p3d Off to France from Columbia in an MD11

[Chock 17,769]

Sky Sim MD11 in P3D V4 getting ready to depart to Le Bourget from Virtualcol's Bogota for an Air Hauler cargo flight dropping some cargo at Paris, then continuing on to the UK. Flew well to the South East before crossing the South Atlantic heading over to North Africa in order to pick up some favourable winds and avoid thunderstorm activity in the mid Atlantic. With all that cargo and fuel on board, I needed every inch of that runway and it was a struggle to make it up to the cruise alt of 39,000 feet lol.

 

Edited November 13, 2018 by Chock

[vc10man 732]

How is she shaping up, Alan, considering the initial scepticism a lot expressed herein? Okay, agreed she is not PMDG former quality, but what's your ratings in P3Dv4?

[Chock 17,769]

22 minutes ago, vc10man said:

How is she shaping up, Alan, considering the initial scepticism a lot expressed herein? Okay, agreed she is not PMDG former quality, but what's your ratings in P3Dv4?

It's cheap and cheerful. Anyone who likes total realism would be disappointed and so it's in no way a substitute for those lamenting the loss of their PMDG MD11, but if you can forgo quite a few switches not working and are happy to just fly a default flight plan without SIDs and STARs (unless you fly those manually), then it's okay.

I maintain it would be overpriced for what it is at any more than the 27 quid I paid for it, and frankly, I think even that price is pushing it a bit. It does make a good Air Hauler cargo plane though, with really only something like a 747 being able to beat it for cargo capacity and it does undeniably handle very well when flying it manually and gets great FPS for a heavy, but unless you are so in love with the MD11 that you have to have one in P3D V4 at any cost and can forgive almost anything to do so, then there are better things to spend your money on.

It's the fact that it gets good FPS which sells it to me. I have an Air Hauler base at Le Bourget and I use France VFR's Isle de France scenery, which is a notorious system drain, so I only take FPS-friendly airliners into that region because you have Le Bourget, Charles DeGaulle and Orly all loading in with about 20 other smaller airports surrounding those and all that sitting on phototerrain with custom autogen and tons of AI traffic going into all those airfields. Taking an FPS hog airliner into that kind of environment would result in a slideshow, so although a simpler airliner is a compromise, it suits me to make such a compromise in that location, especially since I like hand flying approaches, so a good refresh rate is paramount for that.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Chock

[vc10man 732]

Great reply, Alan. As I am an old PMDG MD-11 aficionado, guess I'll pass.

Off-topic. There was a great look-back at that Shorts Belfast C.1 we saw at RAF Cosford last month, in a flying mag.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Nice!

John