Stocking Stuffers at SimMarket Sales + ATR

There are some good bargains for Christmas, so, if Santa is allowed to fly in this year or you get some change from grandma, I recommend looking at the really cheap P3Dv5 scenery from Sierrasim and Wingsim. I mean, we're talking less than $10 for some decent looking and interesting South American or Caribbean scenery. Maybe Columbia doesn't come to mind for flying, but there are a lot of cheap sceneries that have tons of flavor and some cool approaches. For the price, they're better than most stocking stuffers. Try one out for $6.79 U.S. (I looked up the exchange rate against the Euro; but you better move fast, not only because of the sales, but I'm not confident that's going to be the same tomorrow.)

In the not-exactly-recommended-but-still-fun category, there's the VirtualCol ATR I had overlooked. It's chief (only?) advantage is that it works in P3Dv5. But it does fill a gap in my fleet. At 24 Euros (27.18 U.S.) it's not a bargain, but it is in that JustFlight shovelware category of a lot of different models and paints with some, um, compromises. I did some island hopping,using Caribbean scenery and it was a lot of fun, though. I'm not saying it the VC is state-of-the-art (!) or anything but the most important switches operate, but we all can't be PMDG--or even, in this case, JustFlight.. Nonetheless, I did a LIAT flight from Bermuda to Princess Juliana and the autopilot worked and I did the manual landing without drama--the reverser detent worked fine with FSUIPC. Looked pretty cool from the outside, too. Is it realistic? I wouldn't know, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say: no. The alternative for me would be the JustFlight BAC One Eleven (also not exactly premium, and has some vices that you need to cure it of. but certainly something different! Probably slower than the ATR!). The ATR has some apron toys, but the flight attendants and baggage handlers don't bear close inspection 🙄 (Refugees from Legoland, perhaps, so have some compassion--it's Christmas.) Even so, it's something to play with. Sorry to word not allowed you with faint praise, VirtualCol ATR, but I'm never going to be a turboprop guy and I'm not sure what else there is for short hops unless I want to forgo automation and fly C-46 or DC-3 charters. I'm willing to consider suggestions. In the meantime, I've already got a couple of hours entertainment out of my investment without spending days highlighting a manual. It will be a lot cheaper-per-quality-time than watching Wheel of Time streaming.

Maybe I'll learn to repaint in 2022 and give Lego Flight Attendant a properly short LIAT hemline. Well, probably better I don't know how to paint. (Mentioned for accurate historical interest only, and I absolutely condemn the attitudes and uniforms of the past--all of them without question--and am grateful that we are now truly in the Golden Age of aviation. Did your DC-8 operator bother to tell you its carbon footprint like you see on travel sites today? I rest my case.)

As I've said before (repeating myself seems to be a feature of my advanced years, so have some compassion--it's Christmas) there is a wealth of P3D airplanes of varying quality, from the low-end ATR mentioned above to the excellent high-quality brand new iFly 737-800 / 900 and everything in between. Scenery, too, and there's more coming out all the time. And there are still some very extensive mods out there for classics like the underrated JustFlight DC-8s--Aerosoft makes a nice one, too--(if you don't care about your simulated carbon footprint) and Captain Sim 737-200. Despite what some would have you believe, there are plenty of places to go and planes to fly in P3D and if some developers abandon it, there seem to be others that are willing to to support it. It's been a great year for P3D and 2022 will be even better.