They really did, it’s a very impressive package and well worth the asking price IMO. It was particularly appealing to me because I love airliners in general but don’t want to spend more than a couple of hours on a flight, so regional jets are perfect for me.
I almost didn’t get it though because of the 737 right around the corner. Since on Friday we didn’t know the release date I went ahead and bought the 146; of course, the very next morning PMDG announced that the 737 would be released in about a week. Sigh. It’s going to be an expensive month!
It’s funny, a couple of days ago, with the release in the marketplace of the Asobo/Carenado Gee Bee package, someone mentioned they’d like to see the Wedell-Williams Model 44.
Then yesterday a beautiful freeware Model 44 appears. Great flight model, visuals are fantastic, and everything’s 100% MSFS native. Everyone should grab this for a fun little fast flier. Really one of the most impressive free planes out there. Audio’s a bit weak, so I might try to alias the Gee Bee sounds over to it, but the rest of it’s payware-quality.
If you were considering piston-based, I had a lot of fun learning (on the most basic level) the DC-6, and they released a bunch of tutorial videos with it. Here’s the takeoff one:
I have one in FSE I could lease to the group if you wanted to work within the framework of making v$ while learning.
The DC-6 is a fantastic aircraft to fly in MSFS, and in terms of the overall mod package I still say it’s the highest quality aircraft yet released for the game. I think its only danger comes from the same studio when they release the long-awaited 737-700.
Learning to fly it is also made somewhat easier by the inclusion of the automated flight engineer, who can play as big or little a role as you decide. Having him fully functional leaves you to enjoy just flying the plane, and you can gradually disable his functions as you get more confident.
I do want to get the DC-6 eventually, but for learning airliners I think I want something more modern so the experience is at least somewhat transferable to other modern airliners.
I’ve spent the last week mastering the 146 and getting to grips with landing in various conditions. This time I decided to try my first steep descent - London City’s glideslope is a whopping 5.5 degrees, which is crazy; by the time you start descending you can barely even see the runway. The 146 (which was specifically designed with steep descents in mind, among other considerations) has a GPWS inhibit switch specifically for steep landings that stops the glideslope callout you’d otherwise get on a more normal approach.
Pretty exhilarating actually. I’ll have to look up some other steep approaches around the world now.
I’m currently doing a thing where I basically take the BAe146 to airports near F1 race tracks and then take a chopper to visit them. Using the perfectly fitting G-OFOM JustFlight kindly provide ;)
Really great plane to fly. Handles very nice (needs some curves on the stick though to not twitch like an Extra 300, but with proper config it’s great), systems are simulated very deep and it is very frame friendly in VR too.
Yay, managed to go from a cold start in the A32NX at Wellington to landing in Brisbane without killing all my passengers. Arrival was a bit chaotic though, as I still haven’t really worked out the MCDU and FCU, so first time round I didn’t have any approach programmed at all and second time round I couldn’t get it to capture the glide slope, so had to do final on manual. Still, pretty pleased with that. Might bump down to the Longitude or the CJ4 while I get more familiar with SimBrief/Navigraph though.
Dumb question time: I could have sworn that Addons Linker had an option to disable the intro videos for MSFS. But I can’t see it in the UI anywhere. Has it been removed or am I just being stupid?
Also, an update on my Velocity One yoke. The bad news is the random hard right rolls have not been fixed. The good news is that they seem to be tied to the on-yoke menu, so they only happen when using the chronometer or the training mode. So it’s not really much of a problem to avoid, just have to use some other stopwatch for my bush trips. Now that the instrument panel and reversing detents are working, I’m really very pleased with it.
Oh God, I think I just borked my install. Pro-tip, if the Xbox client invites you to enable additional management features (which seems to mean moving outside of the encrypted folder structure), don’t do it.
Top Gun will definitely not have combat or ACM. :-( My biggest hope (and likely disappointment) is that they’ll finally enable landable ships and a moving aircraft carrier.
Guessing, though, it’ll just be the F/A-18E we already have with a movie livery or three, the fictional SR-72, Fallon, and a non-moving carrier.
