Yesterday, Avsim has a review of the Flight1 Super 80.The reviewer was very impressed. Are there any owners of the addon aircraft willing to give their impressions?

Hi Mike,I have had the Flight1 Super 80 since release day and everything the reviewer said is spot on. It really is an outstanding package. I have evry payware MD80 available and this one is at the top of the list. One very big reason is the developer, Espen and his team who absolutely listens to all input from the customers on the forum and does everything possible to resolve any issues that may come up. If you enjoy the MD80, get this one. You won't regret it.

It's a fanstastic plane, and with Flight One's 30 day refund you've got nothing to lose.

The Super80 is a very nice add-on hands down... :-)

I agree with the others. The reviewer said everything that needs to be said. It's a very nice package.Jim Karnhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpg

The VC textures take between 2-3 seconds to load, and page file usage creeps up to the 1GB+ mark when flying this plane, causing a decrease in performance (and yes, I have installed the patch). They are my own personal experiences however. I must say, it has a very nice VC though, and has a lot of potential... but only really of much use at the moment if you happen to have a penchant for flying over desert areas.. Consequently I tend to prefer flights with a/c that give smoother FPS after the bad performance I get when flying this plane. Therefore it'll probably soon be forgotten about and in a few months deleted altogether off my HD. A real shame I'd say. But a waste of money nonetheless.

I enjoy this rendition of the MD82. Very impressive panels, clear, and functional. It has configuration options that should allow everyone to enjoy it, regardless of their PC horsepower. Very impressed with the many things that it offers as part of the package. The learning module helps with the handling of such complex machinery. Having a copilot to read you the checklists is also great. Best simulation of an MD I've seen. Regards,Dave Vega

The reviewer was dead on. Once of my favorite payware planes. I suffer almost no performance hit flying this plane, which is amazing for a top of the line payware product.David

So what about the issue that Nick above raises? Is it a resources hog? And if so how do you above, who are pleased with it, manage that? I like to fly with quite a lot of detail outside the aircraft (scenery wise) and have resorted to 2D cockpits sometimes to achieve a smooth, flyable aircraft, which isn't ideal, my being a VC cockpit fan.

Yes - it is a resource hog. But only if you use all the 2D panels. If I stay within the VC cockpit and open only the really needed 2D panels (some functions are still missing in the VC) it stays well below 600MB.IMO the review was a bit too positive. Here is a review, unfortunately in German, but you might try your luck with Google translator. They say that it is still in beta state.http://simflight.de/modules.php?name=News&...rticle&sid=6664These guys even updated their knowledge in a real world MD-80 simulator before reviewing the MD-80.Note that they tested the last beta patch, which is identical to the service pack 1.What still sucks IMO is the flight dynamics (I'm not a RW pilot, but anyway). The plane hardly speeds up at acceleration altitude and the landings are usually bumpy if you do not touch down with Vref - 15 or so. This cannot be correct.The speed brakes seem to be as big as barn doors. They slow you down from 250 to 200 in just a few seconds.The autopilot makes funny things at climb and descent. I usually fly manually, so I don't care, but looking at the suggestions of the flight director is sometimes scary.What relly ###### me off was that I bought the plane end of November last year and it was not flyable at all for months. I'll never buy anthing before the first service pack (applies to Windows too ;-)).Apart from that I can confirm what most posters say here:The cockpit (2D and VC) are excellent. Good framerates in VC. Instrument stuttery in VC is average.The exterior model is also excellent. Interior and exterior lighting are very good.Hand flying is a lot of fun. The aircraft is very stable.The learning center is also a very nice addition if you can deal with a FS9.exe that consumes a gig of memory (that's coz you need all 2D panels preloaded).The support in the forum is very good. Although not all problems reported are fixed.In total a very promising aircraft. But they really should release another service pack.Alex

I seem to remember that this one also had issues with fuel continuing to burn off while in pause mode and burning at 1x rate when the sim was in accelerated flight...has that ever been fixed?The Lago -80 with the Jet City Aircraft models was my choice. Works well, and with the developers opening up a support site away from the Lago black hole of customer service, things are looking up there.RegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300Santiago de Chile

I've had the MD80 since the beginning and now have the latest patched version. It's been the airplane I've flown the most for the past 6 months. I really like for several reasons: the systems modeling and th fact that it's not an up to date airliner that simply runs on the FMC. You actually have to fly it. I thought the review was a bit over-positive. The flight model has had some issues and they have been addressed in the patches. I still think a bit more tweaking needs to be done, especially the flaps. I never use the VC and have found the computer performance to be quite usable though not outstanding. Coolsky used an innovative approach in that when the plane loads all the option menus for the plane also load. It can be convenient, but I still question that this approach is taking computer resources away from the actual plane. For example, while using RC4 I window FS while I get RC4 up and running. Whenever switching from full-screen to window or back with FS causes the MD80 to fully reload. Also changing things from the internal options menus will also cause a full reload. I find this annoying so avoid it. Those are the negatives, but I've still found the plane to be very immersive once you are sitting at the gate and start the process of actually flying. I can't think of one plane I own that would warrant a "perfect" review, they all have some flaws. It's whether the flaws are fatal or not. Mike

Mike,Just in case you haven't found this yet, there's a configuration option to not load all the windows at once. This does make a difference even on my fast computer. But it is very flyable for me with all the windows loading at once. Having that configuration option allows one to make the product usable regardless of PC horsepower. Wonder if there's a way to load all panels at once without using more computer memory than would be used with loading the main panel. I don't see this as a flaw, but as a manufacturer design decision, even though I'm sure they were aware that said feature would slow down some systems. Reading the forums on their site, I see that the project is still open, meaning to expect new patches. It appears that this reloading every time we switch from full to windowed mode is another design decision. And yes, agree with you, it's annoying. Regards,Dave VegaAMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 1.0GB RAMNVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX

I just recently bought the Super80. Seems to be an excellent addition to any hangar. Unfortunately for me, and I seem to be one of the very few, I have Out of Memory errors with the airplane. This usually happens towards the end of the flight every time. Can fly any other add-on airplane with all the extras I have installed and not get any out of memory errors, only with the Super 80. It's a fun airplane to fly but unfortunately it is parked until a work around becomes available.

Seems like an ok aircraft. I've always been partial to the MD80 and this is the ticket. Unfortunately, for some unfathomable reason, you can't even read the support forums without registering. What should have been a quick lookup of a question that I was sure had been asked before turned into 45 minutes as I had to register and then wait for email confirmation before I could validate the account and access the boards. Once you're through that hassel you get to login and, even though it shows you as logged in, you can't access the boards because you don't have that level of permission. A glitch somewhere but I'm not going to bother trying to figure it out. Nice plane but off to fly my Dreamfleet 727. Bye...billg