z06z33. AGREED!!!

I purchased the Captain Sim 717-200 to give people who are on the fence a fair assessment of the aircraft. 

INSTALLATION:

The install is straight forward and has an executable for the aircraft and an executable for the livery pack if you purchase it.  Installation is always easy with Captain Sim.

FIRST IMPRESSION.

Looks nice on the start up screen, we all know Captain Sim can model and texture an exterior so no surprises there.

Into the Cockpit

Where is the yoke?  I thought it had yokes modeled!  Oh.... okay I bet it's a hidden click spot.  Nope not there..  3 minutes later.  The click spot for the yoke to appear is the handle below the PFD.  They are modeled they are animated correctly, texturing is okay. First glance everything looks pretty decent, it does give the impression you are in a 717.  Textures aren't stellar everywhere but they look pretty good. Text is sharp and switches have nice modeling.  The windows both open and close fine and are animated nicely, that's cool. 

So now BATTERY ON, okay good APU on, APU AIR ON.   APU GEN ON.  Where are my Navigational displays?  PFDs and the two other displays came up but the NDs are not on.  

I notice on the Middle display that there is a list of ground items dealing with doors, ladder, engine cowlings etc.  It says R ALT+ click.  So you hit right side ALT key and click and pops out a window.  On that window you have to click in the center between the words to get anything to happen. I was clicking the word CLOSED and that did nothing so I though Captain Scam strikes again.  One theme through this review is odd locations of click zones. Once you open everything up this is what the airplane looks like. Pretty cool.

Once you open everything up this is what the airplane looks like. Pretty cool.

Now it's time to get rolling and get this thing off the ground. I was a TDFI 717 junkie it was maybe my favorite plane ever in FSX. I flew it so much that I knew how to start it from muscle memory.  So the test is, can I start this like the TFDi 717?  The answer is... kind of.  I realized pretty quickly that something was off.  So I looked at the In-game checklist and man was it useless, it left out about 15 steps.   I persevered and got it started.   BATTERY ON, okay good APU on, APU AIR ON.   APU GEN ON once the blue lights that say APU are showing in the bus map you are on APU power.  Now you can start the engines.  Turn the Left and Right AFT and FWD fuel pumps on.  Make sure Hydraulics are on. ISOL valve to open, pull the engine start switch for engine 2 it illuminates and the engine comes to life.  Now flip up the fuel cutoff on the pedestal below the throttle to ON and that engine will fully come to life.

 

Now here is the problem.  I could not figure out how to get the # 1 engine started.  On a whim I turned on the Bleed air for engine 2 and then pulled the start switch and it illuminated and engine # 1 came to life.  Fuel cutoff for engine one up to ON and we had both engines.  It more or less has the correct startup sequence.   but still no Navigation display. After fiddling with switches for 10 minutes I just hit ctrl+E and of course they turned right on.  There was no ill effect to hitting ctrl+E either, engines stayed running, nothing changed. 

 

So that is FATAL FLAW # 1:  The Navigation displays will not show up you can not review your flightplan sitting at the gate with external power or APU.  This must get fixed.  

So I started over so I could enter a flight plan manually into the FMC.  The flight plan from the flight plan window will be automatically entered, but of course you still need to check it for discontinuities. I entered everything manually because one thing I have noticed about these hack job stock Asobo component planes is that the FMC just doesn't work quite right. So after entering a flight plan I went to edit it, to make sure I could enter a new waypoint, and as expected it was wonky.  And of course it is the default A320 FMC so it gets kind of weird. 

Can you load the aircraft correctly?  The good surprising news is yes.  They actually did correct weights (for the most part).  The aircraft has an empty weight around 67000lbs and a MTOW of 110,000lbs.  The fuel amounts also seem to match real world.  So at least they did that. But of course, it's the A320 FMC. 

You can enter things like weight, V1, V2, VR, cruise altitude, cost index etc, but the realism ends there, and your quickly reminded this is a Frankenstein airplane. And this brings us to another fatal flaw.  In the real 717 you would get a calculated take off trim setting based on CG but the problem is there is no way to tell what take-off trim setting is let alone what it should be.  The plane is digital so on the real 717 on the CONFIGURATIONS page (which is not modeled in the CS717) you'd have a bar at the top that shows the range and the actual number for take off setting.  And there is no physical trim wheel like in the 737 it’s all done on the yoke with push buttons. So good luck on knowing your trim setting.  You can cheat and go to the outside view but even then that gives you a wide ballpark.  I find this annoying because it took me about 10 take-off attempts to figure out where to put it at 50% fuel. I find 3 seconds down works best.  Probably very inaccurate. 

So FATAL FLAW #2 is that there is no trim setting indication and its not calculated. You can ballpark it but the take-off handling at lift off is bad and jerky if you don’t get it right. The plane also suffers lack of control in cross winds above 10kts. There are a lot of planes that suffer from this in their earliest releases.  Hopefully this is fixed.

The windshield wipers are animated, the glass displays rain fine, I didn't see any flaws there. Weather radar works as it is basically the Asobo A320 Neo.  I'm still trying to figure out if TCAS works but I have come to the conclusion it does not. Nor do any of the display buttons for TRAFFIC, APRT, or DATA

The cockpit lighting looks good and it is very customizable

All exterior lights are modeled and look mostly correct.  There are a few exceptions.

 

The tail logo lights just chill in space 10 feet away from the aircraft fully visible as little white ors, they also cast a light on clouds and haze so you get these triangle shaped apparitions. Another flaw not pictured is that once you retract the gear the nose gear light shines like 1000 suns inside the cockpit, but that’s minor for a CS airplane.

AUTOPILOT

The auto pilot seems to work well but with a few quirks. The click zones are difficult to find especially if it is turbulent. It has most of the modes you expect, but… they aren’t realistic because of course this is an A320.  For instance, OPEN CLB and OPEN DES. You can also use VS or FPA but FPA just translates a degree to a vertical FPM.  I’m not going to go too much into this.

There are a few quirks.  If you use heading mode, you will have to dial the heading then push the button, if you change the heading nothing happens, you have to hit the button again for it to activate.

The auto pilot will follow the route in the FMC quite well.  I did not notice any hunting or blowing through the turns.  I was pleasantly surprised with the accuracy of the autopilot nav path.

I noticed that DIRECT TOs and HOLD do not seem to work correctly. I need to play with it more.  If you have a flight plan they will work you can DIRECT TO a waypoint in your flight plan.  As far as DIRECT to if your being vectored, I can’t get that to work. It wont show a T-P to the waypoint,  it will show the waypoint on the ND but won’t turn to it. 

The next PLEASANT SURPRISE is that the ILS capture is easy, works well and is very accurate. You program it just like you would in the A320 under RAD NAV and then enter the value.  You don’t have to do anything else except for change your display mode to APPR and hit the APPR/LAND button.  The glide slope works great adding flaps won’t throw it off course or anything weird, it will just adjust. However, it will not auto land correctly,  It will “Land” but it’s really rough.

PERFORMANCE and FLIGHT DYNAMICS

Climb out performance is pretty weak but the 717 is pretty weak in real life,  35,000 is about the effective ceiling of a 717 so I just flew up to 35,000 just to make sure it can do it. It manages about 500-800 FPM above 30,000 but according to flight aware that is pretty normal. So I’m going to give CS a pass on performance and flight characteristics.

 

The plane hand flies fine, you can tune the elevator trim and power to hold altitude, I didn’t notice any real problems on decent, or final approach.  I find flaps 30 is better than 40 but it depends on all the normal factors.  140 seems to be a safe approach speed. I did not notice anything to extreme.  There does seem to be a fine line between floating and smashing down but after about 10 approaches I got it to land smooth every time through a combination of trim and power management.

Turns seem fine, the aircraft doesn’t jitter or anything weird.  

One important note for ILS approaches, if you turn off the autopilot the Auto Thottle System is still activated.  Unlike the 737 there is no switch readily available in your view so you need to hit shift-R to toggle the ATS off. There is an annunciation on the PFD that shows a yellow box with AP off on the right side and ATS off on the left side.

There is no autobrake setting knob on the 717 because there are no autobrakes, it also automatically deploys the spoiler on touch down. There were variants that had the system but they are all gone now.  The thrust reversers work by holding down F2. The buckets are animated and well modeled.

Landing is problematic and it ties into fatal flaw 3.

FATAL FLAW #3  The aircraft can not land or take off in a “strong” cross wind 16-20kts+, there was not enough rudder authority programmed into the flight dynamics.  A stiff cross wind and you will be using the toe brakes to keep it on the runway let alone the centerline.  So windy approaches are a complete crapshoot. The plane becomes uncontrollable until you get that nose gear down and even then, you’ll be full rudder and a little toe brake to try to keep it on the runway. We all know that the crosswind and friction effects are bad in MSFS, but this really bad.  On a nice day with a gentle wind 10 kts. or under, no problems at all.

SOUND

It’s aliased to the Asobo A320NEO… Not much more to say.  We even get PTU bark after engine start.  An FTSIM+ sound pack would go a long way especially with the female robot voice MD used that is one of a kind.

LIGHTING

Lighting is very good in the cockpit, very customizable, all switches for lights do something and there are a lot of combinations of lights you can use. The only issue I saw was that the FMC buttons are not lit up.  Either that or I have not found the right button.  But I’m pretty sure the FMC has its own controls and that knob does noting but make the screen brighter or dimmer.

The exterior lighting is good, but not great.  All the lights are modeled and look pretty good except for 3.  The logo lights for the tail are just hanging out in space 10 feet away and they are visible and cast light so it looks like a weird box when you go through clouds.  The cabin lighting is non-existent or I have not figured it out. Not sure.  The 3^rd rouge light is the Nose landing gear light shines through with the light of 1billon joules into the cockpit.

CABIN MODELING

An attempt was made I think mainly so the cabin looks 3D from the outside and that's about it. The cabin lighting can not be controlled and does not work period, the cabin is always dark at night.

EXTERIOR SHOTS

Not sure why there are REGs on the wings.

N953AT is a real airplane that still flis, I can't see anything wrong with the external model.  My only complaint is that the high res textures look a little overdone in some areas.

Crikey! Bob's Yer Uncle.

FPS

FPS is excellent, on par with the Asobo A320, they actually could have messed it up, but luckily they did not.

VERDICT

It’s not my money, it’s yours.  This the 717 we will get for sometime to come. TFDi implied at FS EXPO 2023 that they were going to do the B717 but when will it be released, I would guess not within one year from now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 29, 20232 yr by aniiran

@aniiranThat was solid!

Greatly appreciate your review!🍻

14 hours ago, z06z33 said:

Wish they'd go back to building classics they actually did those very well I have many many hours flying the CS 707 and 727 on FS2004 and FSX

10 hours ago, Sunshine13 said:

z06z33. AGREED!!!

Not going to happen.
It's been strongly suggested that the good developers of core systems and flight models at CS have long since left.

  It's a bit like hoping QualityWings will reappear with the 787, or Majestic will make a Dash 8-100 -200 or -300, when both developers have (allegedly) lost important team members.

 

@aniiran Probably a go for me after reading your review. Thanks 

2 hours ago, F737MAX said:

Not going to happen.
It's been strongly suggested that the good developers of core systems and flight models at CS have long since left.

  It's a bit like hoping QualityWings will reappear with the 787, or Majestic will make a Dash 8-100 -200 or -300, when both developers have (allegedly) lost important team members.

 

I don't see much room for QW anymore.  The current modded 787 is already somewhat close to the qw level, and improving.  Majestic is not really doing themselves any favors with the way they engage with customers.  The Q400 is one of my favorite planes.  Just last month I asked if they could give us a brief update on their MSFS plans for the Q.  The response:

"We will provide the updates as needed when the time allows for it. Quite busy with development at the moment."

I mean I would think the developer could spare 20 minutes to give a brief update.  

No thanks I will just keep flying my "high fidelity" MD82 with proper systems and fly 717 routes. People want to buy this rubbish carry on. I am just glad no freeware project will mod it (this Airbus 717?) to make it somewhat decent and hope streamers stay away from streaming it. TFDI may bring in their 717 in MSFS (maybe) but that is years away. If people are serious about a 717 and systems boot up P3D.

Edited September 30, 20232 yr by JBDB-MD80

9 hours ago, micstatic said:

I don't see much room for QW anymore.  The current modded 787 is already somewhat close to the qw level, and improving.  Majestic is not really doing themselves any favors with the way they engage with customers.  The Q400 is one of my favorite planes.  Just last month I asked if they could give us a brief update on their MSFS plans for the Q.  The response:

"We will provide the updates as needed when the time allows for it. Quite busy with development at the moment."

I mean I would think the developer could spare 20 minutes to give a brief update.  

They are not obliged to provide you with an update. If they do not want to provide any information at this time, then that is their choice.

6 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

They are not obliged to provide you with an update. If they do not want to provide any information at this time, then that is their choice.

Never said they were. I was merely saying that strategy is not doing them any favors right now. I’m sure home flight sims are probably a smaller source of their revenue these days anyway. They seem to be busy with commercial type projects. 

4 hours ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

People want to buy this rubbish carry on.

Very generous of you to allow that from your lofty position.
Mere peasantry such as myself, who see a Boeing 717 in all but system depth will make do with your crumbs.

29 minutes ago, Reader said:

Very generous of you to allow that from your lofty position.
Mere peasantry such as myself, who see a Boeing 717 in all but system depth will make do with your crumbs.

Don't understand this comment English please?

Edited September 30, 20232 yr by JBDB-MD80

1 minute ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

Don't understand this comment English please?

Your second to last post was a little condescending, mine is a reply to it.
This post is much the same.

1 minute ago, Reader said:

Your second to last post was a little condescending, mine is a reply to it.
This post is much the same.

Thanks, ignored now go fly your Airbus 717.

Harsh as it sounds, I sometimes question people's enthusiasm about flight simming when you get excited and actually buy junk like this. At that point, there's no simulating anything, no well crafted addon so you can at least say it's for the love of the airframe, no supporting a passionate developer, you're actually supporting a sleazeball, you aren't learning anything about flight characteristics or systems because they are usually so completely off and 2/3 missing... You might as well hop into Google Earth's flight simulator, just to go up, down, left and right.

But hey, the business model seems to work, guess my priorities when flying a simulator are different.

It looks like my post is too OLD to edit. Today I had more time with it and need to amend and add some things.

1.  It does have TCAS, kind of.  There are little diamonds and they are either filled in white or blank and then they turn orange or red when they are close.  They do not show a direction or an altitude or whether they are climbing or descending.  And there is no TA/RA at all.

I believe white means below, black/outline only means above and orange means close.

2.  The gates/jetways do not line up with the door.  Did not notice this before but I tried a flight from DTW to CLT and the gate did not line up.  It's about 12 feet aft of where it should be.  I can not find the cfg that controls the doors so this one needs to be fixed by CS

3. During this same DTW CLT flight I found 2 more fatal flaws. The transponder does not work.  After I was handed off to Departure, they kept telling me to set my squawk code I set it hit IDENT. nothing happened. They canceled my IFR. pretty stupid.  This needs to be fixed asap.  For some reason it works fine on the ground but once your airborne it stops working. 

4. Fuel burn is incorrect.  For DTW to CLT Simbrief told me to take 5200kgs of block fuel. So I took 12000lbs of fuel.  I flamed out on final approach to CLT.  I set payload to 20000 for 110 passengers and 3000 lbs. baggage front and aft. So each 180 lb American is bringing 54 lbs. of word not allowed. MTOW was 108k out of 110k lbs.  I tried it again with a more gentle initial climb profile (around 1800 fpm after 10k feet) and was able to wrangle another 1500 lbs. of fuel.  I landed with 1000 lbs. and got to the gate with 750.  So the fuel burn is a little too high at 20000, at 15000 lbs. I made it with 2300 lbs.   Still seems a little low but usable. Won't really be a problem for Island hopping.  I just like to test out the fuel burn accuracy over a long flight.

5. I was able to successfully do a 30kt crosswind take off and landing using FULL rudder trim and was able to keep it on the centerline. Still seems glitchy. but the game is glitchy when it comes to crosswind landings.