I purchased the MD-80 from F1 last Friday late and have discovered it is not what I expected from F1.I know they are not the developers here but everything I have ever purchased from them has stayed in my hangar and used extensively.I have asked for a refund in which they promptly executed.The plane had a lot of shortcommings which I also found in the LAGO MADDOG and when I read F1 was releasing one I jumped on it without hesitation because of their track record. The plane itself did not load quickly,very slow and jerky responsiveness when looking out the sideviews,no sideviews in 2D mode,very loud cockpit,VC was cartoonish eventhough I prefer 2D,Cargo doors inoperable,external lights looked fake,FDE was very fast and slow depending on situation where as the LDS 767,ATR,DF727 fly consistent,sounds loop and u need to hit the q key 2xs to get rid of the pause between the looping, and so on ....I own their ATR which is a great and also have purchased the LDS and DF 727 from them and have always felt they have very high standards in the products they sell.This was a disappointment but I have to give thme the highest of marks for giving me a refund in a timely manner.I have never asked for a refund in my 18 yrs of simming but after I got burned with LAGO I was not about to have 2 MAD DOGS collecting dust.Andy

I agree with most of the shortcomings you listed, nothing that can't corrected with a patch. The only aircraft that you listed that I felt didn't need any patches when it was released was the DF727.Jeff

Eh to each their own. I love the airvraft. Awesome in depth system simulation, great performance. Yes the VC takes a bit to load but theyre working on that and the few little quibbles that come with a fresh release. All in all its one of the more solid releases in awhile. No the VC isnt photo real but its nice and its frames are exceptional. With a service pack this plane will be a classic. All though I can agree with some of your findings for sure. I do love the FDE personally though this plane is a lot of fun to fly manually.

Andy,We ARE part of the developers on this, and it is fully up to our expectations on what the product should be.It is targeted to a specific purpose, which is the goal of having an intense system simulator and training system. It is TRUE that some of the eye candy that is in other releases is not there. Personally, I love the "flushing toilet" in the Flight1 ATR (hmmm... I wonder if that was my idea:)), but much of the resources in the Super 80 were allocated to the classic type aircraft systems, as well as the ICTS.The issues noted with VC loading for some users did not happen in beta testing, and will of course be addressed. It does not occur on my older system here. It appears to only occur on some systems with certain configurations which we hope to discover.Anyway, I understand it may not be what you were expecting. I just wanted to chime in to counter the impression that it fell short of our (Flight1) standards for a product, which it has not (from our perspective). Which is to have a very deep simulation of the Super 80 of the 1979 era, with a training system to walk you through pratically every step of the way.And of course Espen is keeping on top of everything very well in the forums.

I agree, and Espen is really working overtime to answer questions. There are some minor issues that need addressing (autothrottle not going into "clamp"mode, slow loading textures, fonts not readable, etc.). Plus, there are already at least a half dozen additional liveries available. I'll let you in on a little secret: you don't even need to read the manual. Yup, that's right. the integrated learning system is so thorough, with big pointy arrows, well, pointing to the knobs you need to press, the buttons to turn, etc., that you can get this plane up in the air without looking at the manual once. ricardo

I do not agree with the sentiment expressed in this post - I've found it to be better than I expected and a worth addition to the stable of serious sims in my hanger...

Agreed. I also love the MD-80 and I am sure that whatever issues were found will be addressed and corrected with a patch. The Super 80 is an "intense" aircraft, requiring a lot of work in the pit. It's right in the middle between older A/C like the DC9 and newer, glass cockpit FMC driven planes. The Omega navigation system, Digital Flight Guidance System and Performance Management System take some time to master. A refreshing departure from the usual Boeings and Airbuses. Feels like going back to good ol' DOS times! :) No fancy Nav displays, but lots of letters and numbers on small screens to make you happy. Heck, it's even got ACARS to load flightplans into the ONS!And as another user remarked, the VC is amazingly FPS friendly for a change. So, all in all, a great aircraft and as thoroughly simulated as can be. Well worth my money! I am happy. Regards,Jure

I think the aircraft is lovely but I am afraid that on my system it is almost unusable.If I try and call up the task bar it takes many attempts then when I go back to the VC I get a white background and everything stops while the textures slowly reappear.Approach a busy airport and the aircraft freezes on approach to leap into life again :-(I havent even dared try it in heavy weather.In good conditions the altimeter jumps around the dial in jerks.My Level D 767 and PMDG 747 are both super smooth and fluid in literally any weather or loading on my system which isnt slow.Many people seem delighted so whats going wrong here.I have purchased most aircraft from F1 because of the quality and excellent customer relations and I was really looking forward to the MD80 any advice on why I am not getting a super smooth aircraft much appreciatedPeter

Peter,I am not sure why you have problems... have you tried the official support forum?For starters, I'd suggest you alter the setup and NOT load all the panels at startup. There is an option to do that (I'm at work right now, so I'm relying on my memory which is not what it used to be :))The training centre will still function to a degree.Also, try a flight without VC and see what happens. I saw no appreciable difference on my machine, but it's worth a try. I hope you solve it, this plane is a beauty.Regards,Jure

JureI have followed your advice and disabled show all windows at start up.This has made a big difference in normal flight and I accomplished a flight Cork to Manchester.I am still getting a problem in VC if I call up MSFS task bar. It takes two clicks to get into the task bar submenus and when I come out I have a white VC and a pause while the textures load.Same goes if I call up more than one systems window. A long pause while they load.On exiting MSFS I had a "virtual memory low windows is increasing" which I have not had before.Thanks Peter nb This plane could be great but isnt yet on my system. It may be my computer doesnt like something. Some people report good frames yet I have seen posts with some with the same problems as me.

Same with me on the PMDG 747, some people say it's so smooth and better than the 737,(the upcoming patch will hopefully solve this issue), but absolutely the oposite for me. With this MD80, I only fly in VC because it's smoother than the 2D panel for me. I really, really like this aircraft and it's all I've been flying since it came out.Jeff

Peter,strange! Seems like there's a memory leak somewhere. Can you try something else?Check your X:Main FS FolderAutogen folder and rename default.xml to something like default.bak or something like that. I disabled mine long ago. This is a VERY long shot and I'm far from being an expert but this one won't hurt your computer at all and besides, you can always rename it back if you like barns and those silly signs. :)But then again, if your other AC run ok... I, on the other hand, have great frame rates in MD80, but ever since I upgraded to more powerful computer and reinstalled FS, I have these horrible stutters! Tried everything known to man without success. Go figure!Jure

JureWill do :-)but I usually fly with autogen switched offPeter

Same problems here; I have a reasonable pc, p4 @3.6 ghz, 1gig ram, geforce 6800gt 256ram. Big stutters, it takes forever loading task bar and textures. Other aircraft w. detailed vc's and systems (captainsim 727, ariane 737-600 vce) give no such problems.And when exiting fs, the windows are very slow to loadup again.I also noticed the model w.vc; 3.216 kb (ariane 737-600 vce=1.212kb; captainsim 727-200=1.701kb; tbm 700 vc & cabin=2.583kb)The others have much smaller model sizes; could this be an issue regarding the problems above?I like this plane so I'm trying to find the source of the trouble. Paul

>>I, on the other hand, have great frame rates in MD80, but ever>since I upgraded to more powerful computer and reinstalled FS,>I have these horrible stutters! Tried everything known to man>without success. Go figure!>>JureI had that same issue, do you have Riva Tuner? Try v-synch pre-render limit = 0. That did some amazing things for me! May not work for all like every other tweak but worth a shot...