TFDi 717 or Leonardo Maddog?

[ShezA 176]

The Maddog is a fun aircraft and I just fly it in sequence with the AS A320/ AS CRJ / PMDG 737 & 777 / QW 787 / FSW LJ35 for the complexity it involves. Highly recommended. However, if you want a modern airliner then the 717 is great.

BTW I have mapped the various functions of the Maddog to my Switch Panel through SPAD Next. Send me an email if you want it. Automates a lot of functions. You will need SPAD Next.

Shez

[LH340fan 54]

MADDOG! You'll never regret it. Just consider buying TSSs sounds because stock ones are rubbish. Otherwise, performance is top notch (best performer on my potato even with trueglass stuff) and the handling is just a charm. Avionics are very good and you get all the stuff you'd expect in the real one. (best flight for me would be KMSP to KDCA) . Unlike others IT IS worth the 80 USD that are asked for. Wish they sold immersion for it.(there's already FS2crew)

IMO the tfdi would be an alternative to an MD-11. It's between an airbus and a boeing. Although performance seems to be a bit poor.

And from a historic point of view, I think less than 10 carriers bought the 717 so for the liveries the md-82 sold much better.

[JPFLIGHT 4]

Thanks gents I’ve jumped in a got the maddog. Only thing is I’m struggling to find the livery manager in the load manager for p3d v4. Can any provide any advice on where to find it?

thanks

James

[ShezA 176]

23 minutes ago, LH340fan said:

MADDOG! You'll never regret it. Just consider buying TSSs sounds because stock ones are rubbish. Otherwise, performance is top notch (best performer on my potato even with trueglass stuff) and the handling is just a charm. Avionics are very good and you get all the stuff you'd expect in the real one. (best flight for me would be KMSP to KDCA) . Unlike others IT IS worth the 80 USD that are asked for. Wish they sold immersion for it.(there's already FS2crew)

IMO the tfdi would be an alternative to an MD-11. It's between an airbus and a boeing. Although performance seems to be a bit poor.

And from a historic point of view, I think less than 10 carriers bought the 717 so for the liveries the md-82 sold much better.

Good points. The one thing which the 717 falls down on is that only Delta fly it so flight choice is scarce.

I also agree with the sounds. Very weak, and even worse in the spot view where it is almost silent. The Maddog is a noisy old girl externally compared to the current crop of airliners (although it is silent in the cockpit/front seats because of the rear mounted engines). I have not bought the payware sounds but I use the freeware sounds from the AVSIM Library which are better.

 

[sevenflyer 12]

The livery manager is in the load manager. It is a rectangular button on the right hand side of "General" tab.

[Benjamin J 751]

I own both, but either of them haven't had much chance to fly. Nevertheless, my two cents:

- The Maddog is a wonderful aircraft. back in FS2004 and then FSX the previous versions were my aircraft of choice. It's a challenging and fun plane to fly. The systems are retro as somebody here mentioned, thus needing a sometimes startling level of manual input. Thus this is not a plan that I view as 'quick in and out', which the PMDG 737 is for me. Within minutes I can set it up to go. Though perhaps when I become more proficient with the Maddog, that will work similarly. I will ad that A/P-wise the plane has all modern conveniences. It's age really comes up when it comes to system automation, such as the pressurization system, for instance.

- The 717 is equally fun to fly. Having had no experience with the 717 at all from prior products, but having used the PMDG MD-11, I was quite excited. I believe I wasn't let down. This is all around my kind of aircraft. Modern and therefore easy to get out of the gate. Like the MD-11, it's a funny mix of Boeing and Airbus, and so therefore initially a little confusing. But I got the hang of this quite quickly, and definitely much more quickly than the Maddog. After one flight I already feel much more comfortable.

So here's my advice: The Maddog is an older plane and therefore needs more manual input. Ultimately this makes it a wonderful plan to 'conquer' and you'll find that you'll get a great deal of joy form flying it properly. The 717 is equally fun but is much easier and quicker to master, and therefore may be more suited if you have less time overall per flight, or would like to get up and running more quickly. In the end, if you like the MD family, you might just want to get both, and take each of them out depending on how much time you have. Both still see a lot of use right now in the US, so there's plenty of routes especially from Atlanta.

[DrumsArt 270]

8 hours ago, thibodba57 said:

The installer directs to your Documents folder.  This was brought up in Beta testing and LM suggests to developers to install there not the Sim Objects folder.  The work around for this and I would recommend this to anyone.  Is to move your documents folder to another hard drive.  This ensures backups of all your work also.  Plus now your are splitting the load to three hard drives 🙂

On a side note, A2A installs into this directory as well with no other option if I recall.

I see that there is a misunderstanding about how you understood LM's recommendation. Sorry, but that's not quite correct.
The first recommendation of LM is to install the addons in the Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder, regardless of the disk on which this folder is installed. Mine is on E:Prepar3D v4 Add-ons. In this folder I have all my addons whose developers have followed the installation procedure (A2A, Aerosoft, RealAir, FsLabs and so...).

The purpose of this process is both to comply with LM's recommendation while leaving the user the choice to put this folder where he wants, without forcing him to put it on the system disk, which for most of us is often of smaller capacity.

Now Leonardo for obscure reasons (I still haven't understood anything about their vague justifications), install their addon directly in C:\Users\***********\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons\MaddogX (1.45Gb) + another folder in C:\Users\***********\Documents\Maddog X Files (1.09Gb).

I grant you the total is 2.54Gb and not 4Gb as I wrote 😉

To my knowledge it is the only developer who, either by misinterpretation of LM recommendations (I doubt it), or by other reasons for which I am still waiting for justification, proceeds in this way!

The other folders I have in C:\Users\***********\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons contain some Aerosoft and ORBX files that are only 1 Kb xml files...
On my side I have 26.GB in my E:Prepar3D v4 Add-ons! Fortunately, not all developers practice this kind of installation.

End of (little) off-topic. Sorry...

Thank you and Regards,

Richard.

Edited October 24, 2018 by DrumsArt

[ZKOKQ 984]

6 hours ago, ShezA said:

The one thing which the 717 falls down on is that only Delta fly it

Don't Qantas still fly them ?

[DrumsArt 270]

11 minutes ago, ZKOKQ said:

Don't Qantas still fly them ?

Yes Quantas, Hawaiian Airlines also. Have a look on FlightAware, there are many of B717 in US, Australia and Hawaii islands flying right now.

Richard

Edited October 24, 2018 by DrumsArt

[out 769]

4 minutes ago, DrumsArt said:

Qantas, Hawaiian Airlines also

Plus Volotea and Turkmenistan.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Rafal

[ZKOKQ 984]

..

Edited October 24, 2018 by ZKOKQ

[DrumsArt 270]

2 minutes ago, ZKOKQ said:

Cheers. Just that you said only Delta lol

?I'm not ShezA.

Richard

[ZKOKQ 984]

8 minutes ago, DrumsArt said:

?I'm not ShezA.

Richard

I am getting old, my bad. Sorry Richard

[DrumsArt 270]

1 minute ago, ZKOKQ said:

I am getting old, my bad. Sorry Richard

No problem ZKOKQ.

[Flic1 972]

Both are fantastic aircraft and you can't go wrong with either but the MD-80 just kinda gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside😄  I love flying it (my current go-to aircraft) and it has the best VC around right now IMO...and I have 'em all.  The VC night lighting is sublime (also the best around right now) so I absolutely love flying this one at dusk and at night.  I'd recommend FS2Crew to go along with it as it is a bit more of a handful than the 717.  Lots of options in the Load Manager and you can adjust the volume of every sound as well (nice feature).  I do own the TSS sounds for this one but the stock sounds are very acceptable in the VC (external sounds are a bit weak).  Own both of them if you can!

Edited October 25, 2018 by Flic1