Majestic Q400: full simulation?

[OzWhitey 3,353]

2 hours ago, J van E said:

I will miss VR

Q400 works great in VR in P3D v4, much smoother and more usable that any other airliner that I own. I think it's because of the external flight model, sim itself has less to do, so stutters less in in VR (particularly noticble when you look out the side windows when turning).

[Michael Moe 494]

25 minutes ago, mikealpha said:

I would also much recommend the Dash-8 Cadet and FO training course at http://www.airline2sim.com . Just great to learn all the bells and whistles. 

Mike

 

 

You beat me to it  The Dash is really nice and will be out of my hangar over the winter. Just a priority. 

 

Thanks Michael Moe 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

J, this is a great tutorial by Ebs old and not the pro version as it was not out then but well worth a watch

Thanks, I will certainly have a look at that one! And thanks for all the replies everyone! This indeed seems to be the plane to get for me.

EDIT I am watching the video and as he says it is a great plane for GA flyers who want something bigger. But even more interesting, and I knew this but forgot about it, is that this video takes place in Norway, my favorite location to fly, and in real life Q400 are used there so with the Q400 I can do real life flights! Nice bonus!

19 minutes ago, Chock said:

Ultimately, if you want to feel that the thing you are driving in your sim is realistic, then this is what stuff such as the FSL A320, the A2A Commache and the Majestic Pro version of the Dash Eight offers you. The notion that you could break it if you did something wrong. So it is up to you rally, but I would certainly say that the Majestic Dash Eight Pro version is the most value for money flight sim aeroplane in that regard, by quite a considerable margin.

Well, I am the kind of simmer that just wants to fly as a regular pilot would so I am not too much into setting up failures and doing odd things you usually don't do, but well, somehow I kinda like the idea that even if I do NOT use all the extra's the Pro version offers, it still is a complete simulation and that just feels nice. I probably will never ever actually use for instance the circuit breakers but it's nice to know I could if I would. And that goes for all the extra's. Flying the Aerofly Q400 is nice and I will probably use the Majestic one in a similar way (well, not really, of course, because the Aerofly version doesn't have a working FMS and I will certainly use that one!) but I already noticed the Aerofly Q400 doesn't feel complete: I simply like it when every knob and switch can actually do something if I want to. And with the Q400 I also have the idea getting everything under control is achievable, which I like: it's not too complex or 'over the top' as some big airliners are which always have things that I don't fully grasp.

48 minutes ago, mikealpha said:

I would also much recommend the Dash-8 Cadet and FO training course at http://www.airline2sim.com . Just great to learn all the bells and whistles. 

Mike

 

Looks nice but that almost doubles the costs... I'll see how far I'll get with the manuals and YouTube first. Although I did read in a review the manuals aren't the best part of this addon. I did look at an advanced tutorial from Majestic itself and it was from 2013...? I sure hope the addon comes with up to date and detailed manuals by now.

[Chock 17,769]

11 minutes ago, J van E said:

Thanks, I will certainly have a look at that one! And thanks for all the replies everyone! This indeed seems to be the plane to get for me.

Well, I am the kind of simmer that just wants to fly as a regular pilot would so I am not too much into setting up failures and doing odd things you usually don't do, but well, somehow I kinda like the idea that even if I do NOT use all the extra's the Pro version offers, it still is a complete simulation and that just feels nice. I probably will never ever actually use for instance the circuit breakers but it's nice to know I could if I would. And that goes for all the extra's. Flying the Aerofly Q400 is nice and I will probably use the Majestic one in a similar way (well, not really, of course, because the Aerofly version doesn't have a working FMS and I will certainly use that one!) but I already noticed the Aerofly Q400 doesn't feel complete: I simply like it when every knob and switch can actually do something if I want to. And with the Q400 I also have the idea getting everything under control is achievable, which I like: it's not too complex or 'over the top' as some big airliners are which always have things that I don't fully grasp.

This is why a lot of people would never really be in a position to appreciate some of the stuff in more complex simulations, but may still want them anyway for the feeling it gives them. After all, does it really matter if the voltage gauge on some panel is indicating exactly 24 volts rather than 23.99 volts when passenger 57 switched on the lights in the lavatory at the back of the thing? That's kind of what goes on in the FSL A320, but then again that thing is well over a ton to buy. But in the case of the Pro version of the Majestic Q400, the price difference of that versus the Pilot version is fairly negligible, and it is way cheaper than PMDG and FSL aeroplanes (with the exception of the PMDG DC-6), so I'd say it was worth having the superior one, and you probably will think the same.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

the price difference of that versus the Pilot version is fairly negligible, and it is way cheaper than PMDG and FSL aeroplanes, so I'd say it was worth having the superior one, and you probably will think the same.

Yes, I do.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

As I know the OP likes VR, I'll point out that the A320 is the worst airliner for this due to overall low performance, plus a frame rate that spikes around leading to more motion sickness than you'd expect from frame rate alone. Plus the devs are literally the only people in the world of P3D who have managed to code an aircraft that is VR incompatible (due to crashes when VR is selected).

Is the FSL A320 the most complex aircraft? I'd say it's the most complex airbus, and is a tour de force in terms of deep simulation of that aircraft. You'll find a lot of people over on the FSL claiming it's the most complex, but pretty much none on the PMDG forum.

There's now a small bunch of top-level simulations of airliners, and the Q400, A320 and PMDG planes fall into this group (as did the Leonardo Maddog for FSX).

Like most of you, I've never flown a Q400, but the flight model just feels realistic. Although I don't particularly like the type, it's definitely a keeper due to the unique FDE and the great performance. Superb plane, and keenly priced for what you get.

[SAS443 1,716]

PNR / ETP has already been explained but one of the nifty features in q400 is that the FMS is able to not only provide information for normal ETP / PNR scenarios but also abnormal. I am talking about in case of pressurization loss or engine out scenarios. The fms will give you hard numbers for coast in /coast out airport.

Arinc weather is just a fancy name of pulling out Metars from the FMS

Overall the Universal FMS in the q400 is an extremely potent little device.

Like many here, I highly recommend it.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

A quick VR note on the CDU - unfortunately, letters are too small/quite hard to read compared with the pmdg or fsl equivalents. MCP (is it called that in the Q400?) is also hard to use because it doesn't have the numbers in front of you. 

These issues are due to the real-world aircraft design, they're not sim problems. They just limit the usability of this aircraft for me at the moment for complex flying in VR, I'm still thinking if how to work around them because this aircraft is otherwise beautiful when using the Oculus.

[lodestar 186]

i would like to add a couple of words on this - Jeroen, you won't regret q400. I am a big FSL A320 fan, and i'm flying it 99% of time. But it is heavy on resources, and i need to lower my settings. I have 2 profiles for P3Dv4, FSL and MJQ. Q400 profile is almost everything maxed out, on my old system. It is a full simulation, but Q400 is a realy much less complex aircraft compared to A320. I realy like it. 

About flight dynamics, Q400 uses external FDE, and it feels great most of time. But, don't underestimate FSL A320 becouse of this. FSL uses MSFS FDE only where FDE engine can do it right, everything else is corrected externally. 

My top airplanes right now are FSL A320(i like complexity  ), Majestic Q400, and then all PMDG planes. I'm also waiting for new Leonardo Maddog, I wonder if they did some new "magic" for P3Dv4.

Anyway, i highly recommend you Q400

[charlie130 196]

Also, if you switch off the CDU/FMC/MCP....or pull the circuit breakers, then you have two radio sets. Each side (Captain and First Officer) have independently functioning nav radios. So the aircraft can be flown from either side with two radios that are connected to the autopilot!

If you leave the MCP's on, you can tune the radios from there as well.

It's an exquisite simulation. Pity she's not a pretty aircraft!

We will wait and see what PMDG do with the Jetstream in P3dv4......if they manage to release it? Now that's a pretty bird!

Cheers.

[MarkW 1,491]

Q400 is amazing and very easy on your computer resources. Flies so smooth on my old i2500k.  I would also highly recommend getting FS2Crew for this bird as well.  

[Guest]

Bought it! Looking forward to use it! Unfortunately I bought it in a rather busy week so I hope I do find some time before the weekend to give it a go.  

Another unfortunate thing is that I bought and downloaded the addon at my work hoping I could somehow extract a few manuals from it so I could print them at work (professional printer) so I could at least read a few things about it but well, the download is nothing but an exe...  I will see if I find the time to at least install it tonight and then see what manuals there are. And hopefully give it a try too already. 

Anyway, thanks for all the advice and tips etc.!

[nam1394 10]

41 minutes ago, J van E said:

Bought it! Looking forward to use it! Unfortunately I bought it in a rather busy week so I hope I do find some time before the weekend to give it a go.  

Another unfortunate thing is that I bought and downloaded the addon at my work hoping I could somehow extract a few manuals from it so I could print them at work (professional printer) so I could at least read a few things about it but well, the download is nothing but an exe...  I will see if I find the time to at least install it tonight and then see what manuals there are. And hopefully give it a try too already. 

Anyway, thanks for all the advice and tips etc.!

http://majesticsoftware.com/mjc8q400/downloads.html

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, nam1394 said:

http://majesticsoftware.com/mjc8q400/downloads.html

Thanks! But I found that one already and the one I'd like to print can't be downloaded but is 'in the package'. I will have to see tonight. 

[nam1394 10]

1 hour ago, J van E said:

Thanks! But I found that one already and the one I'd like to print can't be downloaded but is 'in the package'. I will have to see tonight. 

Don’t miss this pdf. You can download it.

https://majesticsoftware.com/mjc8q400/resources/LandingTheQ400.pdf