I have been very satisfied with the CS727 (despite the tiny 2D engine gauges) and am considering the CS707 now. Does anybody here have it and if so, is it...brilliant? Is it better than the 727 in any respects? Or just different? How clear are the cockpit gauges?Appreciate any posts with opinions on the early "Queen of the Skies."Thanks!Js

>>I have been very satisfied with the CS727 (despite the tiny 2D>engine gauges) and am considering the CS707 now. Does anybody>here have it and if so, is it...brilliant? Is it better than>the 727 in any respects? Or just different? How clear are>the cockpit gauges?>>Appreciate any posts with opinions on the early "Queen of the>Skies.">>Thanks!>>JsJS:I just bought this product a couple of weeks ago and am very, very happy with it. Don't own the CS 727, so can't make a comparison. Yes, the gauges are hard to read, but the sim offers a "digital readout," absolutely crucial during critical flight phases. The animations and visuals are top notch, IMHO. Having said that, however, I'd make the following criticisms. The manuals are next to worthless, with little information on numbers and proper procedures. The plane needs another patch, for example, to fix the horribly uncontrollable pitch wheel on the autopilot (e.g., using the wheel sometimes produces the desired results, sometimes it produces the opposite, sometimes nothing happens at all).In general, using the autopilot means that you are fighting the airplane not flying it. The plane is very touchy in terms of holding a heading or altitude. In fact, unless you are close (within a hundred feet or so) to your desired altitude, it'll bob up and down like hippies at a Reggae concert. However, once the plane has "settled," it's rock solid. The best way to fly it is to forget about the autopilot and hand-fly it at least to cruising altitude (using throttle and pitch to establish vertical climb and manage air speed). Then, level off and engage the ap. (BTW, I found it's easier to descend than to climb, the dreaded pitch wheel works better when pitching down).I've also noticed that it's fairly unforgiving when it comes to take-off trim: set it wrongly, and you'll be in for a whole lot of grief. The problem here is that it's hard to tell whether any of what I mention here is part of "as real as it gets," or just plain pilot error. Whatever error is made is hard to correct, since, as stated above, we practically have no manuals. Having said that, however, I should point out that the Captain Sim 707 support forum has a couple of fantastic people willing to share their knowledge (and, in fact, an instruction manual with a tutorial flight is being worked on right now). In short, for the first 30 minutes of your flight you'll be in constant panic, but once established you'll love this "queen of the skies."http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/99012.jpg

Ricardo:Thanks for your frank reply. You describe the situation vividly and I can just imagine things (!) Safe flying in the Queen.JS

I am a big RFP fan and like a lot of round gauges. Does anyone know how this 707 compares to RFP's 747-200?RH

The 707 has no autothrottle system, no autoland, etc. The 707 begs to be handflown from takeoff to cruising altitude, from cruising to descent to touchdown. If you want to add complexity, download the CIVA INS and enter 400 waypoints every 9 waypoint or so. That'll keep you busy. Just like an opera diva, the 707, as it states in the "manual," needs "constant attention."

>The 707 has no autothrottle system, no autoland, etc. The 707>begs to be handflown from takeoff to cruising altitude, from>cruising to descent to touchdown. If you want to add>complexity, download the CIVA INS and enter 400 waypoints>every 9 waypoint or so. That'll keep you busy. >>Just like an opera diva, the 707, as it states in the>"manual," needs "constant attention." Funny no mention of EPR, hum how does one fly a 707 with such modelling?Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4]http://www.rawbw.com/~bdoolin/shinault/southparkcartmad.gif[h3]PMDG 747![/h3]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)ASUS KV8 DLX | AMD 3200 64 | 1 GIG PC 3200 DDR | GIGABYTE 5700 ULTRA | ViewSonic VP192b 19" |

>> Funny no mention of EPR, hum how does one fly a 707 with such modellingYeah, you don't fly it, you guesstimate it. Especially while copying gauges from their 727 into the 707 there apparently wasn't even time to change the scaling of the EPR gauge.There's also a 727 Overhead Panel in the 707, quickly expanded for four-engine use. And a 727 Autopilot as well (the 707 originally uses the Bendix PB20, not the Sperry), but what does it count.Sigh ...Michael

Are you Jonathan of all Queen flyers leaving the roots?AArrrghhh!!Johan

Johan:Erm....not sure exactly what you are saying (or asking). Can you re-phrase.... and I'll respond.Thanks!JS

Jonathan, it goes back to the glorious days of Captain Tarmack.. most of the readers now dont know him.The 747 remains the Queen!My answer was just a between friends idiotacy.. disregard!Johan[A HREF=http://jdserver.no-ip.com]Personal Server[/A]

Hi Jonathan,Long time no speak. :-)I purshased the Legendary B727 the day it was promised to be released. Well,...most of us knows the story how Captain Sim treats their customers....Well,....I though for a fraction of a second that they learned from the fatal misstake when releasing the B727. But I was so wrong. A similar thing happened when they released the B707,...with a huge amount of systems not working at all !!!!! After their release of the version 1.1 patch things was slightly improved. But Captain Sim have a long way to go before the B707 gets even close to the B727.The main problem here are the framerates. For some strange reason, the 707 suffers from a huge memory leak in the VC. But the B727 doesn

Johan:Hey, man, stuff between friends is...important!Anyway, desert the Queen? No way! (Still have PSS Queen on FS2002 here)But remember: the Queen of today is the daughter of the Queen Mother (the 707). Kind of you to post.Cheers!JS

Dear Staffan:That is one nice looking system. I love DELLs. Had three systems since 1996, each one better than the predecessor.Regarding the 707, doesn't sound so good and I am sorry to hear about this. I hope that CS will fix things if there really is a huge memory leak. I bought their 727 late in the game when everything was fixed. Ditto with PMDG's NG series. There is sometimes an advantage to being a late comer to the sim party (!) By the way, have you done the FS-GS process? It made a very significant difference for me in FS2004. Plus FSAutostart which is quite remarkable. Happy Holidays (to come)!JS

Hi again,To be real honest, I am sad regarding the B707, since that is one of my favourite aircraft. I really would like it to run as my other addons. I couldn

Staffan:1. The FS-GS process cost me something like 60 Euros (when the US dollar was worth a lot more!) and for me personally was worth every nickel. It took almost 6 hours. I communicated with FS-GS via PC headset and microphone and the call cost me nothing (I discovered SKYPE during that session and that is sensational). Anyway, the learning involved was worth the money. It HAS made a substantial difference to the PC's performance. The sim is smoother. The frame rate increase was not so big, but the visual fluidity was much improved and I removed the pressure points that kill your processor in doing FS-GS. One thing I discovered was how much NORTON antivirus and firewall was crippling my PC for FS so I threw that out and replaced it with PANDA which uses half the resources.2. That said, I believe that FSAutostart has made an equally big improvement to the PC's performance. I am delighted with the way FS Autostart works. It is far superior to Enditall (which I still use on my DELL P3 for FS2002) because it goes deeper in your PC's system to turn services and programs off for the duration of your sim session; and then turns everything back on automatically when you exit FS2004. I could get the DELL XPS Gen 4 PC now (except that I don't have the money, hah!) and double or triple the computing power for most applications compared with my venerable P4 2.53 Ghz; but we all know that FS is a (literally) killer application that brings most PCs to their knees. I think that some sort of tweaking or compromise will be necessary with FS forever no matter what PC you have. It's a game of endless software development and hardware development leapfrog, isn't it?Anyway, if you don't do FS-GS, then do FSAutostart and I can email you or perhaps post in a separate thread how I have done things. Or you can post here and Ken Salter (the author and an AVSIM guru) will reply. Finally, I think Fs2004 requires 1024 RAM. I don't think 512 is adequate; I have 1024 RDRAM and I need it. In normal use with default a/c, my RAM usage is around 250 to 280MB but it shoots up to a minimum of 600MB with PMDG NG. At times, my free RAM is as low as 180MB when using the NG (scary!).Regards,JS