TFDi Design granted access to the MD-11...

[JBDB-MD80 1,478]

16 minutes ago, ttbq1 said:

 

It is a complete different market. 

I completely understand that this market is more feasible to all markets in the Game/Sim world but let it get close to somewhat reality like the competitors offer. That's all.

I want to hear more opinions on the MD-11 and not "talking pieces" on Youtube looking surely for more clicks.

Edited November 12, 2023 by JBDB-MD80

[blueshark747 1,845]

12 minutes ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

Well I have not a counter response to this so I give up. Very good points though.

Unfortunately times are changing, the whole social media/content click/consumerism/ bribed/ paid/ gifted/product review age is here.

My go to for a potential product purchases are still the forums, I still prefer the overly critical non staff bias moderated Avsimmer perceptions and reviews over anything else.

As for Youtube there are indeed some great tutorials there, but reading manuals just adds another level of learning satisfaction to flight simming.

Edited November 12, 2023 by blueshark747

[ttbq1 348]

34 minutes ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

I want to hear more opinions on the MD-11.

I have flown 2 short legs only. It has bugs, plenty of bugs. LBS/KGS confusion between EFB and MCDU is one of the most annoying. I haven't suffered from nosediving at approach as some others.. But I had an automatic full throttle with autothrotle off right after touchdown (Bug had been reported).

it has beautiful interiors and a lot of attention to details but still a long way to be a finished product.   

[Fiorentoni 4,271]

1 hour ago, F737MAX said:

I don’t like the trend of developers like FSS and TFDi offering this advance purchase model for products that are missing key elements.

While I agree with your judgement in general, there's no comparing TFDi and FSS. The FSS E-Jets were (and mostly still "are") using MSFS default systems all over the place. There was nothing custom in regards to the autoflight or navigation or FMS. The MD11 on the other hand is apparently still very rough, but it has all custom systems. I'd rather early-access buy something that has the custom systems in place and "only" needs a huge amount of polishing than something that has to start from zero systems-wise. Especially considering that TFDi have previous experiences in that while FSS has none.

From what I've seen in the video the MD11 is in a perfectly reasonable early access shape. To be honest I thought it was WAY worse after all those delays and their desperate "collector's edition" stuff. After the video I'm quite confident.

[Max Kraus 341]

I look forward to the finished product down the line.

I loved flying the MD-11 on FSX, it just was so much fun, a great balance between old and new. 

[Nuno Pinto 1,406]

Does anyone have any idea for how long will this "early access" thing be running?

I'm a little bit confused still about the early access vs collector's edition, the only difference is the -ER version correct?

Thank you.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Nuno Pinto

[Purr 125]

Hi Nuno,

I believe it's a 60 day period that just started a few days back until you can get access / purchase for yourself.

[longhaul747 71]

After an Unsuccessful takeoff attempt a few days ago I tried again last night.  This time the plane blasted down the runway somewhat normally and rotated normally.  Still getting a random "Elevator" warning but it did not seem to affect my takeoff roll unlike a few days ago.  As it stands right now the flight model is somewhat okay.  I am sure some room for improvement as it always is and you are dealing with limitations within the sim but it felt fairly genuine.  Keep in mind I am not a real pilot so what do I know what I am talking about?  Only from reading MD-11 lore on the internet and have spent year(s) reading books and performance manuals on all sorts of planes but other than that not much!

Climb out felt nice.  You can feel the power from the engines and it had a fairly heavy feel to the aircraft.  You definitely need your space with a big airplane like this.  It had a nice powerful yet heavy feeling yet at the same time its actually fairly nimble.  Obviously still a work in progress but its a fairly good start.  Its hard to explain but if you fly a smaller plane and jump into this you will definitely feel the difference. 

I continued and flew around in circuits for about a half hour.  On this flight I strictly hand flew it and did not attempt to engage the auto pilot.  I did raise the gear but kept it on Flaps 15 for the duration of the flight.  It hand flew pretty good in my opinion.  For this early test flight I did not attempt any questionable maneuvers but just making sure she flies as she should and for the most part so far its a solid YES!

I climbed to an altitude of 5,000 ft and from there started my approach about 12nm out.  It handled the approach fairly well and for what I it felt pretty much how I think (and have researched) how an MD-11 will behave.  It was pretty stable but at one point I got a little slow and it got pretty squirelly and got worse the slower it got.  Below about 145 knots it was shaking and I was quickly getting worse and loosing most of my control.  I simply just increased thrust and I gained speed up around 155 to 160 knots and all was well.  I have heard the MD-11 likes to land fast and I thought that was modeled into the TFDi MD-11 about as well as you can.  

Touchdown is where things went haywire.  I was pleased with my approach and was expecting a greaser but somehow it hit kind of hard.  Hard enough for a bounce and when it came down again it bounced even worse.  After the 2nd bounce the thrust levers fire walled themselves and was resisting my attempt to lower the thrust.  I believe I was able to reduce thrust but as soon as I let up on the levers they wanted to go forward again.  All of a sudden I started getting that "Elevator" verbal warning and the plane veered to the right and ended up in a retention pond next to the airport.  Nothing I could do could control the aircraft.  When I pulled it out of the pond only the center main gear was showing..LOL

Its definitely a work in progress.  Some of the bugs might be related to my basic setup but hopefully they will introduce options for people with setups like mine.  Just a keyboard and a CH Flightstick plus a mouse.  Not everybody has the resources or the space for yokes plus rudder pedals etc.

It will be interesting following the progress.  I am a little concerned that it needs a lot more work from what I can see.  I am not sure how much they can get done in 60 days but I guess that just depends.  Considering how long it takes to make a plane in MSFS (especially complex models) this plane won't really be fully complete until at least 12 months from now in my opinion.  Just going off of what we have already seen.  Maybe TFDi can pull a hat trick on this one?

 

 

[ttbq1 348]

54 minutes ago, longhaul747 said:

After an Unsuccessful takeoff attempt a few days ago I tried again last night.  This time the plane blasted down the runway somewhat normally and rotated normally.  Still getting a random "Elevator" warning but it did not seem to affect my takeoff roll unlike a few days ago....

I think this is really close to what I feel about the aircraft right now.

I think I would need to play a little bit with the elevator sensitivity (Honeycomb Alpha here), I wished some advice from the developers would have been given at release but don't have that.

also I got the same behavior at touchdown, I read somewhere in their discord chat that some kind of "automatic going around" thing was activated and they will look into it to polish it. So it seems it is actually something the MD11 have as a feature but it needs more work.

And yes, I also think 60 days is too short windows to implement so many things, but lets see.

[longhaul747 71]

7 minutes ago, ttbq1 said:

I think this is really close to what I feel about the aircraft right now.

I think I would need to play a little bit with the elevator sensitivity (Honeycomb Alpha here), I wished some advice from the developers would have been given at release but don't have that.

also I got the same behavior at touchdown, I read somewhere in their discord chat that some kind of "automatic going around" thing was activated and they will look into it to polish it. So it seems it is actually something the MD11 have as a feature but it needs more work.

And yes, I also think 60 days is too short windows to implement so many things, but lets see.

I am not aware of an actual automatic go around feature but I never flew the real thing obviously so maybe it does have one.  I do know on the MD-11 that its a real unstable machine on touchdown and that I have heard that if you bounce its an automatic go around.  I don't know all the details but it tends to destabilize and bounce worse and worse and this in certain conditions will allow it to cart wheel or fall apart.  I know a few have crashed because of this.  Its an even more challenging aircraft to land in windy, turbulent conditions and even worse in cross wind conditions.  Enough so that its not unheard of to call out the fire trucks during a cross wind landing as a precaution.  

I think they modeled the skittish nature well.  You can certainly notice it when you get slow on approach.  It lands fast and this is partly why its so unstable.  Also its sort of a compromised design.  I don't know exactly all the details but it basically used the old DC-10 wing instead of an all new wing.  With the longer fuselage and higher gross weights it ends up being a handful.       

[cseu 25]

4 hours ago, longhaul747 said:

I am not aware of an actual automatic go around feature but I never flew the real thing obviously so maybe it does have one.  I do know on the MD-11 that its a real unstable machine on touchdown and that I have heard that if you bounce its an automatic go around....      

Hi, MD11 has no automated GoAround feature after bouncing, only a system called SEAS / Strut Extension Annunciation System was installed - in short two lights at clearshield which indicates a strut decompession after initial compression, meaning bouncing the AC and attending the pilots to follow their bounced landing recovery procedure. Further there is a feature following a FCC windshear signal which sets the ATS into Clamp Mode after the throttles have reached their max rated thrust. Normaly ATS is initialized during taxiing with the Auto Flight button on FCU to Clamp mode and during TO roll to TO Clamp, further ATS will be engaged with pushing the PROF button inflight. That's all, having said that in my opinion the MD11 is the most complicated AC I know...

Did someone checked the panels in manual mode for the functions or in auto mode the fuel schedule for example?

Best regards

[Gilandred 706]

16 hours ago, Purr said:

Hi Nuno,

I believe it's a 60 day period that just started a few days back until you can get access / purchase for yourself.

I don’t think that’s accurate.  The collectors edition gave those folks at least 60 days advance access prior to general release.  The key words being “at least.”  In other words, it could still be 6 months away from release, depending on how many bugs are found and fixes needed (or when the money runs out).

[bobcat999 8,489]

About the landing speed.  It is quite high compared to the DC-10 (maybe 15 knots more) and it is known that you have to be right on the numbers for a good landing, so it seems they have simulated it accurately.  I was quite surprised by the incident rate for the MD-11 compared to the numbers built.  Not the easiest airliner to fly.

Edited November 13, 2023 by bobcat999

[Farlis 2,292]

Can't say I'm a fan of early access creeping into Flightsim. 

How about we finish our projects before selling incomplete Betas to customers?

You want Beta Testers? PAY THEM! Not the other way round.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Farlis

[Sunshine13 234]

bit confused, just bought the product, where is the download ? or am I missing something.