bennyboy75

Seriously though will the 200 or 300 be that much different? The Majestic guys have shown the world how to nail a prop in FSX. I'd love to see them do it for a different airliner such as the ATR.

So I told my ex wife To be honest I do miss it when coming out of the NG. Flying an approach with no altitude constraints I like to see where I'll be along the flight plan at the selected altitude. You can easily see if you're a bit high or a bit low on the profile and adjust VS accordingly. Yes of course you can just fly the whole descent in managed mode but sooner or later you'll come across a portion of the approach (or get vectored) that puts you off the nicely plotted path the DES mode has given you. Then it's all out of the window and you need to go back to basic speed, VS and altitude. That's when you need a hockey stick. And to play, er, hockey.

Different arrow. You get a white one for TOC and for TOD. That's modelled. The hockey stick is blue and the same thing as the 'green banana' (why do pilots give them such daft names?) in a Boeing and isn't modelled. Would be very handy.

No problems with Accu-Feel, but the flight model outside of FSX thing renders it impervious to turbulence. Turbulence is generated by FSX and as such the Dash doesn't know it's in turbulence, thus this is reflected by Accu-Feel. I think. It all gets rather confusing.

Wind predictions - meh - for the length of even real life A320 flights it probably makes little difference. V Speeds - yep that'd be nice to have. I use TOPCAT with the data for the Airsimmer Airbus to give me Flex/V Speeds and they vary wildly from the speeds given to me by the FMGC, as well as some crazy configs - flaps 3 for takeoff? Is that right? Third ILS - yep I could see how that would be handy. All I want is the target altitude indicator, better known as the 'hockey stick'. Helps with descents no end as you can see where you'll be levelling off. Even the crappy FS2004 Wilco Airbus managed it......

GSX is a great utility You can adjust the 'message verbosity' in the settings to stop it nagging you. It will simply wait for you to do the requested items. I've also replaced the nasty default 'bong' with the Airbus triple chime, so it doesn't break the immersion in the flight deck. I agree about the gate settings. I usually go into the settings for each gate I'm at and have a look at what is set. Often it won't offer any pushback or bring airstairs and crash into the gate. A few clicks sorts this. A pain compared to AES where each gate is hand built and each pushback is designed individually but it is free, well once you've paid for it, it is !

It's excellent. There are still a few challenges such as GSX doesn't allow you to start the engines until push is completed (no biggie, a few airports don't either) and there are still for me a handful of issues around nailing down EZdok's DHM/CR/RND which seem to be all or nothing in their effect. Maybe it's just me. The fuel and load manager is a bit of a pain when you've come from the NGX's beautifully simple integrated FMC interface, meaning you have to tab out to the desktop, fire up the control panel, select each cabin zone, select baggage, select fuel, select trip fuel, set the load, send it to FSX.....blah blah. Oh yes and the default key for the doors is a real FS2002 flashback - Shift + E + 1, 2 or 3! That needs to be looked at. But - everything else is marvellous. The sounds, the flight model, the texturing, the VC, the systems depth is first rate - PMDG standard, no question. It's challenging to fly certainly - with no auto throttle and what can be described as a rather primitive autopilot - you need to keep ahead of the aircraft. In the descent and landing phase particularly the workload is high, but it's a very satisfying aircraft to fly and the amazing frame rates mean you venture to many places that you'd enter with trepidation in something like the NGX. Definitely worth the money.

To be fair (or not, you decide) to Aerosoft it was a stinker when it was first released. No SIDS/STARS, you couldn't even display the runway or the extended centreline on the the navigation display! This actually made this 'lite' product incredibly difficult to fly as your track simply led you to the airport rather than to any defined waypoints around it. Inevitably you would end up circling around trying to fly the ILS in raw data - not an easy task! The flight model was wobbly and landing it required a steadier hand than a bomb disposal expert. It also baffled me that the 'lite' audience wasn't deemed smart enough to want SIDS or STARS yet they happily modelled stuff like Flex? It's a very different beast now, however. The APU start time is still amusing, as are the Grand Prix engine starts but all in all you can happily fly full line flights with enough eye candy and immersion to keep all but the most hardened simmer satisfied. The checklists are a very nifty feature and the virtual FO does the donkey work while you fly - just as in the real world. Until Ro's colleagues bring forth their A320 which is a day 1 buy for me then the AXE will do fine.

Forget the 200/300 - do an ATR!

One thing to bear in mind with Ezdok is that when you load up the Q400 with it all the camera effects are set to zero. This is probably why so many folk (me included) felt no effects when flying the Dash. Make sure you turn those effects on and you'll be fine.

Same here. An SSD is the single best thing I have ever bought for FSX. Well, along with an Nvidia Titan and a o/c'd 3970X

EFB shows you where you are on moving map. Might be worth a look if you get lost a lot and contains a huge amount else besides. Remember very few airports actually use follow me cars, so you might want to swot up on the ground chart before you land/depart. Unless it's somewhere like CDG, where I get hopelessly lost within 500 m of the runway.

EFB is superb. For one, it helps make sense of SIDS and STARS at complicated airports. No longer do you have to spend ages pouring over charts to try to figure out which ones fit best with your flightplan. You simply hit 'select SID/STAR' and it'll show you the preferential runway for the wind, the procedure that fits best with your arrival or departure and the respective transitions. Plus ground charts, parking, frequencies, en route maps and more. By comparison I find FS Build clunky and difficult to use.

Lovely pics. I've done LCA-BEY in real life (not MEA but CY) and it's a really short hop. Literally up and down. The only thing I don't like is OLBA X's ground textures as it looks like something from FS2002, but for freeware you can't complain!

Blackbox do an A330. Some folk like it but it doesn't look too great to my eyes. Aerosoft will do one next year and if their A320 is anything to go by it will be a good un. I think FSL said they will be doing both an A330 and an A340. I think with the Bus as the systems are similar and the flight decks virtually identical (not so with the A380 and the A350) once you've done one it isn't a mammoth task to do the others as the biggest job is presumably the exterior model.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/411549-questions-about-airbus-extended/ All your answers here. As Rich says - for the money it's excellent. I initially turned off the copilot and checklist feature but actually it's pretty good - although you may need the add on voice set which you can find in the library here, along with the replacement pushback voices, as the original for some crazy reason sounds like Steven Hawking. It's missing a few things from the real one - the 'hockey stick' level off indicator would make descents easier and according to those in the know some of the autopilot modes are a bit screwy but for regular everyday flying you'll have no problems. All in all, a very solid effort from Aerosoft.

To be fair the displays don't have the detail or the 'sheen' that the NGX has. Little things like the light glinting off the PFD as you move round the cockpit, fingerprint marks, dust in the crevices etc. The NGX has a multitude of lighting options too whereas the AXE is on or off. There's an aura of realism to the NGX VC that the AXE doesn't have, although that's not to say it's bad in any way!

Sat in a D Box seat (the £6500 one mentioned up thread) last night when I saw Man of Steel. The film was ok but I kept thinking how amazing it would be to have one for FSX. Lots of motion and would be fantastic for turbulence and takeoffs and landing.

I presume you mean Active Sky, which has an option to refresh the AI. It should refresh when you load up the sim but it's a good idea to let the weather inject and then refresh the AI so they use the right runway for takeoff. You shouldn't have to refresh the AI for subsequent weather updates.

Depends on the size of the aircraft. On a 737/A320 wait until you're just a little bit beyond the line and make the turn. Try to carry just a little bit of speed into the turn to keep your momentum. Once you're lining up you want to be at no more than 2-3 knots and gentle corrections either side. Easy on the gas. And ignore GSX, it's pretty harsh!

Actually does the AXE call you a retard? I don't think the latest buses do....

Thanks both. Here's to many happy landings in the Bus, after being called a retard three times!

Thanks chap. I'll have a look.

Sigh. The poor old LDS 767. A revolution at the time - who can forget the hosties that would yell at you if the packs were too hot or cold in the back? Imagine a 767 done with NGX quality, with super sharp textures and lovely fingerprints on the displays. You'd never get me out of it. All that power!

Its pretty good on frames - interested to know how you turn the logging off @@jetsflier? The VC is nicely modelled - not up there with the NGX or the Q400 but it's perfectly decent. Sounds are good, systems are modelled for 'PF' so the opposite PFD displays whatever you're looking at on the Captain's side. Displays don't undock which is my biggest gripe, along with no 'hockey stick' which is the arrow that tells you where you will level off given a particular ROD or climb, like the green banana you get in the NGX. Now models full 'managed' descents. A doddle to hand fly as Airbus SOP is to leave the speed managed when AP off. Set it up on the ILS, point it at the runway and you can just leave it there, very satisfying. Can quickly load states so dead quick to set up at the gate and now full STARS/SID integration. Checklists and virtual FO capability but the German accents are a bit sharp for me. Thankfully replacement sets now available. GPWS sounds are amateurish, as is the default pushback voice - both easily replaced. Ground behaviour nice and smooth, plenty of working animations on the VC, opening windows (with wind noise!), folding jumpseat, cockpit door video monitor a nice touch etc. Loads of liveries, A320/21, Neo modelled currently, A318/19 on the way with new features and A330 next year. Worth a place in anyone's hangar for the price, certainly.