I'm not embarrassed to say of all the payware/freeware aircraft I have, I seem to always revert back to Premier Aircraft Design's Bombardier Learjet 60. Call it laziness or whatever, but I can fly the crap out of that plane.

Ariane 737 :He He:  :LMAO:

Majestic Q400 - For all the reasons the original poster mentioned and also because it's so frame-rate friendly on my sub-par hardware.  It's the plane I always go back to and probably my all-time favorite.

 

PMDG 777 - What I've been flying for the past month or so.  Awesome in every way, but what PMDG did best (IMHO) is capture the sheer size and power of this beauty. 

 

Real Air Piston Duke 2.0 - A work of art and the reference standard for GA simulation.

The past year has been a very good simming due to successful purchases. Its really hard to find the time to throughly test fly the bunch of planes new to my hangar. And even older planes got updates and breathed new excitement to them. Like the Classics Hangar Me108 Taifun and Aerosoft Twin Otter Extended.

 

With new good sceneries especially in States the older J41 and a bit newer BAe146/RJ have logged a good deal of hours.

 

Also the Captain Sim 737 is becoming a long term favourite.

I tried the DC-9, but could not get it to work in my rig, that could have been THE airliner. Also I have found the Majestic Dash a bit over-hyped, especially for an old J41 driver. Also the Sibwings An-2 hold a great promise, but technical problems with it have kept it in low use.

 

Even more good is coming; Aerosoft has promised Porter, Ju52 and now they even rolled out a great military jet.

 

Perhaps the another famous sim company will finally release its DC-6. If so its another great year approaching.

At the moment, definately the RealAir Duke v2. I picked it up the other day and I can't believe I waited so long before I bought it. Great GA addon!