New aircraft! TDFi 717 or CJ700/900?

[CaribbeanCLANK 134]

6 hours ago, mikealpha said:

that is IMO completely exaggerated. I have completed around 20 flights in the CRJ and a lot of fun. You learn something about good descend planning and staying ahead of your plane. Also it keeps you busy during approach, after memorizing a bunch of thrust settings you can fly it quite exact.

Bit more challenge than just pressing LNAV/VNAV (or NAV/PROF) buttons and just watching.

Also IMO now a few weeks after release the CRJ is in MUCH better state than the 717 at that time. 

I also like the 717 quite a lot, but the CRJ does not deserve  such negative comments. 

Mike

 

I never said the aircraft is not fun or not worth buying. I did say I would not recommend it "At the moment". At the moment, in my opinion, I personally have experienced too many issues for me to speak positively about the CRJ product. 

If I thought the aircraft would not be fun, I would have NEVER purchased it. And all those reasons you like the aircraft so much are some of the things that interested me. The lack of a Boeing/Airbus type Auto-Pilot and as you said, "thinking ahead of the aircraft" are part of the reason I wanted to add the CRJ to my hanger. A challenge and something different.

Despite being unable to use the aircraft I still would recommend the product...just not at this moment...and this is because of my personal experience, not because I think the product is inferior. It's new software (on a new sim) and these growing pains are expected.

 

[Mitch24 194]

40 minutes ago, CaribbeanCLANK said:

I never said the aircraft is not fun or not worth buying. I did say I would not recommend it "At the moment". At the moment, in my opinion, I personally have experienced too many issues for me to speak positively about the CRJ product. 

If I thought the aircraft would not be fun, I would have NEVER purchased it. And all those reasons you like the aircraft so much are some of the things that interested me. The lack of a Boeing/Airbus type Auto-Pilot and as you said, "thinking ahead of the aircraft" are part of the reason I wanted to add the CRJ to my hanger. A challenge and something different.

Despite being unable to use the aircraft I still would recommend the product...just not at this moment...and this is because of my personal experience, not because I think the product is inferior. It's new software (on a new sim) and these growing pains are expected.

 

I completely agree. I love the CRJ from Aerosoft, and I've said this many times. Simply put it has extremely broken and un-flyable at this point. 

I think we are all patiently waiting for the service packs. 

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

What I like about the 717 is that it flies over water...Hawaii.  :)  I don't have it yet cuz I've been waiting for performance to improve...but I've got my eye on it.

[joemiller 269]

4 hours ago, Mitch24 said:

I completely agree. I love the CRJ from Aerosoft, and I've said this many times. Simply put it has extremely broken and un-flyable at this point. 

I think we are all patiently waiting for the service packs. 

And, I am sure even if Aerosoft were to completly redevelop the CRJ, you would still post your daily dose of anti-Aerosoft posts. So, listening to YOUR opinion is pretty much useless. "Completly broken and un-flyable" ? ?? Lol

Don't sweat too much, we get your dislike for Aerosoft. The CRJ is  fabulous aircraft to fly- if (if) your learn how to. It has a couple of refinements to be done, and it will only become even better.

[Don t moderate me this way 882]

Not extremely broken and unflyable, IMO, but - again, IMO only - it should not have been released with those obvious (L)NAV issues.

As someone on the fence I'd wait a week or so to see how current users get along with the hotfixes/update to be released after the weekend.

After that there are still some systems where corners seem to habe been cut for an (too?) early release.(*) Those few systems deserve a comprehensive servicepack (within weeks or a very few months, maybe) to bring them up to the standard the CRJ is aiming at and Hans Hartmann has earned his reputation for.

(*) Too early after seven years of development? Well, it has been a single dev/part time system development with some setbacks in between. So it's not exactly seven years like we would normally perceive that time span.

All that's required are a few more months in systems refining, testing, and debugging, and then this discussion should come to a positive(!) end.

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

12 hours ago, mikealpha said:

that is IMO completely exaggerated. I have completed around 20 flights in the CRJ and a lot of fun. You learn something about good descend planning (...)

You obviously didn't try taking it to the ocean where you have to input coordinates and it will REFUSE to follow the route no matter what you do. I can't see how such a simple thing slipped through so much time developing and betatesting.

VNAV is quite fun actually, it resembles the Citation X. Now if only LNAV worked properly... 

[Glynn 405]

40 minutes ago, Nuno Pinto said:

You obviously didn't try taking it to the ocean where you have to input coordinates

Why would you do this anyway, the CRJ is not ETOPS certified. 

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

9 minutes ago, Glynn said:

Why would you do this anyway, the CRJ is not ETOPS certified. 

You don't need ETOPS to fly from Lisboa (LPPT) to Lajes (LPLA) or Ponta Delgada (LPPD) in the azores. You do have at least one oceanic waypoint which the aircraft fails to follow.

[mikealpha 266]

1 hour ago, Nuno Pinto said:

You obviously didn't try taking it to the ocean where you have to input coordinates and it will REFUSE to follow the route no matter what you do. I can't see how such a simple thing slipped through so much time developing and betatesting.

No doubt there are issues and missing features, I`m confident Hans will sort them out or add missing features as much as he can. 

Look at the PMDG 737 or the TFDI 717, they also needed a year or more to be what they are now. And the 717 still has issues, e.g. regarding speed restrictions during PROF descend.

I think with Airliner Addons in the early stage one should use their strenght or what they do well already. Not just look on the weaknesses. So if it can`t handle oceanic flights yet, fly somewhere else ;-)

Mike

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

That's one situation, there are others where it fails to follow the route. But i'm extending this too much, let's hope it gets fixed.

[Chock 17,769]

With regard to any airliner add-on which is awaiting a patch and currently has some minor issues, I don't mind that so long as I know the developers are working on it. Any really complex airliner simulation is going to throw up the odd thing like that which only becomes apparent when it gets released. As long as you can still fly it from point A to point B in a reasonably realistic manner, I'm never really that bothered, after all, we are supposed to be simulating being airliner pilots when we fly these add-ons; failed systems and glitches do happen on the real things and have to be dealt with, so whilst I agree it is not ideal to have such things forced on us, and they should be working, we should nevertheless be able to deal with them being inoperative whilst we await fixes, because this too is something which happens in the real world.

Surprisingly (or not, if you think about it, since anything mechanical can break), like most airliners, the Canadair Regional Jet can have a very large number of things busted on it and still legally operate. There are of course some caveats to this, such as some faults can only be there for a specified number of days before they have to be rectified, but you might still be surprised to learn that the CRJ can actually fly passenger flights legally even if the FMCs are pretty much completely broken. In the Master MEL (Minimum Equipment List) for the CRJ, it does in fact say:

Except where enroute operations require its use, all FMCs may be inoperative provided: a) Alternate procedures are established and used, b) Alternate means for initializing IRS is available for IRS equipped aircraft, and c) Both RTUs are operative.

In other words, you can manually fly a heading to the next usable waypoint, even using something as basic as the whiskey compass if you have to, or use radio navigation fixes instead of LNAV. Surprisingly, you can even legally fly the thing if the Nav database is not current too. Here's what the CRJ's Master MEL says about that:

Databases may be out of currency provided: a) Current Aeronautical Charts are use to verify Navigation Fixes prior to dispatch, b) Procedures are established and used to verify status and suitability of Navigation Facilities used to define route of flight, and c) Approach Navigation Radios are manually tuned and identified.

So at the moment, if you are finding the Aerosoft CRJ can't follow a particular waypoint over water, yes, that is something which does need to be patched, but it would not actually prevent the real thing from making a flight from an operational standpoint providing there is some means to ensure it is heading more or less in the right direction.

All sorts of things can be busted on airliners and they can still fly legally, everything from trivial things such as flight attendant call buttons, to the TCAS and even some of the flight controls. I guess some nervous passengers would not want to know that, but it is nevertheless true.

[Zuendholz 50]

Like @Chock said, but you have to keep in mind that there are numberous people out there suffering from random CTDs in BOTH aircraft, the TFDI 717 and the CRJ.. 

Even if some issues are realistic in a way, a lot of people getting annoyed by them really fast.

For me, both aircraft are in my opinion in a beta stage (well one of them is in a public beta) and at this point, I wouldn't recommend any. But if you are willing to give one of them a shot, take the CRJ. But keep in mind that you will have issues with waypoints and other funny things.

 

[Mitch24 194]

6 hours ago, joemiller said:

And, I am sure even if Aerosoft were to completly redevelop the CRJ, you would still post your daily dose of anti-Aerosoft posts. So, listening to YOUR opinion is pretty much useless. "Completly broken and un-flyable" ? ?? Lol

Don't sweat too much, we get your dislike for Aerosoft. The CRJ is  fabulous aircraft to fly- if (if) your learn how to. It has a couple of refinements to be done, and it will only become even better.

I'm critical of everyone, not just Aerosoft. As a paying customer i'm going to be critical. I've said many times how much I actually like the CRJ. 

[ShawnG 1,823]

5 hours ago, Nuno Pinto said:

You don't need ETOPS to fly from Lisboa (LPPT) to Lajes (LPLA) or Ponta Delgada (LPPD) in the azores. You do have at least one oceanic waypoint which the aircraft fails to follow.

IIRC The real world CRJ is only certified for 50 miles offshore.  Given this type limitation there is no need for the inclusion of oceanic waypoints in the original plane's cdu, and no reason for aerosoft to have programmed a feature not available in the real airplane.  The flight you are describing is not legally permissible in the CRJ.

[ZLA Steve 370]

46 minutes ago, ShawnG said:

The real world CRJ is only certified for 50 miles offshore. 

It's not a manufacturer certification. It's a legal restriction that keeps it within 50 miles due to not carrying life rafts on board :)