Howdy guys,

 

this is a small flight report as well as a review using the recently released Coolsky/McPhat DC-9.

 

The DC-9 is a classic aircraft, with not much automation. It has radios, VOR, ADF and a very basic autopilot. As the predecessor of the MD-80 it's one of the most well known aircrafts.

 

So, I decided to do a small flight from Calgary (Alberta, Canada) to Kelowna (British Columbia, Canada) with the Air Canada DC-9-30.

 

How do I do it, if there are no such systems like FMC's or GPS installed? Simply by Radio-Navigation.

www.skyvector.com offers airway charts for the whole world now, so it's pretty handy to use for such purpose. My flight will leave Calgary from Runway 34, then head towards the Calgary YYC VOR to intercept outbound radial 248 to join Jet-508 airway (J508) towards YNY. From YNY we will start our approach into Kelowna according to the approach-charts for an ILS approach for Runway 16, leaving YNY on radial 195 up to 31 DME and from that position, we will intercept the ILS localizer.

 

Our aircraft is parked at Calgary - this is the "newer" Air Canada livery. You have to pay 13 € per livery pack if your livery isn't among the release liveries. I personally would prefer to be able to individually buy liveries. The quality of the repaints is top notch and the textures are sharp! Unfortunately there's no old Air Canada livery - that would have been much more eye candy than a white fuselage!

 

 

 

Now we enter the flight deck. We can select several panel states through the aircraft manager - I selected cold & dark. After turning on the battery the flight deck is filled with the avionics noise which is quite nice. Starting the APU I notice the overhead panel is quite blury, even though maxing out the TML to 4096. The rest of the panel is very sharp.

The switch sounds and clicks are really nicely done. Turning the knobs of the altimeter or the altitude select gives you a satisfactory sound as if you were turning a real aircraft instrument. Though some sounds are missing - I don't hear any passenger seat belt signs when I turn them on, nor is there a difference in sound when I turn on/off the packs.

 

With the integrated load manager I can load the plane and it will print me a load sheet/report with the corresponding V-Speeds, Take-Off/Climb EPR's (YES! You heard right - this airplane simulates real EPR behaviour for thrust setting!!!!!!!) and trim settings.

 

Take-Off EPR can be read from the load sheet or you can use the RAT/EPR Instrument, that calculates the corresponding EPR setting from aircraft weight and ram air temperature. Our Take-Off EPR will be 1.95 with an initial reduction to 1.84 as climb EPR.

 

 

Take-Off V-Speeds can be read from the take-off data card and are calculated automatically. With a mouse-click you can automatically set all the speedbugs to the correct speed. We're going for a 5°-flap take-off

 

Time for the pushback - we start our engines. The sound on the flightdeck is very weak - as the engines are in the rear you barely hear them when starting up. In my opinion, but this might be a matter of taste, I've never been on a DC-9 flightdeck, the engine sounds could be a tiny bit louder on the flightdeck.

The aircraft features in-built checklists. You can simply click next item and your co-pilot will read the next item on the checklist.

 

Having set the correct take-off trim - the airplane accelerates quite slowly on the runway. Engines are set to 1.95 EPR and I must say the throttle is really nice. The gauges are very precise and the movement of the needles is sooooooooo smooth it's like a dream to adjust the power on this bird.

Rotating at Vr and retracting the gear the aircraft start a perfectly stable climb. The trim-setting calculation and power/speed setting is on the spot and it's really a dream to handfly this bird on depature

 

Now we're climbing for our cruise level of FL270. The autopilot works nicely but you have to help it alot. In order to intercept a radial (airway) I bring it into close proximity with the heading bug before switiching to the LOC/NAV mode. It then more or less rides the airplane on the radial, with sometimes twiching to the right (this occured to me during descend)

The autopilot pop-up panel is really helpfull - the autopilot in the VC is not fully useable - I couldn't move the vertical speed wheel there(!)

 

Again for landing we can rely on calculated speeds.

 

Following the published procedure for the ILS the autopilot nicely captured the localizer and glideslope

 

Landing flaps at 40° and flying at around 145 kt

 

I love the wing view

 

The runway is in-sight and I'm manually flying this bird down. I'm really happy with the flight dynamics - it flys very stable and has some "real feel" to it. (Although the biggest aircraft I have ever flown in real life was a twin-engine Piper Seneca II during my MEP rating)

 

So! This concludes the flight, but what about the airplane? I'll simply make a short list of pro's and con's that should reflect my personal opinion about this bird:

 

Pro

+very nice flight dynamics

+accurate flight data calculation (including EPR simulation)

+stunning textures

+very nice virtual cockpit

+"feeling" of really beeing there

 

Con

-weak engine sounds / soundset (especially in the exitor)

-weak cockpit sounds (missing sounds that would add to the ambient of the flightdeck)

-high texture resolution = long loading times

-VC needs improvement in useability (ADFs can't be tuned, Autopilot partially functional)

 

I can run the PMDG MD-11, 737NGX, Captain Sim 707 and 737 on my system without any problems. On this bird I get an average of around 20-25 frames in the VC with weather (AS2012) and ENB Series enabled on standart scenery airports.

 

This bird still has some glitches but it's defenitely fun to fly already and I'm gonna get more into it, as it has a much deeper system simulation (many possible failures, useable circuit brakes etc)

 

And last not least, for all who wonder how it looks at night, here are three screenshots:

 

 

Best Regards

Johann

Johann, thank you for this informative review. The "blurries" I pictures don't look so bad. The slightly non-functional VC is more unfortunate, for those of us who try to fly without 2D pop ups.

I was able to move the VS wheel in the VC for climb but not for descent, i could not work out what i was doing wrong,

 

It might be a bug, will try another flight soon.

 

Nice write up enjoy the read. Great aircraft.

An EXCELLENT review Johann! Thank you for this. FYI, sounds like the engine sounds are accurate. As you noted, the engines are in the far rear and you have to be near full power before you really hear them from the cockpit. In cruise the wind noise should pretty much totally drown out the engine sounds, so it sounds like they got that pretty well spot on (although you didn't mention if there was wind noise present in flight). On a related note, do you get a sudden rise in wind noise as the gear is extended, and vice versa when it's retracted?

 

The lack of VC functionality with some systems is a bit of a killer for me. I require that as I operated in VC only (using 2D pop-ups kills the immersiveness for me). It sounds like it's worth keeping an eye on this plane for patches and whatnot though. It does seem to have potential.

 

Thank you again for an honest, unbiased review. I wish we had more of these.

A great and very informing review of this bird, paired with really amazing screenshots! Thanks so much, Johann.