HotStart Challenger 650 First Impressions

[jcomm 5,889]

Superb post jon b, summarizing pretty much all most of us X-Plane users also feel...

I really look fwd into the next cycle of the platform, X-plane 12, and sincerely hope that it can bring, at last, the expected satisfaction I did not get from MFS, at least until present.

The CL 650 actually justifies to use X-Plane ( whatever version ) just as a base for it's use. It's an almost self-contained flight simulator.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Anatoli-Kagari9

[jon b 2,041]

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

I'll be happy to share this with Saso (skiselkov), who coded all the systems and physics.

Please do, and with my compliments on a superb product, he must have a brain the size of a planet to have managed all that.

I’ve not even flown it properly  yet apart from a quick circuit. I spent 3 hours yesterday after buying it just sat on the ramp in VR playing with things and looking at the study pages completely mesmerised by the detail of it all.  I already feel I’ve got my money’s worth and I’ve not even scratched the surface of the features available or left the ground in anger.
 

I find you can usually tell within the first minute if an add on is going to be any good by how well it recreates the ambiance of sat in a real living  flight deck , especially when using VR, and the CL650 had me chuckling to myself the instant steam VR deposited me in the left seat.

[jon b 2,041]

2 hours ago, Anatoli-Kagari9 said:

The CL 650 actually justifies to use X-Plane ( whatever version ) just as a base for it's use. It's an almost self-contained flight simulator.

Yes, I’d completely agree with that.

I spent my time yesterday just sat on the ramp pushing buttons and flipping switches and just generally playing like a big kid who’s been given the keys to a multimillion dollar biz jet to play with.

It’s always fun first time with a hyper realistic simulation like this to play the game of being in an apocalyptic event and stumbling  across an abandoned aircraft I have no knowledge of, would I be able to fire it up and take off to safety ?

Well I managed a brief circuit but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

[Malaromane 421]

11 minutes ago, jon b said:

I’ve not even flown it properly  yet apart from a quick circuit. I spent 3 hours yesterday after buying it just sat on the ramp in VR playing with things and looking at the study pages completely mesmerised by the detail of it all.  I already feel I’ve got my money’s worth and I’ve not even scratched the surface of the features available or left the ground in anger.

Reading this makes me feel much better about the fact that I bought this aircraft a few days ago and I still haven't even reached the point where I've started it up yet. Just so much to learn and understand. At my rate of progress and level of knowledge, I figure I might get this baby off the ground in about 2 weeks. 😛

[tull 290]

Great post Jon b, really good, you got me fired up with this plane, it truely is amazing. I’ve been flight simming for 23 years (I’m 55 nearly)…never seen, felt anything like this, very very immersive indeed, it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting and waiting for in a desktop simulation…it’s fantastic for sure! 😁

Regards

Paul

EGCC

[jon b 2,041]

16 minutes ago, Malaromane said:

bought this aircraft a few days ago and I still haven't even reached the point where I've started it up yet. Just so much to learn and understand

Which is exactly how it would be with a real aircraft type rating 👍, it’s the sign of a quality add on 🙂

 I feel slightly guilty getting airborne even briefly without first studying and knowing what I was doing.

 

[JLuis 409]

@Jon B

I was very happy to read your post and you said something important we need to support developers who spend years studying to create such a machine. I haven't bought it yet, but it's already on the list. After the release of MSFS I completely changed my way of acquiring addons. I invest a lot of dollars in the P3D and XPlane 10 and 11 platforms and I don't even use 10% of the aircraft in my hangar.

Learn to be more selective and only buy high quality addon and try to enjoy them more before buying another one.

Congratulations for the post and congratulations to the HotStart team that must be NASA or Roscosmos employees. 🙂

[EvidencePlz 276]

6 hours ago, JLuis said:

congratulations to the HotStart team that must be NASA or Roscosmos employees

NASA is not complex enough for Hotstart 😄

[jcomm 5,889]

I'm so teased by all of your reports, plus my daily update of satisfaction / realization / absolute hapiness by Alec that I am about to pull the trigger 😕

I was on hold for the release of my only hope for a decent / deep general purpose civil flight simulator ( read X-Plane 12 ) after having decided to completely and irrecoverably erase that MFS arcade from my disk / simmer life, but I think I can't hold for much longer 🙂

Edited January 15, 2022 by jcomm

[beep747 93]

I can only confirm my ultimate satisfaction and admiration for this product. The youtube videos helped me realizing my first flights. Never had so much enjoyment. I only have one wish: an option to add random failures (or bird strikes). That would really keep me on my toes.

Jos

[pots 10]

On the moment most intesting seems to be system simulation with Study menu,

I have used different simulations, like Aerowinx PSX or LES Saab 340 or Felis Tu-154M  but there has always been sublte feeling of missing something. X-Plane or PSX  is supposed to be flight simulator, so it simulates flight deck effects sensible to pilot. But what is going inside between different subsystems or ARINC 429 databuses is not shown. Challenger seems to be a little different,

Maybe I have always dreamed of aircraft system simulator instead of flight simulator? Like some kind of  enhanced flight engineer panel simulation or development iron bird of aircraft manufacturer. And when it flies then it is additional bonus. 

Trying to resist a few hours more but after then...

[jon b 2,041]

I spent a couple more hours with this jet yesterday and I have to say it just keeps getting better.

I sat on the ramp in VR and had 5 study windows open resized and plastered around the flight deck so I could see them all and how things interacted as I played with the various systems, quite a unique experience.

Having started both engines I couldn't resist a quick flight, even though I'd promised myself to learn the aircraft and get semi competent  in its systems before taking to the air.

I flew out of EGCN Doncaster ( nice new scenery from boundless released this week) and flew VFR along the Humber over the North sea for some general handling evaluation at 10,000ft (FL100). I had to fly with visual navigation as I've yet to study the avionics suite 🤔

I did a few steep turns followed by an overspeed leading a couple of stalls , there's a very nice smooth rendition of the stick shaker and ultimately  the stick pusher, the best I've seen in any sim aircraft.

On one of the stalls I turned off the stick pusher in an attempt to explore a deep stall, it was during the steep nose down recovery my attention was drawn to the HUD.

I believe the HUD used in the CL650 is a Rockwell Collins unit which is from the same stable  as the one I use on the 787 so I'm familiar with it's real world operation.

The HUD presentation is very similar to that used on the 787 but not identical, however the key components of the flight path vector, flight director cue, flight path acceleration symbol and speed error tape are all present and identical to the 787's display, so I was able to evaluate their behaviour objectively.

There are as you know inherent  limitations on how a HUD looks in a flight sim compared to real life due to the way the eye and brain work to process the image and even the full motion sims have the same limitations, but notwithstanding that this is a truly excellent rendition of a civilian HUD.

The scale and behaviour are really spot on, importantly the FPV and guidance cue are silky smooth in their operation. There are a couple of tricks used with the real HUD which I explored with the CL650.

In a 30 degree turn putting the slanted part of the  upper most wing of the FPV symbol onto the horizon line so that the horizon cuts through the root of the upper wing where it joins the circle and the wing itself lies parallel on top of the horizon line will give you a perfect 30 degree turn with perfect level flight, sorry a bit hard to put in to words without a picture, but this worked out perfectly with the CL650.

The speed error tape is the little tape that extends either above or below the left wing of the FPV symbol and shows your current speed error relative to your selected speed. If the line is above the wing you have excess speed and if the line extends below the FPV wing you are slow, the tape shows up to +/- 15kts error. Now, here's the trick, if the HUD symbology scale is correct 5kts excess speed error the top of the error tape should be just level with the top of the circle on the FPV symbol ... and indeed it was !

Small things but it points to the superb accuracy of this simulation`s HUD.  The use of a HUD is an acquired  skill like any other, such as a PFD instrument scan and requires practice and exposure and it takes a while for civilian pilots to get used to its use. Prior to training on the 787 I extensively used the QW 787 in P3D in VR to familiarise myself with HUD operations but sadly in comparison the HUD on that product is nowhere near the level of the CL650, and the above tests could not be replicated with the QW 787 HUD ( I still really like the QW 787 though)

Going back, I mentioned my attention being drawn to the HUD during a steep nose down stall recovery , as it was while I was heading headfirst towards the cold North sea I noticed the HUD had correctly and accurately  transitioned to the unusual attitude symbology as used on the 787 HUD.

I then had a play around with some jet upset unusual attitudes , one thing I didn't see were the zenith and nadir symbols at plus and minus 90 degrees pitch respectively, these are present on the 787 HUD but I don't know if they should be there or not on the CL650 ?

This is going to a great little training aircraft for me to fly around in IMC and do raw data approaches through the HUD in VR and generally increase my exposure to flying through the HUD and that component alone for me personally more than covers the cost of entry.    

Recovering back into Doncaster for a visual approach, looking  through the HUD flying over the green fields of Orbx true earth was not just similar to real life it was almost identical. 

[dbw1 444]

Jon b,

Thanks for sharing your observations on this machine. Really appreciated. it will probably be my next purchase. Just waiting for the first patch to come along to correct anything missed by the beta testers. Cheers.

Dave

[jon b 2,041]

Dave,

I know we are both fans of traditional needles and dial flight decks and this aircraft is probably anything but.

However it seems to be quite a unique product in the world of simulation, I've never seen anything which quite captures the feel of being a real living aircraft quite the way this does.

I'm certain as a real pilot you'd really enjoy and appreciate  this add on if you bought it.  

[tull 290]

I’ll tell you what …..the bloody detail you go into Jon is just bloody fantastic, just amazing and obviously you know your stuff! It is reassuring to hear from a real world pilot….brilliant!

Im just up the m18 from Doncaster😁👍 in York

regards 

Paul