Hi, all! I'm brand-new to this forum, but I see a few familiar faces from the VATSIM forums. Hello friends, old and new!
First, I can't believe I'm so late to this party. I've been flying the "enhanced panel" modification to the FSX DC-3 made by Dutch, and loving it. But this, this masterpiece is a sight to behold. Dutch's work on procedural accuracy is of course phenomenal, but combined with the absolute jaw-dropping photo-realism of this cockpit, and I'm just completely floored. I can't believe it runs as beautifully as it does on my very average machine, and most of all I can't believe it's completely free software! Incredible. Utterly amazing.
I've made a list of a few items I noticed while flying it. Some have been brought up before but maybe my insights help; some maybe haven't been brought up before (but RELATED ones have), and maybe one or two of these are new. Or maybe they were brought up in threads I didn't see -- I tried to read them all but it seems they're a bit spread out, unfortunately. However, I don't want this list to be interpreted as criticism. They are very minor issues. If none of these ever get addressed, it's still an AWESOME product just as it is, and I will enjoy it no matter what!
FYI, I'm on FSX-Acceleration on Windows 10 Home, and this is version 3.1406 (downloaded .1405 with "Fixes" patch applied).
- the "sticky chocks" thing -- from what I can tell, the chocks can be set and un-set as many times as desired, UNTIL the sim re-loads for ANY reason. Change in location, change in date/time/season -- those are the key culprits. Anything that forces a re-load of the scenery seems to end chock functionality, from what I can tell.
- is it correct to say that the electrical system isn't fully working yet? voltmeter doesn't seem to work, and, even in the monitor panel, battery seems to hold steady at 24 no matter how many accessories I run with plane shut down and on internal battery (master switch in DOWN position). This was AFTER a flight was completed and I was parked and shutting down; got curious how long the battery would last, and it seemed to be indefinite.
- I know there was a patch applied to make the various radio knobs tune-able even when the radios don't have power (being mechanical as they are). this still needs to be applied to the transponder and ADF.
- also with the transponder -- it seems like turning it off blanks the dialed-in beacon code to 0000, and turning it back on resets it to 1200. I don't know if that's intentional but I'm guessing it's not?
- while I know the authentic autopilot is a work-in-progress, I am having an issue with the makeshift one that makes it unusable in certain phases. when tracking a radial outbound, and engaging navlock mode, it automatically flips the VOR1 OBS to the reciprocal and starts 180-ing the plane. There seems to be no way to track a radial OUTBOUND other than using heading mode and making periodic manual adjustments according to the CDI. (oh well. flying /A was never supposed to be an exact science anyway. LOL!)
- the manual says that when the radio altimeter range is set at 10x, the radio height alert horn should also sound at 10x the dialed-in altitude. The behavior I am seeing is that the horn sounds at 1x the selected altitude regardless of which range the radio altimeter gauge is set to. (NOTE: I BELIEVE THIS IS A DOCUMENTATION ERROR, NOT A GAUGE IMPLEMENTATION ERROR -- but having never used the real-life version of that alert horn dial, I can't swear to that!)
- even with the captain, first officer, and stewardess callouts OFF, pulling the mix to idle/cutoff triggers the "see you later, Ernie" sound clip.
- the checklist "cold-and-dark" auto-reset feature fails to reset cabin lights, prop or wing de-icing, aux hydro pumps, or the radio altimeter power knob.
Finally, one quick note on the nature of the banter between captain, first officer, and stewardess -- I personally found it funny, but I definitely see some of it is a bit PG-13. What the developers might consider is overwriting the "sensitive" clips with duplicates of the more innocuous ones, but then offering the originals in a separate folder to be moved into position and overwrite the duplicates, by those who choose to do so. A few years ago I was an "iRacing.com" member and there was an add-on "spotter pack" compiled published by another member, which contained real-world radio transmission clips between a race driver, his crew chief, and his spotter. And there was some coarse language in some of the clips. The developer basically offered up two versions of it -- one with all clips included, and one with the more questionable ones omitted. Just a thought.
Thanks again for a wonderful product. I kid you not -- seeing it appear on my screen and not only function on my PC well enough to fly, but to fly SMOOTHLY and not laggy and just so physically beautiful -- I welled up with a couple tears of joy, I swear it!
Bookmarks