to de Havilland, then it would have happened to them. Sadly for DH, the damage was done though and their withdrawal during that investigation gave Boeing the chance to get the 707 out of the door. Them's the breaks though.Al