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I know I've already commented, but flying this plane is just pure pleasure. It definitely requires more attention than the already excellent V1 did. In terms of power management, in V1 torque was pretty much the limiting factor, with ITT almost never becoming an issue. Now, on a relatively standard day, you absolutely need to keep an eye on all three of the critical turbine gauges as you climb. BTW, for those who haven't looked yet, the manual really is excellent both in terms of information presented and in how that information is presented. Put another way, pretty much everything you need is there in a very readable form. It's won't take that long to go through and it's time well spent. If nothing else, at least read the "Flying the Turbine Duke V2" section thoroughly before your first flight. Scott

Finally had a chance to take mine up last night for the first time - a quick flight from PAJN to PAYA. I haven't flown the V1 Turbine Duke for a few months, as the V2 piston upgrade had completely spoiled me, so maybe I'm not remembering the old flight model accurately, but... The new plane certainly seems to have a very different feel to it. Don't know quite how to describe it, but more refined comes to mind. To say that I like it would be an understatement. The sounds are a complete joy to listen to, particularly the new prop sounds. The ability to easily do your own custom avionics layout is a treat (mine features two side-by-side RXP 530's). The startup sequence seems far more realistic without the huge over-speed of most FSX turbines and... I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that this plane simply rocks. From the little stuff to the big stuff, all impeccably done. Thanks guys - this one was worth the wait. Scott

Yep, still there. Scott

Don't know, but you could always start from where the RW plane is built. I'm thinking about taking the V2 B60 to KSFF (Felts) and taxiing it right up to the Rocket Engineering hangar, (faithfully represented at Orbx' KSFF) for its turbine conversion. Then flying the new V2 Turbine Duke back home. Have the new plane downloaded and installed, but won't get a chance for the first flight until later. Did at least get my panel and all options configured and loaded up each livery for a quick look-see and everything looks fantastic. Looking forward to the new and improved sounds and flight modelling. Scott

Here's a good one courtesy of Google. Search for Bella Coola airport on Google Maps and you'll notice there is a picture available, as there is for many such places. Pull up the picture and you'll find... It's an FSX screen shot of Carenado's Malibu Mirage at Orbx CYBD. Not a particularly great one, but still. Too funny! Gregg, I consider Pacific Fjords a connecting region, (along with the older FSAddons Tongas Fjords product which connects seamlessly between Pacific Fjords and SAK, and also features some enhanced airports) allowing me to move from SoCal and PNW (which are both excellent) up to their equally excellent Southern AK region, which features a great deal of enhanced photo scenery. Pacific Fjords and Tongas Fjords may not be the best of Orbx (and pre-Orbx), but they're still good, and vastly better than default scenery and can be further enhanced for the bush pilot by the Misty Moorings offerings, which as Bryan points out are probably responsible for Mitch's waterfall. Both CYBD (Bella Coola) and CZST (Stewart) are really fun airports with a goodly amount of annotated photo scenery. Both offer some very entertaining approaches, up winding Fjords surrounded by towering mountains with limited go-around options for landings - especially at Stewart. I greatly enjoy both of them. Scott

When you check out at the Flight Sim Store, the figures change back to AUS for the final transaction, as the transaction IS actually done in $ AUS. Check your bank/CC statement to see what exchange rate your bank actually gave you, but it should be close to what FSS quoted you in $US when you were shopping. Scott

Craig, I've very much appreciated the information you've shared, but... I think you're actually missing Ethan's point, and it's a fair one. I assume that one of the reasons you're sharing this information is to give others who've not taken the plunge yet a relative idea of how SE performs when compared to FSX, but when your FSX numbers are well below what many of us get in similar situations, it does beg the question as to whether the marked difference you're seeing is due more to FSX install/config issues on your machine than it is to SE improvements. That's partly why I raised a virtual eyebrow earlier at your Duke performance issues, as the V2 Duke runs very well on my modest system. As you correctly pointed out, this may be due to FSX's general preference for nVidia over AMD... or it may be something else haywire on the FSX side on your system, as opposed to something inherently broken in FSX that SE improves upon. Please take what I've said in the spirit it's offered. The information you and others are providing is valuable and much appreciated, and all that I'm reading taken in total does appear to be painting a very positive picture for the SE changes. I've gathered enough information that I'd be jumping in as well were it not for some specific add-on compatibility issues which remain showstoppers, despite the fact that my FSX install has been a solid performer. Scott

Rich, these are some awesome captures you've been putting up of the F14. VERY well done, sir! Scott

Ah, that probably explains it. Don't get me wrong - I wish it were otherwise as the early results are certainly encouraging enough that I'd be giving it a shot myself if it weren't for that. The difference is that F1 are in active development of their gauges, while RXP's developer appears to be completely out of the picture. While the F1 stuff may not work now, it probably will sometime soon. Scott

I'm frankly astonished at some of these early reports, and at the current price it's tempting to try expect that... The RXP Garmins are in virtually everything I fly, and there's a 0% chance that they'd ever get modified to work in FSX-SE given the state of RXP. One thing you mention here does surprise me, and that's your comment about the V2 Duke. I have a fairly modest system, but have never had any performance issues with the Duke, and I fly it heavily into payware airports and over Orbx regions with ASN wx. Still, it's hard to discount the many positive comments on both performance and VAS management that are beginning to come out. It is encouraging to hear some of these very positive early impressions. Scott

I have the panel and use it with SPAD rather than using the Saitek drivers. SPAD makes a big difference as it allows you to adjust the "acceleration" in the dials. As near as I can tell, Saitek's knobs are simple rotary dials which happen to have detents, but the detents don't define anything like a frequency step - it's a simple pulse generator, so to get things to line up properly, you use the SPAD drivers to adjust the tuning rate and thus get things pretty close to spot on. Mine is set close enough that I really don't notice the problem anymore. The radio panel is actually a very nice unit for the price, once you ditch the default drivers and move to SPAD. Ditto on the Multi-panel, BTW. Scott

Gregg, I'm afraid I've followed your model this season. Haven't purchased a doggone thing after picking up the A2A 182 sometime back. As happened about this time last year, my simming time has dropped close to zero, so that's part of the reason. The other part is that most of the sale stuff has been on things I don't particularly crave, and I'm long past the stage where I buy things just because they're cheap and I might use them occasionally. I have enough planes, for example, that I almost never fly without adding to the list. Scott

The Malibu has a simply awful soundset. If the intent was to emulate noise cancelling headsets, they've done a poor job as I've mentioned in other discussions. I've replaced the sounds with the Arezone soundset specifically made for this plane, and it's helped immensely with the overall immersion. Scott

Sure, no problem. Keep in mind that I bought this almost at initial release, so some of my dislike has to do with the usual Carenado frustration with initial bugs, waiting for SPs (there have been two) and dealing with the changes required to move things along. You can check the Seneca forum for some of the lists of issues originally in the plane. There were a lot of them, and some of them were showstoppers for me. I've already mentioned the sound issue, which I've mostly addressed with an Arezone soundset. Originally, I went with Skysong sounds as the Arezone set didn't appear until the plane had been out for a while, but it was only marginally better than the default to my ears. So there were times while waiting for service packs and sound releases where I temporarily shelved the plane in frustration as there was just too much broken. The second SP, which fixed some very annoying things like non-existent prop discs (props just disappeared after startup), also broke things that had previously worked, like the altimeter tape on the G600 popup and the gear warning horn (which had been broken, then fixed in SP1). That pretty much did it for me, and I haven't flown it since just after SP2 release. My other solid frustration really isn't Carenado's fault, but it's annoying nevertheless. I try to fly planes as accurately as I can, but the primary power gauges on the Seneca are very small and hard to see, as are the digital readouts making power settings difficult to accomplish accurately. The Malibu is similar in the basic gauges, but saved by the large digital readouts. Were I a TrackIR or EZDock user, this might not bother me so much. Other than that, there's really nothing wrong with the Seneca, but there's nothing really special about it either. It just seems generally bland to me. Couple that with the problems I've had, and I just don't enjoy flying it. Scott

The 337 that you already have is still my hands-down favorite Carenado, but with an aftermarket soundset (Arezone) on the Malibu Mirage, it's gradually become my second favorite Carenado plane. Third is probably the 210, but the 210 does require a few tweaks to tame a couple of issues. Scott

Compared to the Duke, the Seneca is a fair bit slower, (in RW GA terms), is a poorer climber and is unpressurized. Those TSIO 360's are pretty small engines for the plane's size. Sounds like I'm going to be the lone dissenter here, but... I'm a big fan of the real world plane for good practical reasons (it's a far more affordable to operate RW plane than the Duke ever could be) and had high hopes for the sim version, but despite trying really, really hard to like it, I just don't. If you do get it, consider that (at least to these ears) the Arezone soundset is a requirement. Like the Malibu, the default soundset is simply dreadful. Unlike the Malibu (which I very much enjoy), the money spent on aftermarket sound still didn't make the plane a regular flyer for me. Scott

If you had the "flying on rails" feeling with ASN, something wasn't configured properly. My sim has never felt so alive as it has since moving to ASN shortly after its initial release. Opus' DHM must be one of those "love it or hate it" things, because I know many love it as you do, but I could never quite warm up to it for a variety of reasons. Can't repeat this enough, however. Both are excellent products. Both have demo versions. Wx is important to me, and if it's important to you as well, I highly recommend spending the time required to give each of these products a good tryout to see how each matches your individual preferences and requirements. For me, the winner was hands down ASN (with REX 4 textures), but what's critical to me may be less so to you and vice versa. Give 'em both a try and see what you think. Scott

Spec-freakin'-tacular! Just watch it. You'll be glad you did. Scott

Respectfully, it sure seems like many are reacting to something that Ray hasn't even proposed. Read his original posting again. He's not asking for some kind of identification system of verified full and accurate legal names, it just bugs him having to use awkward sounding handles. He doesn't seem to really care if MGH is really Gerry, or BladderBoy is really Aaron. He's just more comfortable calling you Gerry and Aaron rather than MGH or BladderBoy. Nothing sinister there and frankly I agree with his preference, though I'm not in favor of making it mandatory. That said, I'd point out to Ray that there have actually been many discussions on the PMDG forums about the full name requirement, and many have expressed their displeasure about it. Scott

It appears to work properly for me. Specifically, the old FSX issue where fuel flow peaks near the "correct" leaning point allowing you to cheat and use fuel flow to lean isn't there, and leaning doesn't result in such dramatic engine changes. You can still roughly lean by engine sound (as should be the case), but it's subtle rather than dramatic and accurate leaning will require using the EGT as IRL. The EGT gauge also features a nice red pointer you can set to peak when you find it, and allows you to more easily find the lean point relative to peak as recommended in the POH for max power, max endurance or recommended book values. And, of course, not leaning for ground ops combined with low RPMs can result in plug fouling which will definitely show up during the mag checks at run-up. Scott

On the other hand... The information is there to properly fly any of these planes, whether they force you to or not. The choice is yours. The fact that planes like the Malibu don't make me fly them properly doesn't prevent me from doing so. And in fact, IRL, most GA aircraft are remarkably tolerant of mishandling and hamfisted power management. If that weren't the case, 172s at flight schools would've been falling out of the sky for decades. Most light GA planes tend not to catastrophically fail if mis-flown (though it's certainly possible if you're completely mismanaging things) so much as they simply get outrageously expensive at 100 hours (in rental fleets) and annuals when flogged. IRL, you fly them properly because you know you should due to long term consequences, not because one small mistake will lead to death and destruction. Don't get me wrong - I love what A2A are doing, and so far I find their failure modeling to be quite good and not overdone as I think there's a temptation to do. Treat the plane well and the plane will treat you well, just as in real life. But it's things like persistence, aging and accurate modeling of the interaction between prop RPM, MP and mixture that keep me coming back to A2A's 182 more than immediate damage modeling. I don't have to burn myself repeatedly on the hot stove like Homer Simpson in order to know not to touch the hot stove. Scott

Jim, the Phenom is certified for single pilot operation, so the three on board might have been a pilot and two passengers or 2 pilots and a single passenger. Either way, my thoughts go out to all of those involved. Well that's certainly disturbing to hear, but as you say - don't want to jump to any conclusions Scott

ASN uses METARS too, as do most wx generators. What they've basically done is found a way to smooth the transitions so that you don't have to choose between wx being updated vs the depiction being stable. It works VERY well. Scott

Since the topic has resurfaced... Has anyone yet used this with MegasceneryX SoCal and Aerosoft's Cities LA? Scott

Most immersive VC in my hangar: Milviz B55 Baron With honorable mentions to: RealAir Duke B60 v2 Carenado Cessna 337 Scott