Does anybody fly the Aerosoft CRJ Pro?

[fakeflyer737 992]

I bought the first version, which they NEVER fixed. 

I'll never buy an advanced airplane from Aerosoft again, the CRJ was completely useless. 

The thing couldn't even hold and LNAV track. 

BlackBox711 on Twitch has done a few streams with it and he think's its not very good either. 

I'd pass. 

[JasonPC 173]

25 minutes ago, fakeflyer737 said:

I bought the first version, which they NEVER fixed. 

I'll never buy an advanced airplane from Aerosoft again, the CRJ was completely useless. 

The thing couldn't even hold and LNAV track. 

BlackBox711 on Twitch has done a few streams with it and he think's its not very good either. 

I'd pass. 

It still has LNAV problems. Even after they called it “Pro” it still shares a lot of the same issues as the first version. Just slapped some PBR on it and fixed some stupid bugs that should have been squashed a long time ago.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

1 hour ago, JRBarrett said:

I think the thrust reverser arm switches are a “genetic marker” of the CRJ’s ancestry. The aircraft was developed from the Challenger 600 series business jet. The 600 in turn was derived from a concept aircraft originally designed by Bill Lear of Learjet. Canadair took over the project from Learjet in the 1970s. Learjets of that era, like the 35 and 55 used T/R arm switches.

I found an old video of the beginnings of the challenger 600 project on youtube. It was an old 80s Canadian film. really interesting. If you search youtube, hopefully you find it. awesome stuff. full length documentary.

[Benjamin J 751]

Thanks for all the feedback, everybody! Interesting to hear people's experiences and really nice to hear from actual pilots as well. As much as I enjoy reading opinions, the real experience is what matters to me the most, no offense...

 

3 hours ago, Prpn said:

I fly the CRJ for a living as well. The brakes are usually fine unless really heavy and in hot weather (let's say from about 25C+). The good part is that most runways are plenty long for the newer CRJs. Shortest my company operates into is about 1700m (~5600ft) and it will stop in perhaps slightly over half that distance. Any runway over 2000m you can basically do the initial braking purely on thrust reverse and slowly roll in the wheel braking, again unless really heavy.

The real plane is awesome. I tend to describe it as semi-Next Gen. It has a glass cockpit, lots of automation, but lacks the big stuff like real VNAV and autothrust. The Aerosoft addon I don't really have a lot of love for. The flight dynamics have no bearing on reality up to the point that they wouldn't believe me at some point when I informed them that the service ceiling was higher than they had it modeled (they would not let you select FL410 in the FMS at some point because according to them FL390 was the service ceiling). It is a good looking addon, just not very accurate and IMHO not worth the price they are asking for it. Plus it has a looooooooooong history of being barely flyable because of flawed autopilot logic, making steep turns at FL360, not following flightplans etc. So I think not many people are flying it because the reputation kind of sucks as well.

What you say concerns me. If the real plane should be able to stop pretty well with just reverse thrust, then the reversers on the CRJ Pro are nowhere near effective enough. Upon landing at KASE, without braking action, I would have raced off the runway. The reverse thrust doesn't really do very much in my experience in the CRJ Pro...

With regards to the flight level, whether its right or wrong, how high do you typically fly in these planes? Just out of curiosity. Most flights I've tracked in Flightaware seem to be around FL280?

I recognize what you're saying about the steep turns. I've noticed that the A/P likes to initiate a turn steeply, and then 'shallows it out' too early, and then ends up a couple seconds in this shallow bank angle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd assume that the real CRJ A/P is smoother than that?

 

2 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Glad to answer some questions for you!

1. The switched to arm the thrust reversers.....I'm assuming that you mean the two sketches to the immidiate left of the thrust levers? No one knows why the airplane was designed to have thrust reversers that you had to arm. It makes no sense. If you forget to arm them, the physical thrust reverser handled on the thrust reversers will not be be usable. Meaning, when you try to use them, they will be locked until you physically arm the thrust reversers. Also, they are switches you have to physically move your self. They aren't automatic at all on any level.

2. The brakes in the real airplane are quite sensitive. You have to get use to using them. When it's been a long time away from the airplane....like for vacations, it never fails, you will launch people forward when first using the brakes on landing...until you get the feel back again. The brakes on the 700 and 900 can overheat really quickly. I am based out of ORD. When we would land on 27R/9L, if we had a lighter airplane and I kept both engines running, I would constantly have to utilize breaks to keep the airplane from getting to fast. That meant the BTMS numbers would be as high as 5s or 6s. A lot for new captains have this problem. Now, I just shut one down or deal with the speed increase to get to the gate faster. 

If you stomped on the brakes in real life, you would heat the brakes up like crazy. 

Like the other CRJ pilot said. The brakes are generally not needed at first. Thrust reversers are more than adequate during initial roll out. Newer pilots will smash the brakes and then best them up as a result. Braking is more of an art than a science.....but yeah if you stomp the brakes to the maximum...they will heat up significantly.

Hope those were the answers you were looking for!

That's fascinating. You'd think they could just get rid of those 'sketches', as you call them. I love how the ancestry of the plane still comes through in the newer models, though you'd think they could have done away with it.

See, what you say about the brakes make total sense. Like I said, I use them at full because the reversers are not nearly as effective as they apparently should be. From what you're saying, the reverses should get you into the 60kts range and you can start to brake? In the CRJ Pro, I absolutely had to start braking early, or I would drive right off the other end of the runway.

 

2 hours ago, Dreamflight767 said:

I have the airplane.

-I find lots of issues with LNAV.  If, for example, a SID has "fly runway, intercept 180 radial from XYZ VOR," it does not like doing that.  I find the autopilot will just make 360 turns and just not know what to do.  Basically, it cannot "intercept."

-The autopilot could not track the LOC with a solid cross wind (about 20ish KTS.).  When I broke out of the clouds 400 AGL, I was well to the left of the RWY.

-The lack of an autothrottle (cheat) stinks - I asked for one.  We have a little one running around the house so my flights are frequently interrupted.  Without auto flights and cheats I could NEVER fly.  I rely on them for that 5 or 10 mins I need to step away from my computer; a 30 min flight could easily take 4 hours if I have to keep pausing.    

So, I'm not sure what version you're talking about, but I have none of these issues? For me LNAV works well, and it had no issues capturing the localizer. But, I also never tried to do this in a 20kts crosswind... As for the A/T 'cheat', I think that means you should probably just use a different plane...? I don't know of any adorn that has such a 'cheat'?

 

5 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

I found an old video of the beginnings of the challenger 600 project on youtube. It was an old 80s Canadian film. really interesting. If you search youtube, hopefully you find it. awesome stuff. full length documentary.

Would you happen to have a link? I'd be very interested to have a look!

 

Posts such as by @ahsmatt7 and @Prpn make it sadly quite clear that there are some fairly large deficiencies with the Aerosoft CRJ, though I'm unsure to what extent these reflect the original CRJ X or the current CRJ Pro. I will say that, despite those flaws, I do still find it a very fun plane to fly. I suppose I should start investing more time into the majestic Dash 8 as well, as I feel like their operation is essentially similar. 

[Ricardo41 5,949]

Every once in a while I'm tempted to buy this, considering I owned the version for FSX and could get it now for $26, but reviews like this one always lead me to delete it from my shopping cart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R-jaTaxBtg

[rob0203 689]

A great alternative which I fly now is the Flysimware Learjet 35a!

[westman 257]

think it very nice to fly . 

the Ap works much better know, it handels RNP good , you can fly a RNP with vnav from TOD down to minimums

if you need AT to fly, its noting for you

Edited May 6, 2020 by westman

[Chock 17,769]

Yup, I fly it. It's a great add-on. I think a lot of the complaints about it were from children of the magenta line who were perplexed by something which didn't have an autothrottle. If you have the autopilot and the autothrottle on all the time, you aren't the pilot, you are a passenger. 🤣

Edited May 6, 2020 by Chock

[Ricardo41 5,949]

59 minutes ago, rob0203 said:

A great alternative which I fly now is the Flysimware Learjet 35a!

Not an alternative. Completely different class of aircraft.

[Ricardo41 5,949]

34 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yup, I fly it. It's a great add-on. I think a lot of the complaints about it were from children of the magenta line who were perplexed by something which didn't have an autothrottle. If you have the autopilot and the autothrottle on all the time, you aren't the pilot, you are a passenger. 🤣

What's great about it? People aren't complaining about the lack of autothrottle, we understand that the CRJ doesn't have an autothrottle.

Check the video I linked above. THAT is what people are wondering about. For example, it seems you can start the engines any which way you want. Hardly "professional".

[Paladin2005 434]

1 hour ago, rob0203 said:

A great alternative which I fly now is the Flysimware Learjet 35a!

Yes, fhe Flysimware Learjet is for me the best alternative to PMDG and Aerosoft Jets - its realistic, fast, agile, gives you a jet feeling but you must work a lot. I love flying 1h trips all over the world with it.

[Dreamflight767 312]

5 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

So, I'm not sure what version you're talking about, but I have none of these issues? For me LNAV works well, and it had no issues capturing the localizer. But, I also never tried to do this in a 20kts crosswind... As for the A/T 'cheat', I think that means you should probably just use a different plane...? I don't know of any adorn that has such a 'cheat'?

-I keep all my products up-to-date.

-LNAV issue, for me, appears mainly during SID when you are required to intercept a radial/course from a HDG.

-I have no issues "capturing" the LOC.  Autopilot has issues tracking the LOC in a stiff crosswind.

-I don't fly this plane that often because of the lack of cheat.  (No fault/blame of Aerosoft)  I guess I should clarify that I requested a "speed hold cheat."

Such an option is available to most airplanes (like the Flysimware FA50, also no speed hold/autothrottle).  In the aircraft cfg file you change "autothrottle=1" and set a keyboard or joystick button in the sim's assignments.  When the aircraft reaches your desired speed and you select that assigned button, the airplane will maintain that speed.  It does not work for this airplane however.  Wilco also had that custom feature in it's early versions of RJs.  

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Dreamflight767

[rob0203 689]

4 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Not an alternative. Completely different class of aircraft.

Great! Thank you for the information, I did not know that! Much appreciated!

[Matthew James de Bohun 55]

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with the CRJ. The throttle is a pain in the....... seems the speed can be quite erratic which can make landing it nicely a bit of a lottery.

I much prefer the 717 by far. Shame so few airlines operate it anymore.

[Branimir 58]

Aerosoft CRJ is my favorite aircraft. It feels so good when you perfectly fly it from A to B and you realize that you were actually doing something the whole flight.

It is also a very good aircraft to learn the AP modes and how they work. It helps you understand the modes of the autopilots that are automatically managed (AP of 737 or A320).