Benjamin J

I'm curious. I used to have the iFly way back when when they were one of the last to still actively developed for FS2004, and I really liked their 737 for that platform. I then didn't really pay much attention to them as PMDG was always the top. However, I've heard a fair bit about iFly's 737 MAX and I'd be interested in giving it a go. How does it compare, of course aside from being MAX rather than the NG? As for the Fenix, it has become my favorite aircraft in the sim, to be honest. I do think it's a much smoother plane in every sense of the word: how it flies, how it handles, system simulation, but also in terms of the 'gimmicks', with a tablet that I think is much better than PMDG's, some sort of cabin crew simulation and integrated GSX. Overall it just provides a much more seamless experience. And combined with all of WinWing's hardware, it's a true pleasure to fly (of course, I'm not pilot, so take my word with a grain of salt).

Just noticed yesterday that Traffic was released for all! I’d been waiting for that before buying BATC but finally bit the bullet now. Just had a lovely flight from Athens to Corfu. BATC really brings my flying to a whole new level!! Very happy with it so far. A really seamless experience and I don’t need to setup it do anything… connects to simbrief and the sim just like that and is ready to go. That’s how these sorts of addons should be, in my opinion!

Just to add my impression after flying EHCA-HEGN over the weekend. It's definitely nicer than I thought. I have Tai Models' Cairns, which I thought was so-so. It seems they improved the skills since then. I agree with others that it's a little on the pricy side for what it is, but it performed well, looked quite nice and seems fairly accurate. Overall I like the scenery and will return here for more flying. The one problem I had was that literally none of the airport layout, including all gates, showed up on the world map... Though I saw an update today that's suppose to fix that, so I'll have a look sometime later this week to see if indeed they did

Thanks for the reviews guys! I actually pulled the trigger and got it yesterday night... Didn't see it was available at OrbX though, otherwise probably would have bought it there! Will do a flight later today or tomorrow and report back.

Glad performance is fine for you! And what are your thoughts in terms of the visuals? They look decent on the screenshots but how does it look in-sim? I don’t need it to be at the level of FlightBeam but perhaps about as good as iniBuilds?

I agree I was hoping ACO would be a little better than it ended up being. Still leagues ahead of DoubleT which is almost entirely inaccurate. No other RCTP that I’m aware of.

Hello all, I saw TAI Models released Cairo HECA for MSFS on Simmarket: https://secure.simmarket.com/taimodels-cairo-international-airport-heca_msfs.phtml I'm tempted as I really want an upgrade from the Asobo version, but my impression of TAI Models sceneries has not been the best and I didn't read the best of reviews for their Manchester scenery. So, before I get this I was wondering what other people's thoughts are? Would love to hear some opinions and reviews.

I generally really like the city packs, but do feel that the airports that are sometimes included can be a letdown. It kind of depends pack to pack and the newer ones certainly are much better than the earlier ones. Recently flew into Guangzhou and thought that one looked very nice, but performance was actually not that good. I have nearly all of the packs at this moment aside for the Canadian pack and the two Chinese airports that are currently released only on the marketplace, which are Kunming and Tianjin. But if and once they are released on OrbX, I’ll get those as well.

Looks a lot cleaner than I remember it being 😂 All joking aside, models do look rather accurate. I have FSDG but may buy iniBuilds down the line on a sale.

To you and others, thanks for pointing that out! Haven't gotten around to try it yet, but will do so soon. It seems likely that this was it because I had already set the DH when this happened... Typically I'd wait until a later point but I was a little bored so I started setting things up for approach. Thanks all!

I just flew 1.0.3 - don't think I had any of the issues people mentioned, but I had something weird going on with the auto throttle. I had PROF and NAV activated before takeoff, I activate TOGA as usual, and both activate as expected upon liftoff, and all was well until I got to the point of descent. Because I tend to fly with default ATC (yes, yes I do. Not the point of this post) and their clearances don't follow VNAV calculations, I tend to switch to Alt Hold and select a speed manually, so I can then follow their guidance by V/S. Normally I've had no issues with this, but this time when I selected ALT HLD mode, I couldn't get SPD to select manually - upon pushing the SPD knob, it would show a selectable value but illuminate PRE-SET. I don't remember ever seeing this illuminate to be honest... I saw in the change lists that there have been some changes to the logic of this over different versions but I've never seen an issue like this pop up. Since I couldn't select the speed manually, I stayed with the commanded 280kts pretty much all the way down, until I finally deactivated auto throttle altogether and set thrust manually. Another weird thing here is that it somehow managed to stick with the commanded speed even at pretty steep descent rates, without putting the engines into idle. No idea what was going on here. I assume I'm doing something wrong here but I have no idea what it might be. I don't think I did anything different from usual, but it sort of ruined the flight... I'm not sure if something happened in the update or whether this has something to do with the Brave quadrant I just bought. Perhaps there is some assignment there that I need to deactivate? Any pointers would be appreciated.

I compared the data in Little NavMap with the data in the Navigraph Charts app and didn't see any discrepancies, so went into MSFS and actually I do have all procedures listed... You sure you don't have any duplicate sceneries that are messing things up for you?

Exactly what @Fiorentoni said. The problem is usually that the runway designators of the scenery don’t match what’s in the approach procedures. Usually it means a scenery update is necessary if they are old, or there may be a mistake that needs to be fixed. I have the scenery in question but haven’t looked into it… I can look later today.

Something that I do is to search by airline in Flightradar24. Go to the hamburger icon on the top right and select airlines, then search for UPS or FedEx, and click the Routes tab. It should show you a map with all the airports where flights have been filed. You can have it display all routes and then search for A300 flights. I like doing things this way sinceI often want to fly a particular carrier from or to a particular airport. This method gives a nice overview of all the possibilities.

Since we are talking about what FB scenery will next be scooped, it’s KMSP. BMWorld/Amsim just posted a preview on Facebook that I’m pretty sure is KMSP https://www.facebook.com/100066830710698/posts/pfbid031U63MF9A2CkoudHvn5XDNTAkMGRg1Fs5DbErzKfF2jAFAPi2WPr4ELTViybmWtZAl/

Hey all, So, my situation is that I'm on a laptop. Overall it runs FSX pretty nicely out of the box, though it struggles with denser scenery etc etc, basically the usual complaints. Now with P3Dv3 being out, I'd like to finally take the plunge and go for it. My problem is that I don't have much disk space and P3D being the huge program it is, I can't feasibly have P3D and all the add ons on my internal SSD. So, I want to get an external drive for my add ons, such as AI traffic and scenery. With P3D requiring programs to be installed outside the main sim folder, this is the perfect opportunity to make this kind of structuring change. My question is, however, what I should get, and how it will impact my experience: SSD or HDD? And what type connection should I get? Will USB 3.0 be good enough, or should I go with Thunderbolt (though I'm not even sure this is really supported in Windows...)? Any pointers would be very helpful... Best, Benjamin

Fantastic-looking plane as always. Ah, the fond memories I have of the 'old' 747-400X... Looking forward to this one!

Hm, interesting. The LDS767 has always been one of the best performing tubeliners for me. I know about the sliders not always working. I have found that certain sliders do nothing for performance on my setup, and some clearly do. The thing about setting sliders at minimal worsening performance is something I have seldom seen, though. As always, performance and how to setup FSX is highly variable across computers.

Erm... are you implying that a computer can only actually handle the 777 when scenery is on max? Because by that logic, I'm pretty sure your computer can't handle the 777 too. Or do you have all your settings maxed out without seeing a slideshow? It's strange. I always thought it was the most normal thing in the world that you decrease scenery complexity ("dumb down") in order to get a better experience flying complex aircraft. The 777 runs better for you than the LDS767? I find that hard to be believe, honestly. Do you have some figures to go with that statement?

Indeed. My computer can handle the T7, I'm sure of that, but it would require dumbing down the scenery so much that I won't recognize where at all I would be flying. Contrary to the belief of some, I do want eye candy. So there. LDS767 it is.

I don't do politics - it was a genuine question. I didn't expect the answer to be any different, but the thing is, my computer really can't handle those big messy aircraft very well. So there's another reason for me to stick with what I've already got, at least until I get a better computer... Thanks for the answer!

Out of curisiosity, how is the performance of the T7 compared to the LDS767?

So I was reading up over at simFlight Russia, and found this link in a post: http://forum.simrussia.com/index.php?/topic/134-сценарий-Домодедово-uudd-скоро/ It seems like we have a beautiful Domodedovo coming our way! Sadly, you need to have an account to actually see the pictures. I did make an account especially for it, and found it quite worthwhile. The pics look great!

It is my call indeed: Pay $50 for a plane that many have already said is stunning and, knowing A2A is sure to be fixed in due course, or pay $40 extra on a plane I'll fly twice in the period of 3 months. Hm, difficult. I think I know what I'm going to buy... Nope, not going to "waste" those $40. Instead, I'll buy food from that. That said, I won't buy the A2A C172 for another few weeks. Let's see what the situation of that plane is, then and there.

People, of course I'm just speaking for myself, but reading back most comments (including my own) about the price of the T777, I don't think most people are implying that $90 is too much for what you get. People are saying that the price is probably right, but that $90 is simply a lot of cash, regardless of the product you're being, full stop. For something that is just a luxury commodity, $90 is a big number. Ergo, no reason to defend the price of the T777! It's a question of wanting to spend $90 on a FSX addon or not, and that's highly personal.