This is primarily for @bernd1151 re your request as to the state of the 747 VC.

Here's a bunch of shots, and as I was in there I took a look round the rest of the aircraft as well. This is the "old" XP11 aircraft, not the new 747-200 I just got. I waved the mouse across the panels, a lot of things look like they work but a lot don't. I, of course, wouldn't know!

Looks like the basic model must have been United, and the PanAm skin hasn't touched the interior.

Nice shots Andy.  I could teach you cockpit avionics.

18 minutes ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Nice shots Andy.  I could teach you cockpit avionics.

Cheers Jack, and thanks for the offer but (and I know folks may think I'm just trying to be weird or something) I really don't have any serious interest in any of that stuff. I genuinely can't imagine just being in the cockpit all the way from start to finish on any flight. I'm not being dismissive of all you folks who know what it all does and love to fly by the book, read charts, plan flights etc - if that's your thing this must be a wonderful environment these days to do it in. But it's not for me. I wouldn't want to do it for real and I don't want to do it in the sim.

I'm an aviation fan, for sure. I love having loads of aircraft available to me in the sim (and I have a big library of aviation books here) but I'm more interested in just seeing them flying around, or maybe in an airport or whatever environment. As long as I can get off the ground ok, stay in the air and fly around a bit, and sometimes even land the thing (I say sometimes because most of my flights just stop once I've seen enough of wherever I'm flying) I'm a happy bunny. Most of my flights are actually done in external camera view. If somewhere looks really interesting I might make myself do a whole flight from the cockpit while I record it. And it's the playback I actually enjoy as that's when I can pause endlessly and move around taking pictures and exploring the world outside.

So I do genuinely appreciate the offer, but all I really need to be able to do is the sim equivalent of run around the playground with my arms out making vroom noises. And I'm finally getting close to mastering that <grin>!

Great cockpit images Andy.

I am practically the same as you in my "flying"  and this is what I like about the sim. You can do whatever suits you the best and like you I have great admiration for those that can fly a jetliner by the book.

Nice shots! 🙂 

On 7/17/2023 at 10:17 AM, VH-KDK said:

Great cockpit images Andy.

I am practically the same as you in my "flying"  and this is what I like about the sim. You can do whatever suits you the best and like you I have great admiration for those that can fly a jetliner by the book.

Cheers Martyn. "so many buttons, so little inclination" sums it up for me - reminds me too much of trying to figure out what was going on inside an IBM mainframe.

On 7/17/2023 at 7:24 PM, Alaska738 said:

Nice shots! 🙂 

Cheers Will. I dread to think how much of my life was spent cramped up in a seat somewhere in the last couple of rows in cattle class, back in the days when I smoked and you could still do that on a plane. Ah, the horror, the horror!

Great shots, thank you so much Andy!! I can see from your pics, that the UA plane has 1. class both upstairs and in the nose of the plane. That was the same in their 747SP, which has carried me so often across the Pacific in great comfort . Man, I love that plane 🙂