Aerosoft CRJ700/900 released

[Chock 17,769]

Okay, came in hot and bounced the landing so you'd get to see landing gear compression twice. I presume this is what you meant:

 

[vc10man 732]

Nice illustration, Alan. I'm sure Christopher will approve.

[Christopher Low 5,331]

Thanks, Alan. As expected, the preview video must have been shot in REPLAY mode, which is probably not the best idea when you are trying to sell your product to a community full of perfectionists!!

[Chock 17,769]

Well, as you can see from the red box in the bottom left on that vid, that was in replay mode too, so the gear compression animation does work on the replay, or at least it did for me.

[Christopher Low 5,331]

That's very interesting, Alan. Maybe the preview video was shot with a build that did not include gear compression? Either that, or REPLAY mode quality can vary to some degree....

[vc10man 732]

Off-topic. I'm trying to buy Pete Dowson's latest FSUIPC but PayPal are charging a 1.5% commission, and I cannot find a way of discovering what PayPal's current currency exchange rates are. Anyone know how to find their rates?

Thanks.

[Chock 17,769]

Well, funnily enough, I took you at your word and assumed it would not work on a replay, so I actually landed it on an exterior view from the side with FRAPS running, I switched to that view just as I came over the threshold, but then I noticed it was working on the replay, so I switched to a better zoomed-in view of the landing gear and shifted the viewpoint around a bit so you could see the gear oleos better and recorded the replay from that view. Like you say, it could have been a recording made with an early build of the aeroplane on their video, or in a dodgy unpatched version of FSX or some such like that, or maybe the replay function glitched or whatever. I know the replay works a bit differently in P3D V4 compared to FSX, for example, everything on my iFly 737 NG shows up in replays on P3D V4 apart from the port side speedbrake; that's the one thing which stays in its post-landing deployed position if you watch a landing replay whereas everything else displays correctly on replays, which is a bit bizarre.

[JGreen5278 21]

6 minutes ago, vc10man said:

Off-topic. I'm trying to buy Pete Dowson's latest FSUIPC but PayPal are charging a 1.5% commission, and I cannot find a way of discovering what PayPal's current currency exchange rates are. Anyone know how to find their rates?

Thanks.

Hey There! I'm not sure if this will provide some guidance? How does PayPal calculate currency conversion/ exchange rate?

[dave2013 1,123]

 

24 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Thanks, Alan. As expected, the preview video must have been shot in REPLAY mode, which is probably not the best idea when you are trying to sell your product to a community full of perfectionists!!

I have to ask: why is landing gear compression so important?  Does the virtual pilot actually notice this effect when landing?

Thanks.

 

[Christopher Low 5,331]

I can "feel" landing gear compression on my PMDG 737/747 and Quality Wings 146. I would hate to think that this would not be the case with the Aerosoft Bombardier CRJ.

[Chock 17,769]

If the landing gear doesn't compress, everyone in the cabin will be killed by peanuts shooting about all over the place upon touchdown, especially those with a nut allergy.

Seriously though, these days aeroplanes have cameras all over them for the benefit of the passengers, but also the crew so they can check stuff out, so conceivably it might matter if there was a gear failure indication light or some such. On many aeroplanes, the gear goes through all kinds of turns and compressions and such in order to fold away, so it has to do the reverse of that when coming down and it would be handy to check it, which used to involve looking through an optical viewport in the cockpit floor on stuff like the B737.

I can think of a few examples where if the crew could have viewed the landing gear just after take off with a camera, as they can do on many aeroplanes these days, they might not have had a crash as a result of retracting gear with a fault, Nigeria Airways DC-8 Flight 2120 springs to mind, where incorrect inflation of the tires caused a burst of one tire on take off and the overheat of an adjacent one because it was carrying more of the load, which subsequently burst into flames, and was retracted whilst on fire.

[HighTowers 1,434]

First impression for me was quite nice. Its unique, in alot of ways, but the principles are always the same with some variations.  Did a quick flight of about an hour CYVR-CYYC. Cockpit prep took a while as I got used to what needs to be set via the checklist on the EFB named "Dave" (Weird having your own electronic assistant be yourself lol) .

The FMC is quite extensive and I was pleasantly surprised to learn it very quickly. I was expecting the Q400 illogical mess that it is, but its quite similar to Boeing/Airbus logics with obviously some differences that are still easy to figure out. Didnt reference the manual for any FMC functions.  

The systems seem to have enough detail to satisfy. You wont get failures or anything at this price point, but its definitely reasonable amount. You will have to reference the tutorial or manual to set some things up though. I might suggest carrying a tad more fuel than planned and just use the APU. The diesel powered ground power is rather loud when using it and eventually gets annoying. 

The ground friction could be off or rather its the old FSX one being used. Must be temporary as I see an option to enable a tweak in the EFB but its disabled right now. Just had to use a hell of alot of power to get going. Once shes moving , taxiing is rather easy. As some have mentioned the climbout is just a speed mode using the CLB detents like Airbus. But cruise flight was finicky for me. Clearly my ol X52 throttle is quite noisy and is rather difficult to fine tune throttles to keep your speed. Jumped up and down alot despite a consistent crosswind. Descent is different altogether with just VNAV advisory. I didnt like the speed mode, so switched to using v/s and adjusted speed with throttles. The ND has a projected altitude arc at your current v/s. Things are quite busy in descent and into approach. Its no NGX or 777. Will keep you on your toes. My RNAV 17R approach didnt draw properly at all, so took over manually, and on final even though I was above Vapp I sank rather quickly. A little surprise, but clearly something to get used to its throttle and other characteristics. I will have to check with them to see if the bad draw is a bug. Occasionally misdraws happen in real aircraft too. so who knows. 

Overall this is something different than your NGX or even 320series buses and gives some interesting aspects of flying albeit with some learning curve of its systems. 

 

[vc10man 732]

Thanks for that, Johnny.

It confirms what I've been reading in their own Forums that their exchange rates are woeful.

Guess I'll buy via my CC.

[vc10man 732]

6 minutes ago, HighTowers said:

The FMC is quite extensive and I was pleasantly surprised to learn it very quickly. I was expecting the Q400 illogical mess that it is, but its quite similar to Boeing/Airbus logics with obviously some differences that are still easy to figure out. Didnt reference the manual for any FMC functions.  

Great piece of news.

[JRBarrett 3,034]

26 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I can "feel" landing gear compression on my PMDG 737/747 and Quality Wings 146. I would hate to think that this would not be the case with the Aerosoft Bombardier CRJ.

The "improved" landing gear on the 700/900 is actually quite stiff compared to the trailing link gear used on the CRJ-200.

I'm sure any real CRJ pilots here would confirm that it's rather easy to get a "greaser" landing on a 200, and much more difficult on a 700/900.

I fly as a passenger on Delta CRJ 700 and 900 aircraft quite a bit, and typically the only thing that I can feel compressing on landing is my spine. 😁