The sticky thread about the excellent a380 has caused me to get into flying airliners like I've never done before (which could mean, "more often" or "with more competence", but in my case it just means "more often") It also caused me to explore some other airliners.

I think everyone knows about the POSKY 777 which is top notch. May I suggest three others that you may or may not have tried:

1. Ilyushin Il-96 by Kirill Konovalov.(at flightsim.com) Great looking VC and exterior, but two things are necessary. I had to change the config file to say [flightsim.0] and [flightsim.1] because the two aircraft were listed as [flightsim.1] and [flightsim.2] which meant they didn't show up on the menu.

Secondly, I had to click off mipmaps on the fuselage using DXTBMP because they were just too fuzzy otherwise. Maybe if your graphics card is faster than mine you won't need to.

Don't let those things put you off. It's a great plane, and it loads with the engines running, which is much more convenient than trying to start the Project Tupolev TU154. One day I hope to do that, after I print and study the manual.

2. BAC 111 by David Maltby (at BritSim.com) Before there were regional jets, there was this one, and the photoreal VC is top notch, along with the rest of the plane.

3. EMB 190 by PAD (at premaircraft.com) The level of detail in this aircraft is much higher than most other PAD projects, in my opinion. The VC looks sharp, and the EMB 190 is just a sleek, modern jet to begin with.

So, if you need a break from what you usually fly, or if like me you just have the urge every so often to discover a new aircraft that is really good, I leave these three for your consideration.