Which aircraft to focus on?

[RazorBlade 22]

First a bit about myself. I am 49 and fly flightsims nearly all my life. It started with MSFS II and after that I flew mostly military flightsims, mostly Falcon 4.0. About 10 years ago I stopped with the hobby. Now that I saw Microsoft Flightsimulator 2020 is coming I want to come back to the hobby but I will move to civilian flightsimming with MSFS2020.

Of course I am wondering what I should pick up first after the introduction. I want to focus on a specific detailed aircraft. That could be an Airbus 320, Boeing 737 or perhaps another commercial jet. At this moment I don’t know what will be on the market as add on planes and I don’t even know the differences between these planes and the different versions.  

So, please help me a bit with this. I am looking for a “workhorse “ of the major airlines. A plane that has a lot of detail and that a lot of people use so that there is a lot of information available on the Internet with useful tutorials on YouTube. What are the advantages of these planes and disadvantages. What are the differences, etc. I understand that PMDG is a famous brand for add-on planes. Are there other brands that are similar?  

Keep in mind, at this moment I would probably not even recognize these planes. Although there are a lot of similarities between military flightsims and commercial flightsims, there are also a lot of differences so I might not be familiar with all the terminology.  

[Casualcas 830]

Pmdg does have plans to support MSFS, and to move their aircraft over. When that will happen after release of MSFS I dont know. I for one cant wait to see what the content is of the default Airbus 320 neo, and 747-8 

[RazorBlade 22]

I would not be surprised when they would release something on the releasedate of MSFS2020. They already have finished products that they can use that they only have to convert to the new MSFS2020 format. I am not sure how detailed the stock planes will be. I am not even sure what the reputation is from Microsoft to deliver highly detailed planes in their standard Standard sim. I am not even sure if all the planes that will be in the sim, wil also be in all version of the sim. It is very wel possible that they make some planes available in the standard version and some planes will be in a more expensive version.  

[Noooch 1,084]

The A320s and 737s are the most used. You will find plenty of videos comparing them and what are their main differences. This will help you to choose between Airbus or Boeing. After that, all Airbus are more or less the same to fly, Boeings are more unique one from each other so based on the size of the aircraft you want to fly, you will find your happiness.

[mp15 138]

My M944 is still in development (for myself) but I can show it to you when finished if you want.

Edited February 27, 2020 by mp15

[ckyliu 1,749]

PMDG have confirmed their 737 NGXU product will come to MFS with enhancements (via an upgrade option to NG3) but I really would not expect it any time soon after MFS release, PMDG are somewhat infamous for taking a while.

But PMDG are not the be-all-and-end-all that many make them out to be. There are other developers who work to similar levels of quality such as Majestic (who make a Q400 turboprop) and FSLabs (Airbus A320). And there are those are a little bit less on the systems simulation depth but none the less make enjoyable and realistic products which are a lot less expensive (Aerosoft Pro for example)

Certainly the 737 and A320 are the major workhorses for most airlines. E-jets is another popular one which feelThere make but in my opinion they're a bit overpriced for what they offer, although not bad on the whole. If you want widebodies you're looking at the A330 (Aerosoft) and 777 (PMDG). If you want to live in the 1990s CaptainSim do a 757. Unfortunately if you want to do turboprop regionals and feederliners (which are the most fun in my opinion) your choices are rather limited, basically just Majestic's Q400. There's no decent ATRs. There's a semi-passable Saab 340 from Carenado.

Other than the PMDG NGXu product there's not really any indication if they'll be ported to MFS and what the costs will be and if they'll get any enhancements. Given how much the graphics engine has moved on and the flight dynamics engine replaced, to do a decent conversion rather than a quick port that would look out of places in the new world is going to be rather involved.

Edited February 27, 2020 by ckyliu

[Chock 17,769]

It's probably true to say that the Boeing 737 (in continuous production for over 50 years and with well over 10,500 built) and the Airbus A320 (in continuous production for 36 years and with well over 9,200 built) are the workhorses of the airlines as far as jets are concerned. With turboprops, the two workhorses are probably the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 (in continuous production for 23 years, with well over 1,250 built) and the ATR-72 (in continuous production for 35 years, with well over over 1,000 built).

We are fortunate to have very good simulations available for the Dash 8 (Majestic), 737 (iFly, PMDG and MILVIZ)and A320 (FSL and Aerosoft), and a reasonably good simulation of the ATR-72 at present (Carenado), with a more detailed one presently in development (MILVIZ), so all these have been well covered by PC flight sim developers. Which one to choose depends on what you like and what you want to do as well.

The turboprops are good choices if you like the idea of doing reasonably short flights, which is fun per flight hour because the cruise part of airliner flying can be dull given that it is mostly handled by the autopilot, with the crew really just keeping an eye on things for that stage of flight, and since the turboprops make short hops, you spend proportionally more time flying the take offs and doing the landings in terms of ratio. A big plus point for that, is the Majestic Dash 8 is almost certainly the most complete simulation of an airliner which has ever been made for a PC based flight sim, being far more completely detailed in terms of all its systems than any other offering from any other developer, as well as being one of the less expensive ones too. The Carenado ATR-72 on the other hand is pretty and has a reasonable stab at the real thing in terms of systems and controls, but it is in no way a 'study sim' of the aircraft. We'll have to wait for the forthcoming MILVIZ one for that level of realism. So if you want a good turboprop which is about as close as you can get to having a real professional flight simulator of the kind which is used for training the real crews, then the Majestic Dash 8 is the one to go for.

With jets, if you asked most people which is the ideal airliner to learn on, I imagine the majority would say the Boeing 737. And there's a good reason why they would probably say that too: Having been around since the late 1960s and having gone through three major design updates since that time, it is a hugely refined aeroplane and so there is a wealth of information available to prospective pilots of the 737 simply by virtue of there having been over fifty years in which people have written stuff, made films, created training programs etc, etc, for it. The 737 was the first modern jet airliner designed to be operated by a (nowadays fairly standard) crew of two, rather than three or four (the other two crew members on contemporary airliners at that time being a navigator/radio operator and a flight engineer). This was not popular at the time with airline pilot unions, especially in the US (for obvious reasons) but it was the jet which proved the concept thanks to extensive proving trials flown by Lufthansa, and given that this was a new concept at the time, this shows you that Boeing really got it right with the 737, which is probably why it was, and still is the best-selling airliner of all time.

In more recent years, the advent of the Flight Management Computer on board airliners, has enabled them to be operated more safely and efficiently and the present 737 NG (we'll skip the latest 737 MAX because that type is currently grounded worldwide with issues related to its new systems - a discussion for another time and place) has a very good and intuitive FMC which is perhaps ideal as an introduction to using these. The concept of the FMC incidentally, is another first for the 737, since the FMC was actually developed by NASA and tested on board the very first 737 ever built, which NASA had bought off Boeing after Boeing had finished using it for their own testing of the type. So if you wanted a simulated 737 NG, you got two very good ones to choose from presently, made by PMDG and iFly. If on the other hand you want one of the earlier type 737s which Lufthansa flew all those years ago, and which did not have an FMC (instead using conventional radio navigation), then there is one of those available too, from MILVIZ in the form of a 737-200.

The great rival to the 737 in the past thirty-odd years has been the Airbus A320. This too had its share of innovation claims to fame, the most well-known of which is the Fly-By-Wire system it uses, whereby instead of the controls being mechanically linked to the control surfaces by means of cables and pushrods with hydraulic assistance, the cockpit controls send electronic signals to actuators which control the movement of the aeroplane's control surfaces. This in itself is no less intuitive nor any more difficult to use than the more traditional controls in the 737, but what it has meant is that the makers of the Airbus were able to implement safety measures into the control signals whereby the aeroplane would override any ham-fisted or dangerous control inputs in order to keep the thing in a safe flight envelope, and this was coupled with a good deal more automation in terms of how the autopilot and flight management computer was programmed too.

It's this which is one of the major differences between how the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 is operated in terms of philosophy and is likely to influence which one you might prefer of the two. The ethos with the Boeing is that the aircraft will provide the pilots with plenty of information and then it is up to the pilots to fly the thing based on the information the systems have furnished the pilots with. Essentially, it's the other way around with the Airbus. The pilots provide the information to the Airbus's systems, and then it is up to the Airbus to make use of that information to fly the plane safely. Now in fairness, that's a bit of a crude way of describing what goes on, but the gist of it is pretty much true. so if you wanted to sum it up, the 737 is a 'pilot's aeroplane' whereas the A320 is an efficient and more sophisticated airliner, which rewards diligent operation.

If you want a simulated A320, then the most sophisticated one you will find is the Flight Sim Labs (FSL) one. It's a very close second to the Majestic Dash 8 in terms of how nearly every buttton switch and dial is simulated and it is a tour-de-force in programming skill for having successfully pulled off such a close replication of the real thing. If however, you don't want an A320 which is capable of simulating pretty much any emergency or failure you care to mention, as the FSL one can, then the Aerosoft one does a good job of simulating the A320 too.

Now there are other simulated airliners out there which are worth a look too, but the above should give you a decent stab at getting to grips with airliners. And on the subject of learning it all. Be sure to check out these books, which will take a lot of the frustration out of learning it all.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Chock

[eslader 1,783]

A great one to look at if you're cool with a steep learning curve is Leonardo's Fly the Maddog, which is a sim of the DC9/MD8x series. I haven't seen whether or not they'll make one for 2020, but I certainly hope they will. And if they don't, that alone will keep p3d4 installed on my system until a good-enough replacement comes out. That is one heck of a good addon plane, and it's a lot more hands-on than the others mentioned because it's older and less automated (and what automation it has is inferior to modern systems, which means you do a lot more work). It's also fun because Douglas was famous for building very tough airplanes, but they also built somewhat schizophrenic cockpits. For example, whereas the exterior light switches are all in a single group or at most a main group plus the taxi/landing light group with Boeing planes, with the MD they're all over the freaking cockpit. It's kind of hilarious, and doubly cool in that if for some reason you don't fly it for awhile, you will forget where everything is and have to hunt around for it again.

 

 

[psykie 3]

I LOVE the biz jets and would be extremely HAPPY if Asobo created a detailed long range medium to large size biz jet. I'm sure there will be pay-ware models that will be created for FS 2020.  

 

Matthew  

[MatthewS 761]

On 2/27/2020 at 8:42 PM, RazorBlade said:

That could be an Airbus 320, Boeing 737 or perhaps another commercial jet

Based on past experience you can't go wrong with anything by PMDG. 

I'm intending to buy their 737/777/747 offerings when available for FS2020... That's enough to keep me occupied for years.

Wouldn't mind a 707 or a "classic" 747-100/200 too.

[djbully 210]

Personally, I'll be waiting for anything by A2A. I love the quality of their stuff. Ok, it's mostly older WW2 fighters, but they do some great GA planes too.

Comanche, Bonanza V-Tail etc. 

[tweekz 2,165]

20 hours ago, Casualcas said:

Pmdg does have plans to support MSFS, and to move their aircraft over. When that will happen after release of MSFS I dont know. I for one cant wait to see what the content is of the default Airbus 320 neo, and 747-8 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the NGu something that is aimed towards MSFS, with a kind of "preview" release for P3D. Might have got it totally wrong tho. 😄

Anyhow. It would be awesome if PMDG and MS work together in that regard.

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

At this point honestly, the only advice i would give you is to buy XP11 when it's on sale and take advantage of the Zibo 737 addon (which is free) and start learning it. If the 737 is the one you want to learn, that's it.

[Casualcas 830]

18 minutes ago, tweekz said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the NGu something that is aimed towards MSFS, with a kind of "preview" release for P3D. Might have got it totally wrong tho. 😄

Anyhow. It would be awesome if PMDG and MS work together in that regard.

That's what I thought. I just dont remember if they had a date planned 

[Dominique_K 10,149]

Just now, tweekz said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the NGu something that is aimed towards MSFS, with a kind of "preview" release for P3D. Might have got it totally wrong tho. 😄

Anyhow. It would be awesome if PMDG and MS work together in that regard.

They released the NGXu for p3D, not a preview, and gave a financial incentive to buy it, a discount for the FS20 version when (or if…) it is  released.