KMSP is the best airport in my opinion.  The ground textures to include winter weather are outstanding.  I also have KSLC and really like it also but for a different reason.  The mountainous scenery is very good and PacSim did a great job on the surrounding landclass and Salt Lake landscape.  For me, KMSP wins airport and KSLC wins surrounding scenery.   How is that for clear cut decision maker?  

2 hours ago, dmiannay said:

ImagineSim KATL is the best available right now, and performs considerably better after their fairly recent P3Dv4 update.  While I believe flyTampa's version will be better all around (based on their past products), I'm not confident it's close to release... but I could be wrong.  KATL is certainly Delta's largest hub and the place is littered with MD80s of all stripes.

KMSP is a jewell!  Love arriving and departing on this beautiful scenery... a job very well done.

PacificSim KSLC is on my list to purchase.  I agree with your comments, flying a long final to 34R will be very engaging with the looks of their new scenery.

I think you'd be happy with all three. 

Thanks for the comments, very informative! Appreciate it. I think you’re right: I’ll likely end up with all three of them...

it does sound like KMSP ought to be my first purchase, given everybody’s enthusiasm for it.

2 hours ago, PATCO LCH said:

Benjamin,

You say you don't care for Atlanta but consider dawg pilot's are at the bottom of the seniority list and don't get first pick of their domicile . That just adds to realism. Atlanta is the base for Maddogs so I would start there. I bet most Delta pilot's rather domicile there then JFK, MSP or SLC. 

All in fun😊

Hehe, that’s a way to look at it too I suppose  my feelings against Atlanta are kind of irrational. It has nothing to do with any real world experience at the airport, it’s mostly aesthetics. It’s not the most inspired airport design... I hope my opinion doesn’t offend anybody...

1 hour ago, kenthom said:

KMSP is the best airport in my opinion.  The ground textures to include winter weather are outstanding.  I also have KSLC and really like it also but for a different reason.  The mountainous scenery is very good and PacSim did a great job on the surrounding landclass and Salt Lake landscape.  For me, KMSP wins airport and KSLC wins surrounding scenery.   How is that for clear cut decision maker?  

It’s perfect, thank you! Exactly the kind of information I was looking for 

Thanks all for weighing in. I think I’m pretty clear on what I’ll buy for now. Likely go with MSP first, soon followed by SLC, perhaps Atlanta down the road. Need to spread the fiscal damage... MSP first due to your’s all enthusiasm, SLC next because it fits remarkably well in between my other addons.

Edited March 6, 20188 yr by Benjamin J

Hello all,

I thought I'd circle back to this thread and update on what I ended up doing. Despite many of you telling me how gorgeous KMSP is, I eventually decided to hold off on it. It's out of the way of many airport sceneries I own, and as I'm not too big on flights longer than 1.5 hours, my upper limit being around 2 hours, it didn't make much sense to go with KMSP.

Instead, my first purchase was KSLC. It's smack in the middle of many other sceneries I own, such as KDEN, KPHX, KLAS, KLAX, KSFO, KBZN and KJAC. it made a lot of sense to have a Delta hub with easy connectivity to all those locations. In addition, in the future, when TFDi officially releases their 717 for P3Dv4, I'll highly likely purchase that addon, and then KSLC will be a marvelous base to operate the 717 in and out of, as in real life.

Ironically, even though I'm not a fan of KATL, having mulled over this scenery for a while and re-reading your all's comment, I'm seriously considering making this my next purchase. As some of you have rightfully brought forward, it's Delta's biggest hub, and the biggest base of the Delta MD80 fleet. I have downloaded the demo and given it a whirl with the PMDG 737, and was pleasantly surprised with the performance. Even in bad weather it was still pretty good. I still want to give it a whirl with the Maddog, however, as that's the prime aircraft I'll be getting it for. My only concern for KATL is the length of flights. As I said, I'm not too big on flights over 2 hours, and many of the routs I have to my other sceneries are longer than that. So, I recently added LatinVFR's KRDU (it was on sale, though there's something about this airport that I really like. Dunno why that is though), and I'm contemplating adding FSDT's KCLT as well. Together with FSDT's KFLL as well as FB's KIAD, I should then have a choice of 2hr-and-below flights.

Though I've noticed something... Searching in Delta's database, KATL-KEWR is said to be 2.5 hours. Searching for the same flight on FlightRadar24, shows it as being 1.5-2 hours. IS something with FlightRadar wrong, or is Delta showing you the gate-to-gate time, and FlightRadar takeoff to landing? If the atcual flight time that FlightRadar shows, and KATL-KEWR is actually only 1.5 hours, then that would actually be perfect for me.

2 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

Hello all,

I thought I'd circle back to this thread and update on what I ended up doing. Despite many of you telling me how gorgeous KMSP is, I eventually decided to hold off on it. It's out of the way of many airport sceneries I own, and as I'm not too big on flights longer than 1.5 hours, my upper limit being around 2 hours, it didn't make much sense to go with KMSP.

Instead, my first purchase was KSLC. It's smack in the middle of many other sceneries I own, such as KDEN, KPHX, KLAS, KLAX, KSFO, KBZN and KJAC. it made a lot of sense to have a Delta hub with easy connectivity to all those locations. In addition, in the future, when TFDi officially releases their 717 for P3Dv4, I'll highly likely purchase that addon, and then KSLC will be a marvelous base to operate the 717 in and out of, as in real life.

Ironically, even though I'm not a fan of KATL, having mulled over this scenery for a while and re-reading your all's comment, I'm seriously considering making this my next purchase. As some of you have rightfully brought forward, it's Delta's biggest hub, and the biggest base of the Delta MD80 fleet. I have downloaded the demo and given it a whirl with the PMDG 737, and was pleasantly surprised with the performance. Even in bad weather it was still pretty good. I still want to give it a whirl with the Maddog, however, as that's the prime aircraft I'll be getting it for. My only concern for KATL is the length of flights. As I said, I'm not too big on flights over 2 hours, and many of the routs I have to my other sceneries are longer than that. So, I recently added LatinVFR's KRDU (it was on sale, though there's something about this airport that I really like. Dunno why that is though), and I'm contemplating adding FSDT's KCLT as well. Together with FSDT's KFLL as well as FB's KIAD, I should then have a choice of 2hr-and-below flights.

Though I've noticed something... Searching in Delta's database, KATL-KEWR is said to be 2.5 hours. Searching for the same flight on FlightRadar24, shows it as being 1.5-2 hours. IS something with FlightRadar wrong, or is Delta showing you the gate-to-gate time, and FlightRadar takeoff to landing? If the atcual flight time that FlightRadar shows, and KATL-KEWR is actually only 1.5 hours, then that would actually be perfect for me.

The DAL database time of 2.5 hours is Block Time (Pushback to block-in) while I assume FlightRadar24 is actual flight time. Block Time is commonly used within the industry and includes: Taxi-Out, Flight and Taxi-in. The taxi-out times are monitored very closely by airlines and vary extensively depending on environment, weather and season. 

By the way for your DAL hub, if you're concentrating on accuracy for real worlds ops, the KLAX DAL operation moved from the south complex to the north about 9 months ago. 

Pacsim slc, and wait for FlyTampa ATL

36 minutes ago, Les Parson said:

The DAL database time of 2.5 hours is Block Time (Pushback to block-in) while I assume FlightRadar24 is actual flight time. Block Time is commonly used within the industry and includes: Taxi-Out, Flight and Taxi-in. The taxi-out times are monitored very closely by airlines and vary extensively depending on environment, weather and season. 

By the way for your DAL hub, if you're concentrating on accuracy for real worlds ops, the KLAX DAL operation moved from the south complex to the north about 9 months ago. 

I thought as much, thanks for the clarification! Since it's flight time I'm concerned about, this actually opens up a host of other routes that I always thought would be too long, such as KATL-KEWR.

8 minutes ago, Boeing or not going said:

Pacsim slc, and wait for FlyTampa ATL

So any idea on how close FT KATL might be...? Of course I'd rather wait for FT to release theirs, but if it's a long ways off...

10 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

I thought as much, thanks for the clarification! Since it's flight time I'm concerned about, this actually opens up a host of other routes that I always thought would be too long, such as KATL-KEWR.

So any idea on how close FT KATL might be...? Of course I'd rather wait for FT to release theirs, but if it's a long ways off...

Delta also pads their block times by quite a bit.  

1 hour ago, sfgiants13 said:

Delta also pads their block times by quite a bit.  

It is a common practice within the airline world. There is an upside and a downside. On the upside, It serves to better protect the likelihood of an on-time arrival*. These are monthly reportable DOT (Dept. of Transportation) times published monthly and valued for competitive reasons. The downside equates to increased costs for things like guaranteed flight crew salary costs and more. Many people are often baffled how a flight can depart 30 minutes late, yet arrive 10 minutes early. Hopefully,  this helps to explain it. 

*DOT defines an on-time arrival of gate block-in time within 14 minutes of advertised schedule. 

Hello Mr. Benjamin,

The TFDi717 is very available for P3DV4. I am very much like you when it comes to duration of sim sessions so I don't do many long haul flights in spite of owning the QOTSII and T7. Sometimes I cheat a little and use time compress to shorten a 2 to 3 hour trip. Not as realistic but it is an option if you want some fine airports like Flight Beam KMSP that might be a little off your normal flight patterns.

Just a friendly suggestion. 

59 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

Hello Mr. Benjamin,

The TFDi717 is very available for P3DV4. I am very much like you when it comes to duration of sim sessions so I don't do many long haul flights in spite of owning the QOTSII and T7. Sometimes I cheat a little and use time compress to shorten a 2 to 3 hour trip. Not as realistic but it is an option if you want some fine airports like Flight Beam KMSP that might be a little off your normal flight patterns.

Just a friendly suggestion. 

I thought the TFDi 717 was still in somewhat of an open beta for P3Dv4? I'd like to wait until that ends before I buy it.

And time compression is a good point. I'd bene meaning to ask: how do the autopilots of addons such as the PMDG737 and Leonardo MaddogX handle this?

An additional question: I've been looking at FSDT's KCLT for a while now, and I keep wondering what those weird yellow blotches on the ground textures are all about. What's that supposed to be, and what do you all think in a more general sense of this scenery?

1 hour ago, Benjamin J said:

I thought the TFDi 717 was still in somewhat of an open beta for P3Dv4? I'd like to wait until that ends before I buy it.

And time compression is a good point. I'd bene meaning to ask: how do the autopilots of addons such as the PMDG737 and Leonardo MaddogX handle this?

An additional question: I've been looking at FSDT's KCLT for a while now, and I keep wondering what those weird yellow blotches on the ground textures are all about. What's that supposed to be, and what do you all think in a more general sense of this scenery?

The NGX and Leonardo auto flight seem to handle time compress up to 4x quite well. I slow down to normal when I come to a way point that involves a heading change . I have the FSDT KCLT but I'M not quite sure what yellow blotches you're talking about. It is a beautiful work but pretty performance heavy. The TFDi is still in beta but seems advanced to a preaty fine level and great for us DC9 aficionados . Hope you enjoy the MaddogX as much as I do.

1 hour ago, PATCO LCH said:

The NGX and Leonardo auto flight seem to handle time compress up to 4x quite well. I slow down to normal when I come to a way point that involves a heading change . I have the FSDT KCLT but I'M not quite sure what yellow blotches you're talking about. It is a beautiful work but pretty performance heavy. The TFDi is still in beta but seems advanced to a preaty fine level and great for us DC9 aficionados . Hope you enjoy the MaddogX as much as I do.

I was referring to the yellow along the taxiways and runways:

4 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

I was referring to the yellow along the taxiways and runways:

Looks like seasonal dead grass. That's the way it looks here in the Carolinas this time of year. At least my front yard does. Bermuda grass.

1 minute ago, PATCO LCH said:

Looks like seasonal dead grass. That's the way it looks here in the Carolinas this time of year. At least my front yard does. Bermuda grass.

Ah, I see :) Does that mean that this is the way it looks in just one of the four seasons, then...?

5 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

Ah, I see :) Does that mean that this is the way it looks in just one of the four seasons, then...?

It should. I'll have to start my sim to see. Maybe someone else else can give a quicker reply.