Lord Farringdon

Try another download and install? I think others have suffered a bit too on their first installs with this aircraft. But clearly the aircraft can be downloaded and installed on many systems. Who knows why it didn't on yours but one possibility is that something got corrupted during your initial download. I expect support will tell you try to install it again anyway, so you may as well do that and if that doesn't work then at least you can add it to your 'things I've tried' list, when support eventually reaches out to you. Cheers Terry

I have the Turtle Beach Velocity One rudder pedals with alternative types. One is with the flat pedal with a heel rest at the bottom ( very similar to the MFG Crosswind B109 pedals) which I don't use, and the other resembles the combat style @Stearmandriver mentioned. Frankly I have no problems with these slamming them left or right as needed without toeing the brakes. They are well designed in that regard. Either the ball or arch of your foot naturally rests on the raised bottom portion of the pedal where it is below the toe brake pivot point. You actually have to slide your feet higher up the pedal to get toe brake application. But this thread is about the Charlie and my first thoughts are what on earth is all that decoration on the front of the pedals? The Alpha is similarly decorated (honeycomb design of course) but the Bravo has no such nonsense with the available real estate given over to functionality. Hardware such as pedals do a lot for our immersion in this hobby but elaborate designs on the front of these pedals seems excessive and takes that away a bit especially at night, I would have thought? Having said that, pedals, that is each individual pedal, have long had elaborate designs and motifs applied to them. I wonder if anyone has a collection of vintage and classic rudder pedals? It would be very rare. Cheers Terry

@Rocky_53 has the correct answer if you want to go to all that trouble but then what do you get? Just a fixed camera view, nothing else. If that's all you want then that is the way to do it. But if use the drone (as another replier said) even while sitting on the tarmac, then you can set the view and not only do you have a fixed view but you also have a dynamic view if you want rotate or swivel the camera to capture some scenery passing under the aircraft for example, or to setup that exquisite sunset shot, unlike a t truly fixed camera which is limited in this regard. I actually use an Xbox controller to control the camera and I think a few others do too. Cheers Terry

Ahhh.... On a summer visit to the UK some years ago my wife and I spent a few too many hours in the pub garden beside the canal in Bath supping Old Speckled Hen and watching the canal boats slip past. Never wanted to leave. But hunger and the night eventually set in and rather than a pub meal we wandered back to the B&B via the Fat Friar for a huge dose of fish and chips. I'm afraid the mix of Old Speckled Hen and the Fat Friars tucker was just a wee bit too much for my stomach that night. I may never visit the Fat Friar again, but it's never stopped me having the occasional Old Speckled Hen when we can get it in Auckland. Nice choice @fppilot. Cheers Terry

How is Honeycomb doing anyway? I thought he was having major issues with his creditors and/or capital investors and weren't expecting to see anymore Honeycomb products or even support for a broken Bravo? But hey, now there are Charlie's? Cheers Terry

As to the comments on the display gap I'm sure we are all just about over it. I wonder if the desire to see an 'aesthetic' ie is perfect alignment on both sides, is because PMDG delivered us an 'as new' aircraft and as such, we might expect the displays to be aligned. But, when the scans have been taken possibly from a well worked line aircraft then in reality they probably won't be aligned. In this case both arguments might be correct but need to be qualified with 'in a new or near new aircraft' vs 'in an older line aircraft'. So perhaps this statement might be better FWIW: "In a new aircraft which PMDG have delivered us, the displays should be aesthetically aligned as if the aircraft had just been delivered new from the factory but instead they show misalignment as if the aircraft has already had display rotations as might be expected in an older aircraft." Just be sure of one thing. If you now have the aircraft in your ownership, it is no longer new and you have dust on the CDU's and MFD. Additionally, it seems like someone fumbled their coffee in some unexpected CAT and a display had to be swapped out for a precautionary servicing. You can't have a new aircraft forever!! Since some guys who actually fly these things either haven't noticed or if they have couldn't attest to all their fleet being like that, it says that this query as to accuracy in the PMDG model it so far down the scale of things as to be entirely ignored rather than warrant so many pages of analysis. Edit: Special note to @Bobsk8 and @JRBarrett who are both avionics technicians and who have both stated that misalignment in service does happen. And, if we learned anything from this otherwise fairly useless discussion it was from JR Barrett's description of exactly how these units are located and how difficult they are to swap out for servicing. 👍 Cheers Terry

Guys. You do know that those two pictures are taken, one from a real camera and the other from a screen shot and that the screenie is a wider angle than that of the real aircraft shot? Therefore, things look bigger, larger, wider in the real shot than they will do in the screen shot. Come on, stop trying to find fault where there is none. I also notice a gap on one side of the EICAS which is on a different side in the other image. Unless an IRL T7 Pilot or engineer pipes up to the contrary @Bobsk8 and @threexgreen are correct. Alignment of avionics panels may be correct on a brand new aircraft but in service these rotable units get swapped out by the airline or service agent and when they do, manufacture, model differences or the technicians eye may not necessarily align as closely as the OEM on initial delivery. PMDG's model simply reflects laser imaging taken from a line airframe at one particular time. Cheers Terry

I haven't even bought the aircraft yet (waiting for the financials to look a bit healthier) but the moment I can, I will. I am certainly not put off by the naysayers on this thread that keep raining drama and disillusionment on this very complex but character filled aircraft. It's not perfect. No one is saying it is. But the issues are not show stopping either and some of the 'issues' on their Discord are user generated or even a function of the character of the real aircraft especially as to landing. TFDi are making the all important fixes (regarding pitching etc) but even then it won't be perfect. So what's the gripe? "Oh well, it's not worth $80USD in its present state and I want a refund". Well, it was never $80 dollars, it was $70. If you were as critical of your purchase decision as you are about your post purchase realisation, you would have seen the comments from CE purchasers, and you certainly wouldn't have spent the extra $10 on buying another derivative. BTW, I doubt PMDG's two derivatives will cost $73.00 plus $10 for the extra one so if you must have two aircraft, then they are only $40 each. Heck CS were selling their default B747 systems Herc for more than that!!! For those of us who only want one aircraft (the base package if you like) $70USD is not beyond the realms of reasonableness for this level of aircraft. Too expensive for some of us but that's for all the aircraft in this price range, not just the MD-11 and is about the affordability in general of MSFS addon products. But that's another subject. The MD-11 has a tragic but also interesting technical and development history, is quirky in its character and is not a Boeing or an Airbus, so demand for the product is higher than might otherwise be expected. It crashed the servers just like the PMDG B777 did. (177.32K Http requests in 30 mins). So, it's not all about which is the most polished model on release. Developers set their prices based on all sorts of things not the least of which would be how much the uniqueness of the MD-11 would be worth in today's MSFS market? I would guess it has successfully attracted a competitive premium. PMDG's B737 had a raft of issues that it launched with including a dodgy LNAV depiction and the whole aircraft flipping on its back when landing! The Maddog was also plagued with poor textures, a troublesome EFB and less than stellar post purchase support to name a few. Fenix also had problems. The BAE 146 seemed to have a cruisy release but then it didn't have the complexity of computer controlled systems that plague the others. The point is that all these aircraft are systems rich and the melding of these systems with MSFS has not been an easy road for some of these developers. But their attempts at simulating the model as closely as possible are reflected in this level of pricing and the customer has to take some informed risk as to how well they think that will be achieved. After all, that's exactly the risk the CE customers took, right? So expecting a perfect outcome on release and purchasing on that basis and then wanting a refund when it isn't 10/10 is naive at best. But there is still water to flow under the bridge. TFDi have acknowledged the issues, but they now need to fix them. I imagine TFDI's entry of a complex aircraft in MSFS would mean the MD-11 is a flagship product for them and I would be surprised if they didn't pull out all the stops to keep this product on track. Personally I am way more swayed by the number of users who despite the identified issues have said they love the aircraft even more than B777 and fly it more often. 👍 Cheers Terry

727 this month ? Who from? Cheers Terry

Good to hear you didnt ground her Captain. I sometimes wonder if at least some of the problems we are seeing with this bird are really just a very accurate simulation. From a real MD-11F incident report. The crew was cleared for a visual approach to runway 6R and they used the ILS course for guidance. The captain stated that the airplane flew through a little bit of turbulence when crossing the shoreline but it was nothing unusual. At 50 feet above the ground everything looked normal, but at 20 feet the captain stated he perceived an increase in the airplane's sink rate. He and the first officer (the flying pilot) both pulled the yoke back. The airplane hit the runway and bounced upward. The nose of the airplane began to pitch up and the crew pushed the yoke forward. The tail then struck the ground. The nose began to respond, and they landed normally. The airplane received substantial damage. Approximately 32 feet of lower fuselage skin on the underside of the tail section was scraped and dented. There were small puncture/scrape holes in the skin. The aft pressure bulkhead and supporting steel structures were crushed and bent. The VHF antenna, located on the underside of the tail section, was sheared off. Cheers Terry

"Cui bono"? I dont give free passes to any streamer no matter which way they roll, unless they can display and describe the issue properly so there is no doubt. Black box is an example of a good streamer. As to why V1 would to have such an overwhelming negative review, I have no idea. But he's in the streaming for profit business and was playing to his unseen chat audience who were making pledges. Business was booming so that's the angle he took I guess perhaps also with a long held bias. Who knows, but it was very nitpicky and he admitted as much. I would describe it more as an attack review by a shock jock and not one I would personally give any credit too. It's no different to the streamers giving glowing superlatives (becasue they were picked by the developer) while completing ignoring the obvious issues happening around them. But hey, if some people decide not to purchase the MD-11 on V1's review alone, then all power to them. But they should look at TFDi's quick response and the patch list they are working on. I was particularly interested in his comments about inertia not being modeled in the sim. I suppose delaying the airplanes response to control movements would help but in the end inertia is difficult to simulate sitting in a chair front of a computer screen. Yet it is an important feedback mechanism when actually flying. So his comments about the g effect of the modelled pitch in the MD-11 were right on. Blackbox explained it well and it has been noted by many. But, it's not a showstopper. There's a patch coming for this, right? Cheers Terry

I couldn't get airborne with that commentary from V1 and gave up. I think he needs a few patches himself. He talks too fast and then too slow. He accuses the MD-11 of being all over the place yet that's exactly how he comes across. Honestly, RSR is a much better communicator! So I didn't watch all of it but he seems to be hung up on an impression that this is really just a P3D plane. He said some textures were a mess..more like P3D. He never showed us an example but then went on to show us the overhead panel textures which he praised. I lost interest in him about that time but not before he turned himself in circles over which way the mouse wheel should roll to select a switch. He said we should expect more for an $80 airplane when you compare the PMDG 777 at $7.00 cheaper. Of course he ignored the fact that he had previously admitted he had bought both the pax and the freight version where as the PMDG price is for only one aircraft. He then blamed the TFDi MD-11 for not being able to log into Navigraph on the EFB, when he admitted he had done it before. We have all seen plenty of streamers with their charts on the MD-11 EFB so this was most definitely his problem. But hey. He was on a role to discredit the TFDi MD-11 so why stop there. He concluded even before finishing the FMC input that this airplane was a just a Beta...oh a very good Beta he added. He clearly seemed to have an idealogical bent against this aircraft and admitted he had never liked the IRL MD-11 which he termed the MD-111. So its seems like it was just trying to justify his long held view. This was all in the first 25 mins and in my view had completely discredited himself as an impartial reviewer. We get it V1. You don't like the MD-11!! Perhaps you could ask for a refund? I couldn't watch the next 3.00hrs of this claptrap. You couldn't see his chat but whenever someone supported his view you heard about it. So, it doesn't surprise me that he found fault with the flight model and probably many other things but on the basis on what I saw, in my view that has no credibility. Now I'm not ignoring the fact that the TFDi MD-11 is not as polished as the B777. That's a fact and TFDi are putting out patches which reflect that. And we do need reviewers to point out the issues even if they dont always accord with what we have seen. But V1's reviews basically read like the boss had called TFDi into his office and was tearing strips and there was no right of reply. I don't know what V1's motive was for lambasting the airplane at the rate he did in that short time including offering his opinion that it was only Beta level but, it was an appalling 25 mins I saw. So before anybody starts grounding their MD-11 or decides not to purchase, just take a wider view. There are plenty of more supportive and balanced streams out there and one bad review from a pent up reviewer shouldn't be show stopper. The MD-11 was a very complex and sometimes difficult to manage airplane in real life so streamers, who are IRL pilots would be cautious if not rated on type when discussing handling and maneuvering characteristics. Disclaimer: I have no idea id V1 is an IRL pilot or not but, assume he is. Cheers Terry

@andy1252 is the leader of this phenomenon. He's actually an honorary member of our stuffy study level aircraft crew room, but when he buys his study level PMDG B777-200 he will insist it has CTRL-E and without one bit of study or any attention to anything on the flight deck that has glass in front of it, or switches, knobs, bells or whistles, he will fly it like he stole it! Just don't expect an in depth review of the flight model after he lands it at Heathrow on a runway full of elephants 🤣!! Go Andy!! Cheers Terry

Haha. It' sounds like you're having a lot of fun Andy. Good on ya mate! MSFS has something for everyone. Thanks for the heads up on the C-130 update. With the cargo door able to open in flight, this might offer some good video opportunities so although missing a lot of features and 'typically CS', they did at least provide an RNZAF 40 Squadron livery (my old Squadron) so I might reverse my decision not to buy this. But of course there is the TFDi MD-11, the Curtiss C-46, the B777F when that arrives, a possible B707 Local Legend and of course the new MSFS 2024 sim. Then there's Bluebirds B757 and FSReborn/SWS B727 probably both in the new sim. Sheesh, this is getting expensive and there is much more to come I suspect! So in the meantime I have studied the cold and dark start up for the TFdi MD-11 and my head is spinning so it's time for a fun filled break. What is this 'elephants at Heathrow' you speak of Andy? 😃 Cheers Terry

I get the feeling Andy, this would do you nicely. 🙂 https://photos.app.goo.gl/oV1oAiGcgZXR6siAA Cheers Terry