B727 FSS B727-200F Pre release review

[GCBraun]

I haven't seen the flight engineer's panel in any of those videos. Is it not functional, or is there some sort of automated FE?

[Lord Farringdon]

Not sure if there is an automated function for the FE but the panel is certainly functional. V1 spends some time on it while British Avgeek just glossed over it.  Not sure what depth it goes to but it seems to cover fuel, electrical, generator sync, pressurization and bleed air functions and of course APU, all fairly realistically. 

 

Cheers

Terry

 

[pmplayer]

Can't wait to have this plane into MSFS, it's a long missing Airplane now and i am glad some Dev's are doeing ( hopefully ) a good one..

cheers 😉

[cannow]

Will there be a full panel save and restore system to match PMDG and Leonardo an absolute must for a modern flight sim plane. 

[Peter Z KCLE_EDDN]

8 hours ago, GCBraun said:

I haven't seen the flight engineer's panel in any of those videos. Is it not functional, or is there some sort of automated FE?

In this video, the creator V1 goes over the FE panel extensively. There is indeed an automated FE function included in form of a nifty virtual iPhone. 

Cheers,

Pete

 

[blueshark747]

Day One purchase for me!

[sloppysmusic]

7 hours ago, Peter Z KCLE_EDDN said:

nifty virtual iPhone

So THAT'S what that abomination was doing in front of pilots view in a video I couldn't watch. Presume you can throw it out the window as soon as you've set auto? Or best of all not even see the thing at all and set the options elsewhere? Will somebody please think of the child... The immersion! 

[cowpatz]

40 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said:

So THAT'S what that abomination was doing in front of pilots view in a video I couldn't watch. Presume you can throw it out the window as soon as you've set auto? Or best of all not even see the thing at all and set the options elsewhere? Will somebody please think of the child... The immersion! 

There will be plenty of immersion for you flying a 3 crew member aircraft single pilot. I haven’t seen a great deal of info on it but the phone is used to conduct the various checklist procedures automatically, as if the other crew members were present. I’m not sure if these actions can be confined to just the FE or not. Certainly a big help as it would be very busy otherwise. 

[sloppysmusic]

10 hours ago, cowpatz said:

There will be plenty of immersion for you flying a 3 crew member aircraft single pilot. I haven’t seen a great deal of info on it but the phone is used to conduct the various checklist procedures automatically, as if the other crew members were present. I’m not sure if these actions can be confined to just the FE or not. Certainly a big help as it would be very busy otherwise. 

I'll be blunt. I don't want ANY consumer electronics from modern times in a plane that had its heyday in the 60s and 70s. A2A had /have a great plane in the Lockheed Constellation that I've own and 'flown' in fsx. Full control of engineer workstation /engine management that can be full manual or auto just by pressing shift - 3 I think and a period notepad comes up /simple interface where you can toggle what the engineer does. Engines /cabin pressure etc. 

Yes to the options. 

No (hard pass) to this tablet /smartphone wna in this CLASSIC plane. 

[Lord Farringdon]

 

I watched V1's Bogota video initially but didn't realise that was his second video and that the video posted by @Peter Z KCLE_EDDN above, where he flies the B727 into San Juan, was in fact V1's first review video. It's a better video since V1's Bogota one seemed to be a bit of play on overloaded B727's whereas the San Juan one is more serious and detailed. Except to to say the sounds are amazing and realistic, I won't repeat my comments on the Bogota video, but just describe the highlights for me of V1's San Juan: 

The Crew Management Tool

A bit of dive into this and it seems a very simple tool which helps to automate the other crews tasks, thus relieving the pilot from that extra workload in an already high workload cockpit. The tool allows the pilot to manually conduct any or all of the other crew members tasks, if he wishes. If he conducts the task manually and forgets something, a click on the tool will ensure the flight engineer picks up the pieces.  There are a few gotcha's in the FE's panel so this is helpful. 

Flight Deck

The flight deck is well modelled with opening windows, and realistic sounds including the reassuring whirring of the trim wheel. The instrument and panel textures are sharp and well done. 

The flight engineers panel seems to be mostly all operative including fuel dumping I think.

 Wheel Well and Aft Air Stair

Compared to the PMDG B737, FSS have struck the ball out of the park with this one. While being cautious not to cause a frame rate mess, they have done a simple but effective rendition of the wheel wells including APU in the left well with the exhaust passing through to the right well and exiting the top of the right wing root. They have also done a remarkable job of detailing the aft air stair interior which I am very familiar with and give them top marks for attempting this since many would have said nothing if it was just skirted off. 

VOR/INS/AP/AT

V1 stressed there is no connection between the INS and flight director but showed how to use radio navigation at departure and arrival while using INS in between. The process is easy enough when known but I imagine for those unfamiliar with old school flight will find it a bit challenging to learn the relationships and what you should be looking for at each stage of the flight. Sense checking the difference between the two systems as well as mentally performing decent profile calculations seemed to be another aspect of maintaining situation awareness in a cockpit that otherwise doesn't do this for you. ( Note profile calcs are contained in the tagged clip board, but determining TOD on any given flight might require some mental arithmetic.)  

There is a functioning Auto Throttle but V1 stressed this is only reliable in cruise. The Auto Pilot is rudimentary but works fine (except as noted below). 

Reversing Capability

Reversing out of gates I understand was not an uncommon practice in both the B727 and DC-9. While the Bogota video couldn't recreate this  (they were too heavy) the San Juan video showed a nice representation of this. In my personal experience we needed to back our B727 out of a couple of tight spots in military operations where tugs, B727 towbars etc were simply not available on the day of departure.  Noting that you can reverse most any airliner today it was still good to see this capability wasn't omitted.  

Flying the Airplane 

Putting all the NAV systems, AP and AT together along with nav radio selections, ATC, conducting other crew member tasks, navigation sense checking and maintaining situational awareness is where all the challenge arises but V1 pointed out the aircraft flies and handles very well and that there is a great deal of satisfaction in both actually flying the plane manually and getting it from one place to the other using radio nav. It's not a boring day in the 'Bus'. I thought that was a good recommendation as to the challenge of the B727 and the accuracy of the flight model. 

Bugs

There appeared to be an issue with the aircraft on AP, fairly frequently rolling left and right as it tried to pick the heading.

Overhead panel flood lighting didn't seem to work and there were some other minor lighting issues.

V1 mentioned early in the video that a number of bugs had already been picked up and were being worked through by FSS with reviewers already receiving some updates so that the final release should be cleaner that the review model. I think there was an update given to the reviewers before V1 made the Bogota video because the AP issues didn't seem to show up in that.   
 

Other impressions

V1 was really enthusiastic about the B727. He says the real aircraft is one of his favourites and while perhaps the FSS B727 aircraft wasn't at the same level as those with failures and CB's modelled, it was very very good and a lot of fun to fly. He likes the MD-11F but said he would probably fly the B727 most of the time, because he likes it and noted just a bit more finessing in the cockpit look and a 'cosier' feel.  

Interestingly,  Robert Randanzo turned up on the chat too which was almost a kind of endorsement, don't you think? 

I still wonder if the baggage doors were modelled since I didn't see them open in the Bogota video or this  San Juan one. But V1 did mention he had some licensing issue so that GSX wasn't up. So, that may be the reason. 

The real B727 has a lot of audible warnings for things such as overspeeds, throttle position and a bunch of other stuff, but none of these show up on any kind of EICAS so you just have to know what each horn and bell means. I did hear the fire test bells and the gear up horn but would like to have heard some of the others including the GPWS so not sure what depth these sounds go to here given that failures aren't modelled.

Finally, V1 was blown away by the number of donations he was getting while doing this stream. There was definitely a feel in the air ( hu-hum), that this aircraft is going to be special not just because it is a well overdue classic and iconic aircraft, but also because it appears by all accounts to be much better than perhaps it was expected to be. Well, we won't know that for sure until we get our hands on it but with 2500 hours on type, I am impressed and personally struggling to be too critical of what I have seen so far. She looks like a keeper!      

 

Cheers

Terry 

    

 

 

 

Edited August 4 by Lord Farringdon

[bennyboy75]

I enjoyed the stream but I would say that whenever you see any RW pilots flying old iron like this, you can see that the workload is at times off the scale and beyond the scope of even fairly hardcore simmers. Even these guys (I know avgeek is I think a PPL etc  but he’s knowledgeable) were at the limits of their capacity a lot of the time.

It’s probably one to enjoy someone else watching fly for me as I simply don’t have the time and patience for it, but it’s nice to have these old birds in the sim. 

[longhaul747]

Anyone know how many actual models will come in this package?

I have seen some previews that showed a model with winglet's and some others without.  Also one of the previews showed a model with hush kits and another without them.   

[james42]

This guy goes into more detail about how the doors work and the content in the  "EFB" . There also seems to be some kind of managed decent system included within the EFB, almost like a VNAV function for those who want to use it.

 

 

I have to say judging by the previews, this has to be my most anticipated release this year. I've been checking their website frequently since it was announced and I'm super excited to give it a try next week. The inclusion of the virtual crew manager is a standout feature for me. I understand most will probably want to manage the aircraft themselves, but for me I find it more realistic to have that feature turned on because no 727 has ever been flown single pilot. One thing I'm hoping for is the inclusion of some kind of weather radar. Even one of the old storm scope style systems.

[bobcat999]

It must have a good autopilot.  Unless I am mistaken, I can't see any crew on the flightdeck in that video thumbnail.  

I must say, from the videos I have seen, I am liking the shape (seems spot on), the graphics, and the sounds (superb).
And they can do louder external noise when the windows are open, when some of the more established 'big boys' can't it seems.

[Peter Z KCLE_EDDN]

Did I hear this right, only $42? I didn’t know the price was already set.