Virtualcol Releases Saab Regional Pack v2

[regis9 4,013]

Released at Simmarket, interesting timing with the recent Carenado release.  For far less money than the Carenado S340, you get both the Saab 340 and Saab 2000 with a large number of liveries.  They have redone the virtual cockpit and I have to give them credit it looks like a substantial improvement over their previous work.  It's not mentioned in the features list but the screenshot show rain on the windshield being cleared by wipers.

I haven't bought either but am in the market for one.  Given that Carenado doesn't exactly excel at systems depth I wonder if we have a true competitor here?

Edited April 28, 2018 by regis9

[Javiz 104]

The VirtualCol Saab SF-340 compares to the Carenado SF-340 as the Champagne Arestel Cava Semi Seco à 3.99 at the Lidl supermarket compares to the Dom Perignon 2009 Magnum à 499,00. 

IMHO VirtualCol is only in it for the money, Carenado for the money too but certainly just as much for the love of it as well. The latter is completely missing in VirtualCol products and that shows. Ashame really because they choose interesting commuter aircraft which other, serious devs, seem to be overlooking.

Can't thank Carenado enough for publishing their superbly modeled SF-340, inside and out ! 

[FrankSalo 272]

Virtualcol planes are definitely sim-lite but having bought a few I can say they can be rather enjoyable. And the developers tend to be helpful/respectful in their customer communications (which i can't say about another sim-lite developer that chucks out a simmarket release every month).  If you just want to fly a S340 that's visual modeled well internally and externally with not much reading required, go Virtualcol. If you want to fly checklists to the letter with an FMS, go Carenado.

[kiki 89]

I have only one Virtualcol product, the CRJ. Yeah, cheap it was but still 100% waste of money. So ugly, so bad in every way. I hope they have done better job with the Saab.

[b1bmsgt 206]

15 hours ago, kiki said:

I have only one Virtualcol product, the CRJ. Yeah, cheap it was but still 100% waste of money. So ugly, so bad in every way. I hope they have done better job with the Saab.

Well, it depends on what you are looking for...

If you are the study sim type, then the Virtualcol stuff is, indeed, complete crapola!

 

But...

 

for me, I look at the simplicity of something like the Virtualcol aircraft as compensating for my lack of training as an airline pilot. A real world pilot has years of training and familiarization that allows them to know exactly what to do in the cockpit, and I don't, so I feel that a more simple aircraft sort of levels the playing field for us mere mortals.

Just MHO, of course...

 

Russ

 

[AnkH 2,261]

Well, to me, it is not only the simplified model, but also the lousy 3D model. I mean, if I do not want a study sim aircraft, I go for Carenado. There, at least the visuals are nice. VirtualCol lacks both visuals AND functionality, a very bad combo...

[b1bmsgt 206]

...did I forget to mention the price???

 

Russ

[kiki 89]

21 hours ago, AnkH said:

Well, to me, it is not only the simplified model, but also the lousy 3D model. I mean, if I do not want a study sim aircraft, I go for Carenado. There, at least the visuals are nice. VirtualCol lacks both visuals AND functionality, a very bad combo...

That is so true and that is what I meant.

I am not one of those study level plane seekers because I fly only once or twice per month. If Virtualcol had at lease some eye candy, I would be a happy customer.

[b1bmsgt 206]

Well, I completely respect everybody's opinion, but I have a lot of fun with the Virtualcols!

 

Russ

[Lenny777 299]

Yeah  Virtualcol is not in the same league.

[duesenwerni 735]

Not in the same league maybe, but constantly getting better 🙂

Yes, Carenado´s Saab 340 is definitely out of reach when you consider systems depth. I too have study-level aircraft like Majestic Dash 8 Q400 or the still impressive Flight1 ATR 72-500, but then sometimes, just for the quick evening flight before dinner, I take something more simple and quick to fire up. 

I have been following Virtualcol´s product range for a while now and do own the Dornier 328 range, both ATR series and Dash 8 v2 pack but don´t "fly" them any more. Quality has varied, especially considering the virtual cockpits. Now the Saab v2 range is quite a step forward into the right direction. Far from study level but defiinitely better than default FSX. The virtual cockpits now actually look like their real counterparts and the outside visuals have improved, too. And - of course - you get not only the Saab 340 but the 2000 as well. Also mind that currently there is no other Saab 2000 on the market that offers a virtual cockpit and DX10 compatible graphics!

And if you (like me) already own Integrated Simavionics ISG suite,  you can retrofit the panels with the ISG EHSI and CDU gauges, use Navigraph navdata and thus have two nice looking aircraft that can fly SID´s and STAR´s with actual navdata for just a third of the Carenado´s price! Currently, I´m just retrofitting the 2000.

As a last a pic showing the much improved outside visuals of that product line:

Edited May 7, 2018 by duesenwerni

[AnkH 2,261]

Sadly, the HB-IZD is not belonging to SWISS, but Skywork. Small detail, but again wrong. And personally, I have to disagree. While your screenshot with the plane from a distance certainly looks fair enough, the close ups on the homepage and the VC Images are really not state of the art, irrespective of the system simulation. Personally, those screenshots even look worse than the Dash8 series.

But, as mentioned above by someone else: the pricetag is the only argument. For this price, you can not expect more those days...

[duesenwerni 735]

Nope, AnkH, HB-IZD actually belonged to the Swiss International fleet until 2004! Small detail, but overlooked 🙂

Virtualcol just showed that Saab when it still belonged to Swiss. Anyway, fact is that today, it belongs to Skywork.

I´d post a link to air...net, but am not sure, wether that would be appreciated on that forum; so you´ll have to go and look it it up yourself, searching for HB-IZD + Swiss 😎

As for Skywork, since the paintkit has already been released, I´m working on that also ...

Edited May 7, 2018 by duesenwerni
typo

[AnkH 2,261]

Well, my bad then. Thank you for the heads up. Personally, I was really not aware, that there was a S2000 in SWISS colours. I thought they had the Crossair paint back then, but obviously I was wrong.

BTW: do you mind sharing some close up pics and some VC pics? Sometimes also the screenshots provided by the official publisher are not that good. Example: ImagineSim sceneries.

[duesenwerni 735]

6 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Well, my bad then. Thank you for the heads up. Personally, I was really not aware, that there was a S2000 in SWISS colours. I thought they had the Crossair paint back then, but obviously I was wrong.

BTW: do you mind sharing some close up pics and some VC pics? Sometimes also the screenshots provided by the official publisher are not that good. Example: ImagineSim sceneries.

No problem, mate 🙂 ! 

As for the close-ups, I´ll get to that when i´m back at home. Maybe I´ll be also able to post the first screenies of the "retrofitted" S2000/ISG virtual cockpit. 

For the time being, here´s a (not yet retrofitted) S340 virtual cockpit:

Edited May 7, 2018 by duesenwerni