Barfly

I agree with Slayer - the X-15 from xtreme is a rare package - fun, very high quality visuals and effects, very educational if you want to do everything manually with very comprehensive systems, very fast to whatever altitude you want for sight-seeing. Milviz will eventually come out with the best extreme performance high altitude flyer - and by a large margin - their SR-71. That will be a while I think though...

I've certainly felt the difference... the A320 series seemed noticeably softer in turbulence than the 73.

I think you have a much better chance than that, lol. The FMS is for pilot purposes exactly like the real thing, at least for normal use. I didn't check some of the pages, certainly not maintenance info. The software in the FMS varies slightly from company to company, and ours is not exactly like the one represented by PMDG, but I think it represents a typical one. That's probably pilot reaction to very small uncommanded changes in aircraft attitude in windy conditions. Plus probably a little bit of PIO, as you can't always dampen an unwanted movement exactly the right amount. It might not be obvious in video or even on instruments; it would be very obvious looking outside referencing the horizon and other things in the environment moving.

Assuming no airborne threats or emergencies and perfect flight and ground conditions, without having to interact with controllers etc, with someone talking you through parts of it..... I think you'd be successful sometimes. Which is great, but not really acceptable odds for real life aviation, lol. Here's a good story: At one point a few years ago, after 9-11, our Flight Attendant training department wanted to give their people some confidence that they could potentially land the aircraft if the flight crew was incapacitated. So they put them in a sim, motion and crash off, gave them a quick brief on how to land the airplane, then put them on short final configured and on speed, and let them have the controls. Of course conditions were perfect, and they weren't allow to move the controls until the instructor told them to pull power to idle, and raise the nose so much. Didn't matter how hard the impact, it was always smooth because the motion was off. So word got around, that flying was easy, and some flight attendants thought.. if they just had that extra two weeks of training, they could have been a pilot and made more money. (4 wk initial FA training, 6wks for new hire pilot I think). They had to stop that 'confidence' training due to inappropriate, and uninformed, disrespectful attitudes in some cases towards the pilot group.. in other words, it was meant as a moral booster in anticipation of a potentially deadly situation, but ended up having a counter productive effect. Not among most of them, but with enough... Anyway, with your general knowledge of aircraft handling and systems, particularly this plane, it would be fun to try out in a full sim, or IRL, even though that's impossible. I think you would fare well, finding some of the handling familiar and relatively easy, if not most of it. I WOULD NOT have you attempt to land IRL on a gusty, rainy, dark night, on a short field with an ocean for an overrun, like Grand Cayman, lol.

Some handling changes you might notice on older aircraft: -a little bit of the 'skatiness' on takeoff roll due to very slight wear (I think) in nosewheel tolerances -Some nosewheel shimmy after airborne on wheel spindown due to unbalanced tire assembly (probably uneven rudder wear with a tiny amount of bearing pack slop) -usually a very small amount of play moving control wheel from neutral position. -,more rudder trim required than normal for a given flight state.... you don't find many 'bent' aircraft, and this may also be partly due to rigging and the indicator -noticeable roll-pack tension... annoying with gusty crosswinds on final, in the flare or on departure leg - compensating yoke input past (what is it.... 7 degrees of throw??) the point where roll spoilers kick in to assist aileron you get some additional force required on the yoke. Normally it's an imperceptable mesh of the two roll controls. So as you're compensating for gusts with back and forth roll inputs, you quickly hit a point of increased force required, making it difficult to precisely counter roll moments from gust. Always workable, but annoying, especially in the flare. This are fixed when they get too bad, and some older aircraft (over 10 years old) have this rebuilt to like new feel. That's the typical old-NG wear stuff, as far as handling goes.

So... I think I'd give it a 7.... due to a coupla things. Two tough things to do well in the 73NG are landing precisely - it's fast and very sensitive to speed changes away from app speeds in the flare and with gusts, and doing typical single engine handling for a swept wing jet. I don't think it does either of those well. The landing issue is mostly due to limitations of FSX, the surface detail and visual perspective is not there to make tiny, quick adjustments like the real thing, I can't tell exactly where I am in the flare in FSX etc. Single engine handling is a huge part of heavy jet pilot competency that doesn't work here. Other than that, it represents impressively well

n reality the PMDG doesn't come close to replicating how a real world pilot would operate in a real environment. It does manage to replicate the physical aspects of manipulating systems to an impressive, and RL degree, the FM is really good for FSX, but that's only a fraction of what you need to know and consider when operating in the real world. It's close enough in what it does model that those aspects feel like work, lol. If you have a really solid grasp of pitch power trim, the 73NG is not hard to fly IRL. There are things however missing in the sim that would be a surprise: -Control feel in general... desktop control devices don't give you a sense of how much force or sensitivity is required for any controls -Very sensitive rudder inputs are required on takeoff about about 80 knots to prevent 'skating' back and forth - less so in calm wind with a new airplane. -Typically, 1/2 degree of left rudder is required through takeoff roll and cleanup, unless you want to dance more on rudder pedals (typical from new factory aircraft) -A small amount of counter aileron is almost always required to hold a standard rate turn.... less than 15 degrees of bank or so this is not a factor -Rudder trim change needed to trim out yaw on takeoff needs to be retrimmed as necessary in climb and again once at cruise altitude and speed.. this is not typical for other airliners -Pitch moments due to power changes are not noticeable in FSX... some of this I think is due to poor gust rendering... but it's something you deal with all the time IRL -Single engine yaw induced roll, and associated rudder and trim required are nothing like a real swept wing jet... let alone the 73NG. This is something that is fixable within FSX files. -40 flap landings which you need for shorter field landings are not even close to appropriate drag, especialy compared to what's modeled for other landing flap settings... Those are some of the obvious items as far as handling goes, things that define the character of the NG as opposed to other airliners is missing to a degree. The PMDG does a great job flying by the numbers, as far as power and drag are concerned. As someone with 3600 hrs in 73-800s, I wouldn't use it for review not because it doesn't have depth of systems with educational value, but mostly because the physical aspects of interfacing the sim through a computer screen and peripherals is so far from reality for me.

I can recommend the SSW Harrier also - it's not quite the graphical beauty of the Razbams, but is on par with systems, and much better flight dynamics. The Wilco is very nice, with a decent, fun to fly FM, but simple systems and much lower graphical presentation.

Let us know how that works.... I didn't put in a support ticket yet. Aircraft crashes FSX upon attempts to load, using Win 8.

There is a roll damping limitation within FSX.... so you can't replicate it to level necessary for absolute realism in a really fast rolling plane. With an externally driven FDE you could probably do it...

I'll try to do that in a few days when I get back home.

Yes, I have all the latest 111s, including yours, which showed 'in white' in DX10 preview. After installing the payware DX10 Fixer http://www.flightsimstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=2630 Everything is showing - hud display isn't optimized, but the rest looks pretty good!

I'd kinda given up on this one, until Steve's DX10 fixer... now everything shows up in DX10! very nice.

No experience with CS for several years; just got the 707 base, cargo, and Herc based on recommendations here, as those two seem to be the ones well received. The 707 is worth getting, and you can easily add the freeware CIVA INS. It is a very nice flyer, great textures in and out, 3d modeling is excellent, switch sounds are realistic, basic systems logic including activity on the engineer panel seems ok, though I didn't test thoroughly. Definitely worth considering for a steam gauge aircraft; can't speak for the other options. Hand flies well, feels right, vor tracking on autopilot is realistically sloppy , didn't try doppler or Carousel yet for nav, but apparently both work. Sorry for slight off-topic, but the sale is short so...

The Cessna Mustang is a great hand flyer as are the Carenado King Airs. The Flight 1 King Air is not a good hand flyer at this point, if that is something you're looking for. Thrust / drag and speed numbers seems good; adverse yaw from aileron roll, rudder required to counter adverse yaw, and turn and slip indicatiion in the Flight 1 KA is really poorly done. Is that something addressed in the forums for the update? G1000, appearance in and out, auto pilot ops, RNAV, systems seem excellent from limited testing, but handling really stands out as odd. If you like hand flying and doing classic radio navigation and approaches, the Carenados are much better. If you like G1000, GPS type approaches, autopilot, some extra speed, and some additional system modelling and some bennies like wear and tear, and maintenance management, then Flight 1. edit: after reading the entire thread, Ryan and King already mentioned the coordination issue ad nauseum. Hopefully they fix it....