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b1bmsgt

Virtualcol A220 Released!

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3 hours ago, b1bmsgt said:

If you go to the Virtualcol main website (not the store site) under the Products tab you will see "Paint Kits available" Click on that and it will give you a drop down list of all of their paint kits. The A220 kit is at the top of the list.

 

Russ

 

I knew it had to be me doing something wrong lol. I had assumed it would be installed with the plane!

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Nick Silver

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I fixed the annoying whine on descent by removing the whine from the sound files. Now its much better.....great bird for £20 or so

Edited by asustech
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On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 8:18 PM, SunDevil56 said:

Overall, based on your pics I think the Vcol A220 looks pretty spot on, perhaps there are some very minor size issues of the sim model versus the real world AC, but I think that would be apparent with practically any sim model, and I also believe that's due in part to the whole "individual visual perception" thing, but I think your excellent comparison pics illustrate very well that there aren't any grossly out of scale or over sized elements on the A220, and certainly nothing I would remotely describe as "completely off" or ridiculous.

Maybe my wording was not appropriate, but I still did not buy this plane due to the fact that in my opinion, the visuals are simply not "right enough". I am hesitating. Other screenshots I have seen now implicate that the letters in the SWISS livery are squeezed. And I insist in the fact that the gear struts are about 20% too long putting the plane to high above ground and the windows are about 10% too big as well if compared to the main doors. This might be nitpicking, but as I said, it was a very common error/mistake of many freeware models some years ago and to me, it ruins the immersion of the whole aircraft.

And no, to me the price tag alone is no argument. Carenado planes are not that expensive neither, the QW Avro RJ is about 20$ as well and some freeware models are far superior to the VirtualCol modelling. But as it is the only A220 available, I might just need to take a step back and accept what we get here to be able to fly around with an A220 (which I really miss in the sim so far).

Don't get me wrong, it IS a nice deal and it IS most certainly the best looking VirtualCol model so far. But this does not mean that it is perfect and no criticism is allowed, no? Obviously, VirtualCol still gets better from release to release, if now everybody would praise them for being spot on in their modeling, they might stop their improvements...

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Greetings, Chris

Intel i5-13600K, 2x16GB 3200MHz CL14 RAM, MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X, Windows 11 Home, MSFS

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4 hours ago, AnkH said:

Maybe my wording was not appropriate, but I still did not buy this plane due to the fact that in my opinion, the visuals are simply not "right enough". I am hesitating. Other screenshots I have seen now implicate that the letters in the SWISS livery are squeezed. And I insist in the fact that the gear struts are about 20% too long putting the plane to high above ground and the windows are about 10% too big as well if compared to the main doors. This might be nitpicking, but as I said, it was a very common error/mistake of many freeware models some years ago and to me, it ruins the immersion of the whole aircraft.

And no, to me the price tag alone is no argument. Carenado planes are not that expensive neither, the QW Avro RJ is about 20$ as well and some freeware models are far superior to the VirtualCol modelling. But as it is the only A220 available, I might just need to take a step back and accept what we get here to be able to fly around with an A220 (which I really miss in the sim so far).

Don't get me wrong, it IS a nice deal and it IS most certainly the best looking VirtualCol model so far. But this does not mean that it is perfect and no criticism is allowed, no? Obviously, VirtualCol still gets better from release to release, if now everybody would praise them for being spot on in their modeling, they might stop their improvements...

Of course it doesn't mean no criticism is allowed, every add on is a compromise or set of compromises, it's up to the individual to decide if they can accept these, and if not, you just move on...

As for Virtualcol, I haven't bought anything from them in many years, and all of that was for FSX, but I decided to get the A220 for P3D because there's nothing else available, nor is there likely to be for years to come. The Vcol A220 is what it is, and I was willing to accept it's limitations, and I don't regret having got it, but I also think we've about reached the pinnacle of what we can expect from Vcol, and they don't have anything as far as "future projects" that even remotely interests me at the present time.

We'll just have to agree to disagree about the struts, windows, and livery lettering sizes, but again, I believe this can mostly be attributed to differences in individual perception of visual objects, it doesn't categorically mean anyone is right or wrong about it, it simply means different people perceive things differently, and in this regard I can't see anything that is grossly disproportionate on the Vcol A220 model that would completely ruin the immersion of the whole aircraft for me, and to be honest, I don't spend a lot of time closely inspecting struts, windows, or lettering, but I do think that I would notice something that was way out of scale, or more precisely, way out of scale to my eyes.

It flies nice, the systems, (such as they are) function like they are supposed to, and as Alan has said.."It's a fun thing", so for the price paid I really can't complain, and i've enjoyed having it thus far.

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On 4/1/2019 at 9:15 AM, SunDevil56 said:

It flies nice, the systems, (such as they are) function like they are supposed to, and as Alan has said.."It's a fun thing", so for the price paid I really can't complain, and i've enjoyed having it thus far.

Me too!!

 

Russ

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Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force, Retired

Former T-33A Crew Chief

Former B-1B Crew Chief / Flightline Maintenance Expediter

Former Learjet Corp. Quality Inspector

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I also took the plunge and due to no available alternatives, I got myself a copy of the VirtualCol A220. The virtual cockpit is indeed one of the best from VirtualCol, I could easily live with this. Sadly, the impression I got from the screenshots of the plane model are confirmed, the 3D model simply does not look right. I know I am talking about minor details, but to me, those details sadly ruin the whole immersion. I will provide some pictures to illustrate what I mean later, for now:

- the whole proportions look somehow off. Not much, it is instantly recognizable as A220, but with a big "eeehmmm.... something is wrong"

- more specifically: those wings. They are in the bended state already on ground, means no to little wing flex. While this looks good in flight, it is irritating on ground.

- main gear: as already said, the main gear is about 20% to long, the plane looks like standing on stilts. Depending on the view angle, this is more or less pronounced.

- windows: as mentioned, they are slightly to big. Also the doors do not really fit. Looking at the fuselage therfore again ends in this strange feeling that something is just not right.

- repaint: as I am Swiss, I was of course buying the plane due to the fact that SWISS Airlines has them in service. But come on, they did not even get the utterly trivial SWISS repaint right by ruining again the whole thing with squeezing the font of the SWISS text on the fuselage. Hope someone will do a higher quality repaint one day. 

Then, also not really surprising but slightly disappointing: the plane comes with a GSX configuration, what actually is pretty nice, but this configuration is so bad, you have to reconfigure it yourself. Main entry door position is in the middle of the fuselage resulting in the jetways blending into the plane, same goes for the front door on the right side for catering, engine positions are about 5m behind and 2m closer to the centerline than they actually are, the rear exit on the left is not even configured, position of the front gear is not precisely set (for pushback) and baggage loaders are not configured as such that only belt loaders are used.

After all, even for the small price tag for me a little bit too many things where you can actually feel that this is a "cheap addon". Certainly not good enough to eliminate those doubts about VirtualCol me and many others have.

EDIT: ok, Gustavo Aguilar already did some repaints that are at least good looking, including a SWISS repaint.

Edited by AnkH

Greetings, Chris

Intel i5-13600K, 2x16GB 3200MHz CL14 RAM, MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X, Windows 11 Home, MSFS

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4 hours ago, AnkH said:

EDIT: ok, Gustavo Aguilar already did some repaints that are at least good looking, including a SWISS repaint.

What repaints (aside from Swiss), and where did you find these...??

 

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13 minutes ago, AnkH said:

In the library, here you go:

https://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=VirtualCol+Aguiar&CatID=root&Go=Search

Sorry for the typo in his name, it is Aguiar, not Aguilar.

Thanks, Yes, I tried searching "Aguilar" but came up empty..😀

The air baltic Latvian flag livery looks nice, i'll get this soon...

BTW, my Vcol A220 came with no GSX  config file, strange... Could you possibly share that with me..? I know you say it's terrible, but i'd still like to experiment with it. Thanks.

Edited by SunDevil56

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Might be that this was included in the v1.03 update I found on my simmarket account after purchasing the plane?

I can not share the original file of the -300 with you anymore, as I already adjusted the config file for my needs. If you want this one or the original -200 file, I can put them on my Google drive, sure.

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Greetings, Chris

Intel i5-13600K, 2x16GB 3200MHz CL14 RAM, MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X, Windows 11 Home, MSFS

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Small correction to the mini-complaint-review I wrote above: VirtualCol did not include a badly made GSX config, if there is no config at all, GSX Level 2 (don't know if this is the same for the basic GSX) obviously uses a "Default config" based on the data in the aircraft.cfg. That is why the stuff was not matching properly.


Greetings, Chris

Intel i5-13600K, 2x16GB 3200MHz CL14 RAM, MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X, Windows 11 Home, MSFS

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I'm wary of VirtualCol but I have downloaded the aircraft.  Yes, I shall get rid of the jet whine also, it is overdone.

However for a few more dollars I would have loved some form of dispatcher.  At the moment I haven't found how to vary Pax numbers and weights, inc cargo loadings and fuel load in a Perf or Init Setting on the FMS.  So for the time being I am stuck with whatever the default

A Sample flight is also always a good thing.

But for a cheapy it is quite well presented.

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Eqipped it with two GTN units in the VC. Impression and download link:

 

 

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Very nice Stefan!

Any impact on frame rates..?? Not that the Vcol A220 cockpit was hard on frames to begin with, i'm just curious.

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Thank you!

No impact on frames - and I started at LSZH Zurich from Aerosoft with about 75 more airliners AI traffic on the ground

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