I have been tempted to buy the DC Designs Concorde as it is on Black Friday sale at £20.99 and it looks like a nice aircraft.

 

But following further research, FS labs have announced that they will too be brining out a version of Concorde. I have seen that FS lab have a reputation for slow development, but what are the thoughts on their product?

Would you recommend that I jump in and buy the DC Designs version or hang fire to see if the FS labs version is better?

The DCD Concorde is a scaled-back version of the real aircraft. The developers have been quite open about that. GPS instead of INS for navigation, very simplified system for controlling CoG and a flight model that isn’t as accurate as the FS Labs 32-bit version from 10 years ago for FSX.

But for a low price it’s certainly a bargain. The FSL Concorde will be highly accurate but is only being released for P3D v5. A MSFS version is on the cards but will not be available for some time, possibly years.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The DCD Concorde is a scaled-back version of the real aircraft. The developers have been quite open about that. GPS instead on INS for navigation, very simplified system for controlling CG and a flight model that isn’t as accurate as the FS Labs 32-bit version from 10 years ago for FSX.

But for a low price it’s certainly a bargain. The FSL Concorde will be highly accurate but is only being released for P3D v5. A MSFS version is on the cards but will not be available for some time, possibly years.

Yes Ray, I know what yiou mean... I often miss P3D installed on my rig, with Active Sky and the FSLabs 319 and 320....

I never bought the Concorde though....

3 minutes ago, jcomm said:

I never bought the Concorde though....

Everything you’ve learned about flying Boeings and Airbuses won’t help much with Concorde apart from blue side up, brown side down. 😉 It has a unique flying profile. Max thrust + reheats for every takeoff irrespective of weight or runway length.

Then you have an autopilot with an INS option plus MAX CLB / MAX CRS. You need to be a couple of steps ahead or she will get away from you very quickly.

Why not keep P3D for Concorde and MSFS for your other flights? The ocean at 11 miles up at 23 miles a minute won’t look any different in either sim.

FSLabs already mentioned that they are hard at work on a fully featured MSFS Concorde. Due to current market conditions, I still believe that it may launch not that long after the P3D version.

Considering that it is almost certain that there won't be an upgrade path from P3D to MSFS, for me it does not make sense to waste 150-200USD on the P3D version and/or maintaining an outdated sim just for one aircraft.

With so many aircraft and quality of life updates being released for MSFS, I will gladly wait for the most future-proof version of Concorde.

23 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

FSLabs already mentioned that they are hard at work on a fully featured MSFS Concorde.

I’ve seen no such statement. The last post from Lefteris was in May when he said “We also expect to release the Concorde on Prepar3D first and again, we're working to release it to the MSFS platform. We will be excited to share more previews of this title as it enters beta testing in the next six to eight weeks!”

Take what you want from that but beta testing never started in 6-8 weeks. No screenshots have yet to be released although Andrew said this on 16 November… “We are working towards sharing some previews of our new Concorde title next month (December) - with an aim to release Q1 2023 for P3D v5.”

That statement from Lefteris was six months ago. I’ll leave others to decide when a MSFS version might become available.

The other thing to consider when flying Concorde in any sim is the importance of upper air temperature. That is extremely important when departing airports in hot countries. A Round-The-World Tour in 1999 had to depart Mumbai, India far earlier than the passengers would have liked simply because the temperature would be too hot at the planned departure time.

It was a longish flight from Mumbai, around the south of Sri Lanka and landing in Nairobi, Kenya.

What's the point of all this I hear you ask? The ability to load weather for the correct departure time rather than using fixed live weather. For accurate flight planning Concorde is more critical than subsonic aircraft because its climb profile is dependent on upper air temps.

For the DCD Concorde this isn't probably a big factor but it certainly will be for a FSL Concorde.

I have yet to check the accuracy of the temperature profiles with live weather in MFS. At least I was able to see some plausible temperatures and tropopause altitudes when I did a test today (surely better than what we presently have in xp12). But I don't know about the many aspects regarding aerodynamics of delta wings, turbine modelling, and so on... Details that experienced developers were able to fine tune on the static but stable fdm of fsx/p3d...

Edited November 25, 20223 yr by jcomm

56 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

A Round-The-World Tour in 1999 had to depart Mumbai, India

I think that was actually Chennai (formerly Madras)?

I had concorde FSLABS for FSX but didn't fly one time with that...

Not time enough to investigate..

But this one is very easy to use and it is a good way to start and for wait for the FSLABS !

I'm very happy to have bought its ans did my first transatlantic flight in a simu, with MSFS ! 

 

1 hour ago, DAH4062 said:

I think that was actually Chennai (formerly Madras)?

You're correct. I was relying on my less than perfect memory.

One person in a virtual Hairbus / Boeing cockpit can be busy - hats off to anyone who can operate a fully modelled Concorde on their Jack Jones. 

12 minutes ago, gb09f said:

One person in a virtual Hairbus / Boeing cockpit can be busy - hats off to anyone who can operate a fully modelled Concorde on their Jack Jones. 

Did I mention I also do the Flight Engineer's job of moving fuel around the 13 tanks? 😁 It took several years before I dared but it's immensely satisfying when you master it.

Kudos to FSL for modelling it too. Very complex coding so you can understand why it takes a long time to produce this aircraft. Most of the 32-bit code had to be dumped in any case so no wonder it has taken so long.

I have my hand full flying the FBWA320 alone

No way I want to try a three man cockpit aircraft that has such special systems. I suppose I could not transfer much knwoledge to it.

 

 

9 minutes ago, darshonaut said:

I have my hand full flying the FBWA320 alone

No way I want to try a three man cockpit aircraft that has such special systems. I suppose I could not transfer much knwoledge to it.

Concorde continues to climb until it's time to slow down and go down. It rarely reaches its ceiling of FL600 because air temps are rarely low enough. The descent starts shallow and as power is reduced the descent rate increases to as much as 7000-8000fpm. Perfectly normal.

Waypoints are hundreds of miles apart because the routing is pretty much a straight line whilst at Mach 2.

The trickiest bit is determining your decel point to ensure you are subsonic no closer than 55nm from populated areas. That needs mental arithmetic. I told you it's a different beast to Airbus and Boeing.