Hi All,

 

I finally sorted my Carenedo Phenom 100 after having to re-install everything and now my plan for March is to add 2 more planes to my hanger and make the world look prettier.

 

The 3 things I am after are:

 

A) Small Plane- Looking for something with the Luxury feel of my Phenom but with Propellers.  I am currently thinking possible the Duke V2 Turbo Prop or something from Carenedo.

 

B) A Small Commercial Plane - No a fan of the big jumbo's as I am more of a city hopper then a Trans-Atlantic type flyer.  I have been looking at the Majestic Dash8 and the PMDG BAE planes.

 

C) Make it look pretty - Currently running Vanilla Graphics on a powerful PC, not sure where to go for something to make the scenery more realistic.  I mainly fly through Europe

 

I run FSX-SE on a Windows 8.1 PC so need things that are compatible

 

Thanks in advance

Hi All,

 

I finally sorted my Carenedo Phenom 100 after having to re-install everything and now my plan for March is to add 2 more planes to my hanger and make the world look prettier.

 

The 3 things I am after are:

 

A) Small Plane- Looking for something with the Luxury feel of my Phenom but with Propellers.  I am currently thinking possible the Duke V2 Turbo Prop or something from Carenedo.

 

B) A Small Commercial Plane - No a fan of the big jumbo's as I am more of a city hopper then a Trans-Atlantic type flyer.  I have been looking at the Majestic Dash8 and the PMDG BAE planes.

 

C) Make it look pretty - Currently running Vanilla Graphics on a powerful PC, not sure where to go for something to make the scenery more realistic.  I mainly fly through Europe

 

I run FSX-SE on a Windows 8.1 PC so need things that are compatible

 

Thanks in advance

Hi Marcus,

 

In my opinion you have already identified what are arguably the best aircraft available for FSX in categories A and B. The Real Air Turbine Duke and Majestic Q400 both are beautifully modelled both inside and out, have realistic flight dynamics and systems replication and great sounds. I have both and they are certainly amongst my most favourite aircraft to fly. I also have the PMDG Jetstream 41, but that does not quite hit the mark in the same way as the Q400 although it is still a very good product.

 

With regard to making Europe look more realistic, you basically have two options. You can either go down the Orbx/FTX pathway or the Flight 1 UTX/GEX pathway. Both provide significant visual improvements to FSX scenery but I currently use the Orbx products for my European scenery and the appearance is amazing. For Orbx you would need FTXGlobal Base, FTX Vector and FTX Europe LC, which is probably going to work out a bit more expensive than UTX Europe and GEX Europe. You can also add additional even more detailed Orbx areas for the UK, Ireland and Norway if you wish (with more areas on the way I understand) but unless you are doing a lot of low and slow VFR flying, which you wouldn't be doing in any of those aircraft, these are not really necessary.

 

Hope this helps,

Bill

A ) Carenado is surely the one you should be looking at. I personally like the trade-off they offer between nice graphics and complexity of the aircraft systems, some do not. Certainly you can not compare a Carenado plane to one of the A2A branch for example. The RealAir Duke would be more close to A2A I think (I do not own it).

 

B ) For short hops I usually use the QualityWings Avros. The Majestic Dash is for sure the most complex addon for smaller commercial planes, but for me it is almost to much again. Also an option would be: PMDG Jetstream (as you said) or you go for the PMDG 737NGX with the 600/700 Expansion.

 

C ) gosh, you can have plenty of stuff here. I certainly would take a look at the products offered by OrbX. If you concentrate on Europe only, you could also think about the UTX products or GEX Europe. All those "total conversion" addons have a little drawback: it needs sometimes a lot of experience to have them running along each other and with airport addons. In my case, I have all SceneryTech landclasses installed, together with FTX Global and FTX Vector. This already completely changes the appearance of default regions in FSX. Then I also use a lot of regional addons like Switzerland Professional X, FTX Northern California, FTX New Zealand etc. And of course, I use tons of addon airports all over the world with more than 10 airports in Europe.

 

As you see, for question C ) you get almost indefinite amounts of options to increase the visual experience of FSX. And in the end, what you also should get is a decent weather engine and some replacement textures like REX 4.0. Never ending story...

Hi Marcus,

 

The Real Air Turbine Duke V2 is marvellous; my favorite plane. BTW : works great with Saitek Radoi's and Switch Panel !

Very good small tubeliner is PMDG B737 (amount of seats doesn't matter to me)

 

Cheers,

 

Ben

Thanks all for your replies.  I'm no expert when it come to flying I generally do a cold and dark start for the realism and follow the tick sheets.  I currently fly IFR "Low Altitude Airways" and then ILS landings.  I use the standard FSX flight plan to set this up. 

 

My Phenom does have a G1000 thingy but apart from looking at it for traffic, weather and the map I don't really have a clue how to use it beyond that.

 

I like the Phenom as its pretty simple to fly, looks fantastic and is pretty fast.

 

Watching video's and looking at posts, the Duke maybe a little complex for my simple intelligence LOL and so might be the majestic.

 

I am quite tempted by the PC12 looks pretty simple to fly and has a nice luxury feel to it.

 

I looked at the ORBX stuff and am tempted by that, I not going to have any Airport Add ons as a generally hope around the world rather than to any specific airports.  I have heard of an HD add on for all airports which looks like it will work for me, then add the ORBX stuff.

The Turbine Duke can be flown in a "relaxed" fashion ... and it offers some headroom in case you want to learn a bit more about proper turbine engine management, for example. Highly recommended to experience a Realair plane before buying a second one by Carenado.

 

For the GPS/G1000, the FSX learning center is pretty good at explaining the additional functions.

When it comes to fly low and  slow in Europe, you also might want to consider photoreal scenery, There is some seriously good stuff available for Austria and France. Also Italy has some excellent freeware scenery to offer, where you can fly from Lugano over the Alps via the Mont Blanc and Matterhorn all the way down in as real as it gets scenery to Venice just as an example. Combine that with planes such as the Seneca V, C-208 or C182T from Carenado and you are in for some pretty realistic treat without going bonkers on your wallet.

 

Bernd

Thanks all for your replies.  I'm no expert when it come to flying I generally do a cold and dark start for the realism and follow the tick sheets.  I currently fly IFR "Low Altitude Airways" and then ILS landings.  I use the standard FSX flight plan to set this up. 

 

My Phenom does have a G1000 thingy but apart from looking at it for traffic, weather and the map I don't really have a clue how to use it beyond that.

 

I like the Phenom as its pretty simple to fly, looks fantastic and is pretty fast.

 

Watching video's and looking at posts, the Duke maybe a little complex for my simple intelligence LOL and so might be the majestic.

 

I am quite tempted by the PC12 looks pretty simple to fly and has a nice luxury feel to it.

 

I looked at the ORBX stuff and am tempted by that, I not going to have any Airport Add ons as a generally hope around the world rather than to any specific airports.  I have heard of an HD add on for all airports which looks like it will work for me, then add the ORBX stuff.

 

High performance aircraft in FSX or P3d are a bit like motorcycles. You are not obliged to twist the throttle fully in order to enjoy the ride. Almost all powerful aircraft are perfectly flyable for less than experienced sim pilots. Nearly all of the Duke's complexities kick in when you are attempting to extract the maximum from its already very rapid climb and cruise performance. I think the most relevant thing to look out for in any aircraft is whether it can auto start without problems (tick), and has a manageable stall speed (tick) so that you can plan ahead for approaches and landings. In this regard the Phenom and Duke, and many other aircraft, are manageable after a read of the manuals.

Talking of photoscenery:

 

NL2000 is an amazing freeware scenery with additional custom airports, trees, houses and stuff.

 

For Belgium there used to be an excellent freeware available by AVSIM forum member Gerard Salden, but his links were up only temporarily:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/373789-belgium-2012-free-photoscenery/page-1

 

MegasceneryEarth have started to cover Europe with PS payware, but you may want to check their quality per title (colour corrections, blurry terrain pieces, insufficient cloud removal and so on), before purchasing (better prices at pcaviator.com.au, currently):

http://www.megasceneryearth.com/store/cart.php?target=category&category_id=175

I like their MSE Portugal, which only has smaller flaws, mainly thin clouds rendered into the photoscenery.

On the other hand I finally dumped their MSE Switzerland in favour of Switzerland Professional X (by Flylogic, also PS, but annotated with buildings, trees and so on, but also mighty expensive stuff).

Thanks for the input.  I'm going to go for the Duke I think as it sounds really good which I like.

 

I like the look (and cost) of GEX Europe

 

I like REX soft clouds also so that's on the list.

 

Do I also need REX 4.0?

 

I will hold off on the Commercial Plane for now and enjoy the Duke, plus build up the scenery

Thanks for the input.  I'm going to go for the Duke I think as it sounds really good which

 

I think you are making a good decision. If you like to do cold and dark starts, you will find the Turbine Duke very easy with just the power, prop and condition levers and a few switches to set - takes about 2 minutes to get both engines powered up and oooh that sound! The avionics are intuitive and also very easy to use. Enjoy!

 

Bill

(...)

I like REX soft clouds also so that's on the list.

 

Do I also need REX 4.0?

 

(...)

 

 

The soft clouds now seem to be included in the latest REX 4.0 texture Direct HD release. REX 4.0, in addition to the cloud replacements, also offers replacement textures for runways, aprons, sky, sun, water and so on:

http://www.rexgamestudios.com/news.html

 

Could be the stuff that you want ...   B)

is GEX Europe stand alone or do I need something else with it?

T Duke v2 with GTN 750

 

:wub:

 

Maybe you want the A2A Skylane with GTN 750 (of which I don't have yet!)

 

:wub:

 

Heck even the Carenado PC12 with GTN750 VC mods and user mods is excellent!

 

:wub:

The Majestic Dash8 is amazing, I never get tired of flying it.  I'm also eagerly waiting for the DA/Aerosoft CRJ, the preview shots look wonderful.