I have the Eaglesoft X and the CitationII. For me they're perfect. Life's too short to spend hours setting up a FMC. I have limited simming time and would rather fly, so use radio nav for moderate distances and GPS for rare intercontinental flights. Like it or not, irl GPS nav is so reliable & simple to use that it's rapidly becoming the standard in aviation. The auto throttle on the Citation II isn't up to much in that it ignores the engine limitations. Luckily the designers thought to put two levers beside your virtual right hand for the button-challenged. I've found they work very well!As for an early Lear there's a very nice freeware 25 by Yann Koun, complete with fully functional VC. Flies well too, although seems a bit slow at altitude. If you want a bizjet, that's a must have.Oh yeah, FSD Jetstar? Ummmm, sorry; not my thing. That's not a criticism, just horses for courses. Right now you can't prize me out of my new T-38!Happy landings LonelyplanetXO

Riddlepilot.......the throttles on the CII are not wacky, you just have to learn to fly it without the benefit of an autopilot...perhaps that's what you can't do?:-)

Thanks for your comment jennifer. If you happen to check ServInfo at any given time, you'll find me hand flying :( my Aeroworx King Air, DreamFleet PA-28 or C441 Conquest on VATSIM, all while flying the Victor airways published on my complete set of Low altitude enroute charts for the entire US, and possibly shooting a VOR or NDB approach to those obscure 4000 foot strips that Jeppesen decided to stick in the book of approach plates to make it harder for someone to find the ILS to 19R at Dulles.I also don't use the autothrottle when I do have that god-forbidden urge to fly my Southwest 737.

Bill, Well, I'm a real world pilot and I like your X, and have right seated one several times. Yeah, we all know it's not a prodedural sim, and who frickin cares. I fly the X when I want to do semi short hops, in something which files correctly without having to spend 1 1/2 hrs pre flighting the darned thing. My time for FS is limited, and although I love the 'do it like is't the real thing' stuff, I usually don't have the time to fool with it.Build a nice lear and I'll buy itBest and keep up the good work,clayhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...ers/Dopke01.jpgClayton T. Dopke (Clay)Major, USAF (retired)"Drac"

I love hand flying the Ready for Pushback 742! FMCs are nice when I'm lazy but in general why use them? The X is a great plane, I still think the panels in the VC are a bit blurry but its a minor thing. So you program the FMC for 30 minutes or so, start her up, taxi out and takeoff, and then sit back and watch the thing fly til touchdown? If I wanted that kind of hands off boredom I'd be a real world pilot now!

>I love hand flying the Ready for Pushback 742! FMCs are nice>when I'm lazy but in general why use them? The X is a great>plane, I still think the panels in the VC are a bit blurry but>its a minor thing. So you program the FMC for 30 minutes or>so, start her up, taxi out and takeoff, and then sit back and>watch the thing fly til touchdown? If I wanted that kind of>hands off boredom I'd be a real world pilot now!Your statement makes little to no sense. A plane designed to be managed via an FMC, needs to have an FMC. A plane without one, well, doesn't need one. Your statement "FMCs are nice...but why use them?" equally makes no sense. Nobody is asking that addon companies put an FMC into, I don't know, the default Cessna. Ricardo

Ricardo, check here for more info on FMC's for our aircraft.:-)http://www.eaglesoftdg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=252

Sorry I ment why use them in the sim? Unless you are practicing to be a real world pilot, using a FMC is just programming a computer sitting back and watching it do all the work. I fail to see the fun in this. And about people asking to put FMCs in, sure they are, the complaints about the X not having one, and ones that have some bugs (level-d's) show that a lot of people use them

I don't think you're going to find an FMC or FMS in the Jetstar. I don't have any inside information per se, but it strikes me that the freeware INS gauge is more appropriate for the Jetstar.I think the Jetstar is an excellent project because no one has modeled one in payware quality yet. It's a jet you can fly without the FMC and it be appropriate based on its age. Perhaps that's why they chose it-to avoid the FMC issues. Perhaps not.I'd love to fly FS business jets with the FMC because it makes it more real-not because I want to program the computer to do it for me. I suspect that's why a lot of us prefer them. But we, the customers, have to understand how difficult and time consuming a custom FMC is for each aicraft. Sure, Eaglesoft could pull it off, they're top notch, but you'd have to expect to see a price hike which would cut into sales and we all know how much we all (myself included) complain about expensive addons. All that is to say that I want an FMC, but I can completely understand why they aren't included all the time.Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong! :>

Rightseat, thanks for the reminder that the Jetstar is old enough to use an INS if the guys at FSD choose to include one.:-)Our statements re: FSD and F1 including FMC's in their jets was a feeble attempt at injecting some humour on the subject:-)

>Your statement makes little to no sense. A plane designed to>be managed via an FMC, needs to have an FMC. A plane without>one, well, doesn't need one. Your statement "FMCs are>nice...but why use them?" equally makes no sense. Ricardo, his statement is entirely logical and correct. As always, the primary control source for ANY airplane is the pilot, although quite possibly the Airbus with its FBW system might give the pilot an argument about that... ;)In the first place, don't confuse FMC with FMS. The FMS used in the Citation X (as well as nearly all bizjets) is based on - are you ready for this? - a GPS...Yep, you read that right... It is simply a GPS wearing a different dress. The "display" for the FMS (GPS) is of course the MFD of the Primus 2000 system. The "knobs" of the GPS have been replaced by a nifty alpha/numeric data entry pad, but it is still "just a GPS."An FMC is a "Flight Management Computer," and is capable of handling the entire flight profile, not just navigation.

I really enjoy it and learn when somebody knows the subject clearly and knows what he is really talking about ( forgive my duplicity !!).Anything elseis (todo lo demas es) plain PuPu de Toro (BS).I guess I am not so ignorante as I thought. Even I new the difference between an FMS and FMC.Thank you sir for explaining so vividly and clear.Edmundo Cardenas van GriekenSVMI

No problems Riddlepilot. I just couldn't let your risque comment go without some kind of response:-)

No offence intended here, but if I'm going to put some money down on an add-on plane, I'm going to want something that models as many Real World systems as FS will allow such as the PMDG 737, LDS 737, Flight 1 Meridian, FSD Cheyenne etc.. Anything else is just eye-candy. This is my opinion. Best RegardsBoone,[email protected]"Flying a plane is no different from riding a bicycle. It's just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes."

Bill, are you sure its not the other way around? From what I recall, an FMC is the centerpiece of the FMS. The FMS is the entire system that is tied into the LNAV, VNAV and A/T functions of the autopilot.