Aerosoft DC-8

[dbw1 444]

I am aware there are several past threads on this aircraft. I've gone through them. Now that it has been out for awhile with a few patches I am interested in the thoughts of people here who have had it for awhile. There's a 20% sale this week and I've always liked the DC-8. Many thanks for any replies.

Dave

[dbw1 444]

I should have mentioned I use P3dV4.2. Thanks. Dave

[Chock 17,769]

It's an excellent add-on, well worth having, whether you're a big fan of the Greasy Eight or not, since it is pretty faithful to the real thing and a welcome addition to anyone's hangar if you like turbojets. It has a lot of realistic functions in that regard too, which make it one of the better efforts at simulating an older jetliner, such as a correct and believable EPR simulation which matches reality and behaves like a proper turbojet should, which means you can use the proper charts to set the engine thrust for take off, climb and cruise.

[BlueStar 323]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

It's an excellent add-on,

Alan,

How does it compare to the CS B707? I never could get the CS B707 to handle like I remembered, but then again it had been a while (30 years). 🙂

 

[Tim-HH 570]

It's a great addon! Certainly the best classic jetliner for FSX/P3D.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

Might be getting this one, have been eyeing it before but now it seems like it's on a bit of a discount as well. How is the performance compared to, say the PMDG 737?

[vc10man 732]

Is it better than JF's DC-8, Alan?

[Chock 17,769]

It's vastly better than the JF version and it is also a much better simulation of a turbojet than any of the Captain Sim turbojets, being that it will actually do EPR properly, meaning you can and will actually use the EPR setting charts in the manual for take offs and cruise etc. All part of the fun.

[vc10man 732]

Thanks for that Alan. Looks like, I will get it if it's at 20% off then.

Edited August 14, 2018 by vc10man

[Mace 1,902]

The Aerosoft DC-8 (it's a DC-8-50) is really quite good in my opinion.   They've modelled a mid-1960's era DC-8-50, so no FMS hand-holding -- you will use INS for oceanic flights.  What Alan said about the EPR and flying it by the real-world performance charts is a great feature, plus it is a lot of fun navigating using the INS.   The INS even has drift modelled, so you need to keep on your toes.  The JustFlight DC-8 models additional versions (i.e. -30, -50, -60 series, and I think the -70 also) but the Aerosoft is just the DC-8-50 series.

Another nifty feature of the Aerosoft DC-8 are engine starts using external air.  Fuel management is also a neat item it has, although at present there is no crossfeed simulated.   It has all of the little things you might expect, like aileron droop with no hyd pressure, takeoff smoke effects, and of course TrueGlass.   It does not simulate failures, although you could do those yourself, to a point, if you wanted (I have simulated one engine failing before).  A model of the cargo version (DC-8-50 Jet Trader) is planned but not out yet.  The lead developer is good about responding to things in the Aerosoft forum, too.

 

[dbw1 444]

I just got it. Quite a bit to this aircraft. Going to have to get familiar with the INS as that is one nav system I have never used.

Is there a way to pull up more views of various panels  (overhead, flight engineer's etc) other than the A key? I have gone through the docs quickly and haven't seen it mentioned. Thanks.

Dave

[PWJT8D 446]

The latest issue of PC Pilot Magazine was released today and they did a review of Aerosoft's DC-8 if anyone is interested.

[Chock 17,769]

6 hours ago, PWJT8D said:

The latest issue of PC Pilot Magazine was released today and they did a review of Aerosoft's DC-8 if anyone is interested.

Yeah, they'll probably be blowing sunshine up the a** of that one like they normally do with reviews (do they ever review anything and say it is rubbish lol?). Fortunately, in this case, they'd be right to do so, especially at its currently discounted price of about 32 quid; a real bargain for such an excellent add-on if you like flying old bangers around. Hopefully Aerosoft will make an add-on version with the high bypass CFM 56 turbofans which will give us the best of both worlds as well as being an aeroplane which is (albeit in small numbers) still operational despite those airframes being about 50 years old.

On a side note about the age of those airframes and why they are still flying when contemporary Convairs and Boeing 707s have long since disappeared, the reason for that is twofold and actually pretty interesting...

Boeing had famously decided to spend their own money developing a jet airliner - the Boeing 707 - because they were pretty certain that having made several military jet transports and bombers, there would be a market for a tanker and the 707 design would lend itself to that role fairly easily, which of course it subsequently did. As a result, their good relations with the military could only serve to help them succeed in the endeavour too. However, the other two US companies which eventually made similar jet airliners to the 707 - Convair and Douglas - were less convinced the airlines would be immediately interested in switching to jet airliner types and hadn't really considered the possibility of such a type lending itself to a tanker role, preferring to believe that the switch to jet commercial transport would be slow and gradual. What changed that was the arrival of the deHavilland Comet, however, as we know, the Comet suffered structural failures owing to fatigue cracking from pressurisation cyles weakening the punched rivet holes which introduced rough edges to the metal where those holes were, a situation eventually remedied by switching to drilling the holes and redesigning the windows and frames surrounding them, but alas for deHavilland, too late to garner massive sales after the damage had been done to its reputation, allowing Boeing, Douglas and Convair to capitalise (and learn) from deHavilland's misfortune.

Meanwhile, the US Air Force had issued a spec for a jet tanker, much to the dismay of Convair and Douglas, both companies then having to rush to catch up with Boeing's foresight in that regard. Convair decided to go with making an airliner which promised two things; US coast to coast range, and faster speeds than anything else in the air, however, they never really managed to pull these goals off entirely successfully and although the Convair 990 is still the fastest non-supersonic commercial airliner ever to have been produced (cruise speed of .97 Mach), this came at the expense of much corrective aerodynamic redesigning and it was never really able to deliver on the range it had promised, so that was Convair out of the race. Douglas on the other hand had protested in Washington about the US Air Force's hastily issued spec for tanker prototypes, but to no avail, leaving them to have to rush the design of what would become the DC-8. But with nowhere near the level of jet transport design experience which Boeing had, and mindful of the fatigue issues which had plagued the Comet, they had to err on the side of caution in their design. Effectively this resulted in them building the DC-8 like a tank, it was very much more substantial in construction than the 707 and it was also designed with an eye on the possibility of a subsequent fuselage stretch, although some of that was more by accident than design, notably because the airlines requested that the proposed DC-8 have a wider fuselage, and that meant it had to have larger wings and tail surfaces, so it had to have a larger fuselage to accommodate those changed and as a result a taller ground clearance, which eventually also meant it could fit high bypass turbofans under the wings. the fact that the DC-8 also had less of a wing sweep than the 707 also contributed to it being suitable for a fuselage stretch too.

So more able to withstand fatigue, as evidenced by a few 50 year old airframes still earning their keep, and suitable for the fitting of larger more modern CFM 56 engines, is why there are still some DC-8s flying commercially. 

If you like fun aeroplane facts, here's a good one about the DC-8 too: It is actually the first commercial airliner - and indeed the first ever civilian jet aeroplane - to exceed Mach 1. It did so on a test flight when researching wing design changes. And who was flying the chase plane alongside it when it did that? Yup, none other than Chuck Yeager in an F-104 Starfighter, who was of course the first person ever to exceed Mach 1.

[JRBarrett 3,038]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

So more able to withstand fatigue, as evidenced by a few 50 year old airframes still earning their keep, and suitable for the fitting of larger more modern CFM 56 engines, is why there are still some DC-8s flying commercially. 

Metal fatigue is a definite problem in older aircraft. Boeing had to eventually modify all original KC-135 tankers with external reinforcing doubler straps on the aft fuselage, as it was found that the intense sonic vibrations emitted by the J57 straight turbojet engines was inducing stress fractures in the fuselage structure.

There are, of course, many “707” aircraft still flying as Air Force KC-135 tankers, but all current ones are later production models, and all have been re-engined with high bypass turbofans.

[montanasimmer 7]

What Chock said.  I love the plane.  I use Navigraph's chart ap on my ipad to help with the VOR to VOR navigation.  It's fun.  So much more to do than with the autopilot simulators everyone is flying...

 

Colin Ware