All working great here, no CTDs, great performance, all seems high-quality and solid. I hope you can all enjoy!

Got it to finally load. Tip: load the default version first not the repaint.

Somewhere over Africa...

Glorious aircraft. MSFS has finally matured!

So how did the first flight go?

Well, I had some problems getting the EFB to open up. As I don't know any other way to close the rear stairs, I thought I'd better reboot.

On a restart, no EFB problems at all.

One issue, though, was that the option in the Load Manager to control the panel state didn't seem to work. I wanted to fly her from "ready at the gate", but the DO NOT CHANGE option seems to persist.

Oh well, time for a cold and dark-ish startup. I haven't flown the Maddog in 6 months of so, but it was my favourite aircraft in another sim for the year or so before that (so probably a couple of hundred hours of flight time in her). Got all the switches in the right places and the engines spooled up, with a little bit of help from an online tutorial to refresh the memory.

Pushback and taxi to the active next. I have VoiceAttack setup to run the before takeoff checklists specific for the Maddog. One downer was that I can't see any way to bind keys to specific functions (for example, that noisy auxiliary hydraulic pump switch). In previous versions, you could set keybinds in the Load Manager. If I could do that, it was easy to get my VoiceAttack FO to do the appropriate PNF items on the checklist. in MSFS, looks like I have to do the lot.

Takeoff roll, 80 knots, V1, rotate. Keeping an eye on the engines to make sure I don't hurt them, though I did have failures turned off (if you don't know how to manage the Maddog engines, it was very, very easy to kill them in the P3D version with failures on).

Climbed out in my Alitalia plane, departing LIML in the north of Italy and heading to EDDF. I turned off the autopilot for a bit, and had a go hand flying. My impressions were favorable, very sensitive to rudder input but i note that Leonardo suggest this be set to 50%. Pitch and roll felt good as I climbed towards to alps.

Popped into the control settings menu to change an item or two. Came back to see that my Maddog had decided to flame out both engines. Oh. 

Started looking for a place to set her down, whilst getting the APU back online and trying to remember the procedure for an engine restart in realtime in VR. A bit of a challenge.

Ended up pretty low with a ridgeline right in front of me, but had enough kinetic energy to make it over the crest. Right ahead, a pretty good runway in the circumstances - Lake Como.

So now as I sit here typing this, I can hear the sploshing noises of water playing in the background. Plane is still afloat, I'm just sitting in her admiring the view.

I mean, if you're going to ditch, their are much uglier spots than Italy's Lake Como.

Review of the first flight: Not great, not terrible.

Air crash investigation - root cause analysis: seems to have been an issue with the engine code not liking a mid-flight exit to the menu. Possible that it was pilot error, but everything was going nicely before the menu excursion, so I'm 90% sure it's something to do with that.

We'll see how the second flight goes!

Edited April 30, 20224 yr by OzWhitey

1 minute ago, GCBraun said:

Somewhere over Africa...

Glorious aircraft. MSFS has finally matured!

For you tube people haha!  There's some quality GA offerings already.  Will you be getting the 737 or Fenix Airbus?

just to put to rest the thing about texture. They looks pretty darn good to me.

Yes there is a few 2d screw texture so what ?

Looks amazing externally as well

Edited April 30, 20224 yr by fogboundturtle

How can I click & hold the start switch?

15 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

For you tube people haha!  There's some quality GA offerings already.  Will you be getting the 737 or Fenix Airbus?

I fly them all! Spent the last weeks setting my Boeing 247D on fire! 😀

The 737 will be free for me, so definitely! Looking forward to the Fenix and the C310 as well.

Edited April 30, 20224 yr by GCBraun

5 minutes ago, neucoas said:

How can I click & hold the start switch?

Mouse wheel roll down

7 minutes ago, neucoas said:

How can I click & hold the start switch?

Use the mouse wheel.

How do you select altitude in 100's of feet??

6 minutes ago, V1ROTA7E said:

How do you select altitude in 100's of feet??

1) If you DON'T use the right mouse button to pan around: Hold right mouse button, then mouse wheel
2) If you do use the right mouse button to pan around: hold TAB on your keyboard, then mose hweel

The noise that the pressurization makes (this thing) on the md80 is driving me crazy. Is there a way to mute it?

21 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

1) If you DON'T use the right mouse button to pan around: Hold right mouse button, then mouse wheel
2) If you do use the right mouse button to pan around: hold TAB on your keyboard, then mose hweel

Thank you!

Did the old KDFW-KIAH route.  Nice wings.

Sounds are tad bland; hopefully someone will give the old gal some love in that dept.