Best DC-3 for FSX?
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Thread: Best DC-3 for FSX?

  1. #1

    Best DC-3 for FSX?

    Hello,

    In my spare time I'm a volunteer for a British Aviation Museum that has within its collection 3 airworthy DC-3 Dakotas. I currently give guided tours of the cockpit to interested visitors and was wondering if there was an accurate FSX model of the aeroplane?

    Most visitors are 'boys' in their second or third childhoods, but every day or so, I do get the younger person that tells me that the radios are in the wrong position, or some other gauge is not standard. Seems that nearly all of them have 'flown' the default FS2004/FSX DC-3 which bares no real similarity to any of our airframes.

    Best wishes,

    Martin

  2. #2
    Manfred Jahn and company's Basler BT-67 is excellent, and its free :mixedsmi:

    One thing to remember was that in those days, there wasn't much of a 'standard' instrument layout. If you look at pictures of vintage airplane cockpits, you will have a hard time finding two alike lol. Sure the major levers and controls were usually in the same place but instruments, radios, and so on could all be different depending on what pieces of instrumentation were available at the time.
    "The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams
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  3. #3
    Coastie Dolphins/Spartans CG_1976's Avatar
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    Didn't Manfred do also the C47??

    AMD FX 8-Core Black 4.2Ghz, 8G Ram 2TB HD, W8.1 pending W10, ATI R5 2G X2 Crossfire
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  4. #4
    Ditto to what PilottJ said. The cockpit instrumentation may have followed a general pattern for a year or two, but to call it "standard" would be a stretch. About the only thing you could really count on was the throttles, mixture, and other mechanicals.
    Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there."

  5. #5
    I'm a sad DC3 fan...... still waiting for something decent the UIVER DC2 however is awesome! just squint your eyes a touch and its a DC3

  6. #6
    At the risk of getting bombarded with unnecessary comments, I really would genuinely like to know what you people find so awful about the Just Flight DC3 series. We took great time and patience to get shapes and details correct. There's a huge amount of detail in the models that people have never commented on. I know there is criticism of the texturing in the VC that has been well covered but what else is so wrong? We built over accurate plans and even the tyres have separate tread blocks modeled in. What else do we have to do?

    Please try to keep comments useable.. I am genuinely interested to know.

    It was obviously good enough for PC Pilot - they gave it a Platinum award.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by pilottj View Post
    Manfred Jahn and company's Basler BT-67 is excellent, and its free :mixedsmi:
    Just too bad that the BT-67 is an abomination to most DC-3 lovers...

    Still a chance Manfred and Hansi (Hans-Joerg Naegele) will team up to create a VC worthy of Manfred's superb external DC-3/C-47 model.

    Fingers crossed!

  8. #8
    I love the previously mentioned Basler. Make sure to find the high resolution gauges for it too. You'll want a better PT-6 soundset for it as well. I aliased it to another payware plane. Without much of a payload you can get it in and out of just about anywhere. She'll stop on a dime with reverse thrust. I like this plane a lot more than a good chunk of the payware I've bought.

    I am still hoping A2A will pick up the DC-3 someday. I say that about a lot of planes these days...

  9. #9
    SOH Staff .."Bartender" AussieMan's Avatar
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    Nothing wrong with your DC-3 Bazz. In fact I have almost 100 hours in it. It is a great aircraft to fly. The Connie keeps me on my toes though .


    Cheers
    Pat


    "Some people might say that freedom is being alone in the bush with the only sounds being the murmurs from the birds ... but I believe freedom is at 5000 feet with no other sound than the engine roaring."- William Hutchison, a young man taken from us far too young (16).

  10. #10
    I believe there are only 3 DC3 and/or C47's available for FSX. The default plus Manfred's upgrades and the BT-67, the MAAM C47, and JF's DC3/C47 pack.
    I like them all.

  11. #11
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bazzar View Post
    At the risk of getting bombarded with unnecessary comments, I really would genuinely like to know what you people find so awful about the Just Flight DC3 series. We took great time and patience to get shapes and details correct. There's a huge amount of detail in the models that people have never commented on. I know there is criticism of the texturing in the VC that has been well covered but what else is so wrong? We built over accurate plans and even the tyres have separate tread blocks modeled in. What else do we have to do?

    Please try to keep comments useable.. I am genuinely interested to know.

    It was obviously good enough for PC Pilot - they gave it a Platinum award.
    There's absolutely nothing wrong with the JustFlight DC3, it is without doubt the best available. I can't understand why some people on here seem to have a downer on JustFlight because their products have never disappointed me, there good, honest value for money, good support and you know what your getting.


    Regards,
    Ian.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by bazzar View Post
    At the risk of getting bombarded with unnecessary comments, I really would genuinely like to know what you people find so awful about the Just Flight DC3 series. We took great time and patience to get shapes and details correct. There's a huge amount of detail in the models that people have never commented on. I know there is criticism of the texturing in the VC that has been well covered but what else is so wrong? We built over accurate plans and even the tyres have separate tread blocks modeled in. What else do we have to do?

    Please try to keep comments useable.. I am genuinely interested to know.

    It was obviously good enough for PC Pilot - they gave it a Platinum award.
    Sorry Baz im not trying to take a swipe at you, but I find that the textures both in and out detracts from the final product, compared to many other products within that price range and era, they to me, are somewhat lacking, this has been noticed on recent releases

    The paint kits that are released, lack a lot of detail and very frustrating to work with, and will take a lot of time to work with but again, that will only solve the exterior not the VC.

    Again, no offence Baz but in the recent yrs leaps and bounds have been made with FSX aircraft both modeling and textures, as you said in another post, developers these days need to keep on top of the ever gowning demand for quality

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by bazzar View Post
    At the risk of getting bombarded with unnecessary comments, I really would genuinely like to know what you people find so awful about the Just Flight DC3 series.
    Good thing this topic is here, not on some other forums I could name... because my comment might piss off a huge number of simmers!

    Your only problem is that your name is not PMDG or A2A.

    There's a lot of fanboism in FS these days. If company A doesn't have all the features in their product that company B has, then company A must therefore be full of slacking goodfornothings and their products must suck. Never mind that that's a totally stupid and illogical viewpoint, it seems pretty common. Certain companies have been elevated to the status of deities.
    Your only problem with the DC-3 is that you don't happen to have one sitting in a conveniently located hangar where you can pick it apart whenever you want to. MAAM-SIM does, so it gets the kudos while your work is rejected as second-rate - never mind that it is the best FSX native model available and probably a good deal more detailed than the aging MAAM-SIM models (which suffer from low-res modelling - a symptom of its age and the requirements of the time, not the skill of the designer or the quality of the reference material (we must recall that it was originally built for FS2002 and has been updated since then - but not rebuilt from the ground up!))
    Others of your products are rejected because shallow simmers don't share your same taste in texturing - which you have acknowledged. That isn't a bug - it's simply your style - so don't worry about it too much. I happen to kinda like it, myself. A quirk of the shallow psyche is that they must have the latest and greatest! So your typical shallow simmer probably brags about their time on the latest PMDG tube or their newest commercial hub airport scenery, whether or not they actually know how to use them... and bags on stuff that they don't like as much for no good reason. (I like to call this FSSnobbery - and I confess to having a touch of it myself, though I don't like to admit it. And I agree, it sucks. Recall it was FSSnobbery that put Mike Stone out of production...)

    So take whatever comes your way with a hefty bag of salt, remembering that the typical simmer is a bit of a proud fool. Your work is fine as it is.





    PS - I like spending time on SOH because it seems to me that the guys here are not FSSnobs. We're a forum of hobbiests and developers - and it seems like that is a catagory that overlaps fairly frequently. I respect that and I want to sincerely compliment you and thank you here for your hard work and understanding - and for your sincere passion for flight simulation.
    "Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." - 2 Nephi 31:20

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  14. #14
    In my humble opinion, the MaamSim DC3, which I have had since Fs2002,
    is still the best available despite its age.
    The key difference is that the VC was created using photographs, a method which
    seems always to result in a far more realistic effect than drawing, however well that
    may be done.

    The model was based on the real world aircraft that the museum owns rather than a
    generic "DC3 look" that does nothing for the default or JF versions.

    The quality of the VC is what sets one model above or below another one's
    standard, rather than the exterior view.
    The immersion factor, which is key, is never going to be achieved by an exterior view,
    however good and detailed that might be, without an excellent and functional VC.
    These days, the customer expects all the switches and controls to do what they do in
    real life and the sound to be first rate.
    I accept the point about snobbery made above but personally, I don't care who made the
    aircraft model if its excellence is apparent.

    For such an iconic aircraft, is is perhaps odd that none of the developers
    have seen fit to produce a new model to today's standard.

    Regards,
    Nick.

  15. #15
    I am completely with IanHenry and EMatheson on this. I have never had any cause to regret buying anything from Aeroplane Heaven / Just Flight, and their service has always been second to none.
    Rats - why won't anything work properly first time?

  16. #16
    Sadly i too am a DC3 freek, and I also have Just Flight DC3 series, it is a great plane and I do fly it every chace I get!!!
    Marvin Carter
    No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.

  17. #17
    I'd like to play devil's advocate here a bit if I may, though I largely agree with what some of the others have said. I thank Bazzar for asking for honest and constructive input...not every developer is so open.

    I do think there is a certain amount of Fanboism in sims in general, though I don't necessarily agree with the sources put forward above.

    Truly, I do believe that there is a certain bias towards companies like A2A or PMDG, but bias in terms of expectation based on past performance, not necessarily in terms of prejudice against others as such. Both A2A and PMDG have developed a well deserved reputation for having detailed, accurate, and beautiful products. This is not to say that Just Flight doesn't have a good reputation...more on that below.

    Case in point. While I have never actually flown anything in real life that A2A produces (don't I wish), I can tell you that I used PMDG's FS2004 737 to prepare for my real world 737 training. Was it "full real"? No. Was it impressively real for the perhaps $100 I had put into it and FS2004 combined? Definitely. As such, I don't think that it's unfair if these products are met with a sense of expectation that they will be detailed and complete...they generally are. That's the entire point of building a reputation.

    In some cases, this quality comes at a premium, and the fact that the PMDG 737 comes in at over $65 and the Just Flight DC-3 can be found for $30.65, should be lost on no one. But of course the fact that the A2A Stratocruiser (w/o Accusim), which is a really quite detailed and attractive product and retails for $36.99, should be lost on no one either. There is an unavoidably subjective cost to value ratio which "attractive but (comparatively) simple" aircraft are going to come out on the losing side of when compared to "attractive and (comparatively) detailed" aircraft when the price starts getting close. And it's here where reputation might nudge a buyer one way or another. I don't think that is necessarily unfair.

    Before I go any further let me clarify that Just Flight does not have a bad reputation in any sense that I've ever been able to determine. It's just that, IMO, Just Flight seems known for making very good airplanes at approaching premium prices (my personal cutoff for that being the original cost of basic FSX itself) whereas A2A seems known for making planes with perhaps a notch more accuracy and quite a bit more systems fidelity for about the same price. Consider that the P-51 retails for about $30 as well.

    And it's here that I think that the true bias comes into play. There is definitely a sense in sims, again IMO, that "harder is better", sometimes irrespective of whether it is more accurate or not. Not mentioning any product in particular here, but while it is nice to have a working Flight Engineer panel in the cockpit, there's a reason that pilots long to get out of "sitting sideways"...it sucks! Personally, if the flight engineer was traditionally responsible for managing fuel flow, I'm perfectly fine with him doing it in the sim. I don't need to fiddle with fifteen boost pumps to feel like I'm a pilot. Many others believe differently. Some excoriate others who note (sometimes rightly) that a sim seems too hard or unrealistic in some fashion. That's when the "it's supposed to be hard, it's hard in real life!" arguments come out; even if, in real life, it took three men and six arms to do the same job the sim pilot is expected to do by himself.

    This is the bias that I think, sometimes unfairly, often plagues add on developers. Not that increased realism is bad. But that realism is often abnormally raised to be some sort of end in and of itself. Therefore I do agree that the accuracy increase to price increase ratio is definitely skewed somewhat. Still though, I don't think it's quite fair to slam those companies that put the effort into giving the community what it wants. It's just a quirk of the audience.

    At the risk of blathering on more than I already have (I apologize, I can't seem to be terse when I write), I'll tell Bazzar (and the OP, God save his soul) why I personally chose the Just Flight DC-3 over the other offerings.

    1. My Interwebz research suggested that the MAAMSIM DC-3 had a better flight model than the JF version. That said, I understood the JF model closely matched the stock DC-3 and I found the stock model to fly believably like I would expect a DC-3 to...which was good enough for me. I have had no complaints about the JF DC-3. She flies just fine.

    2. The JF DC-3 is a newer model and by all accounts looks great on the outside. This isn't a failing necessarily of MAAMSIM. It's just an older product.

    3. Much has been said about the JF VC. Personally, while I would like to see it more "used" looking, it's a good looking cockpit and, significantly, sharper I feel than the older MAAMSIM bird. It does have a ever so slightly "skewed" perspective to it that makes me feel like I am flying after taking too much cough medicine. But it still looks better to me that the muddy older cockpit of MAAMSIM which seems to have a more normal perspective.

    4. One big negative of the JF product for me, and one which I gather is common across several of their products is the paint kit. I have several JF aircraft and I have often found that finding repaints online has been difficult. Based on the fact that I have seen several people now who have voiced complaints about the difficulty of using the provided paint kit (I'm not a painter myself), I can't help but feel that these two things are related. Perhaps this is to encourage simmers to purchase the expansion packs that JF provides which are generally well done, but add cost, which returns us to the cost/value discussion above. But I think it really helps to sell a product when modders produce thousands of repaints for a model...maybe it's the impression of getting something "for free" which is a strangely powerful incentive (things aren't sold with a free set of Ginsu steak knives for nothing). Sometimes though, it helps improve the product itself. The JF Wildcat has a few bizzare combinations of aircraft roundels that are decidedly ahistorical. Since my old squadron has a very personal connection to the Wildcat, I'd pay good money to have someone do it right.

    In the end, JF's good looks and believable, if (reportedly) slightly inaccurate flight model won out over the older, though perhaps wiser MAAMSIM model. Other than wishing I could find a nice "flying the Hump" repaint for it, I have had no regrets and enjoy it thoroughly.

    Again, my apologies for my big mouth, and thanks for reading...(if you did )

    Deacon

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Timbohobo View Post
    I'm a sad DC3 fan...... still waiting for something decent the UIVER DC2 however is awesome! just squint your eyes a touch and its a DC3
    Thanks for that :salute:

    Cherio, Rob
    Dutch National Aviation Theme Park and Museum.
    No DC3 without the DC2

  19. #19
    Senior Administrator huub vink's Avatar
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    Bazz, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the AH/JF DC3, however as everybody has the default DC3 and Manfred's C47 and Basler were offered free, it is most likely that more people are familiar with these models than the AH/JF DC3. Actually when I first saw this thread I immediately had the AH/JF DC3 in mind.

    So, perhaps the only thing which is wrong about the AH/JF DC3 is that is payware, while there are freeware alternatives available.

    Cheers,
    Huub

  20. #20
    Just a more general perspective, without having even seen any payware DC-3s, from someone who is new to adding add-ons to FSX even though he's been familiar with Flight Simulator since before Microsoft acquired it:

    - People are hidebound in their expectations, and grow more so with time. As habits and expectations ossify, anything that takes even a slightly different or fresh approach gets instantly excommunicated on the Trollnet.

    - People like _shiny_. Witness recent Staggerwing vs. Stinson SR-8. Both are perfectly fine, the, SR-8 is in fact far less buggy than the Staggerwing, and yet.......SHINY. Nobody's noticed that the keen-looking edge lighting effect on the cockpit wood side panel of the Staggerwing is baked in.... when it didn't have to be. And this from really expert modelers and texture and materials artists. I'm not nit-picking, they're both just fine as far as I'm concerned, but..... SHINY. So everyone is excusing Alabeo for a host of minor sins and claiming major realism, why? SHINY! <g>

    - Finally, people are just astonishingly lazy. I mean look at us, 4 million years of evolution and we really haven't gotten very far. Feeds into the two points above. The current obsession with fancy tube liner systems simulations, a remarkable accomplishment in fact given basic primate nature, in fact, I will argue, feeds the customers' laziness incredibly well.

    You see, with a simpler plane, flying with no push button assistance and FMC programming, there's both the need for imagination and figuring out, in some cases, how, say, you're going to land a tail-dragger actually on the runway, with no instruments and not being able to see said runway at the most critical moment (primate laziness will even tweak aircraft.cfg to ease the view, to avoid the challenge), and not really knowing whether and from where and when you might have a crosswind or not (well, there's always ATIS).

    All said in good fun, but I think the above three things probably cause ALL the add-on developers pain, even the currently adulated ones.

    To be honest on the other side, though, some are just more expert and get more spectacular results with the same resources than others. And some have a maddening enough attention to detail that without funneling this neurosis into astonishingly accurate work, they'd probably have to otherwise be hospitalized. It is difficult to compete with them if you are a normal, well-adjusted person.

  21. #21
    I happen to really enjoy the JF DC-3, but I'll let you in on a little secret....

    I also really like {gasp} The DEFAULT DC-3 (say it isn't so!!!!).

    And......I like the MA'AM DC-3.

    That Basler is also one of my favorites.

    One cannot have too many DC-3's, and I think they are all good (but differing) interpretations of a classic.
    Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there."

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by CG_1976 View Post
    Didn't Manfred do also the C47??
    Yes, he did, but it currently uses the virtual cockpit of the stock, MS DC-3. This is expected to change after he finishes with the Super DC-3, which will feature a new virtual cockpit.
    My computer: ABS Gladiator Gaming PC featuring an Intel 10700F CPU, EVGA CLC-240 AIO cooler (dead fans replaced with Noctua fans), Asus Tuf Gaming B460M Plus motherboard, 16GB DDR4-3000 RAM, 1 TB NVMe SSD, EVGA RTX3070 FTW3 video card, dead EVGA 750 watt power supply replaced with Antec 900 watt PSU.

  23. #23
    If you REALY like to fly DC-3s......Fly in "Easternhops" DC-3 Wednesday....Moderated by ZK-BOB.......Search "Easternhops" on the web, sign up, get TS3 and away you go!.....Great Fun! :salute:

  24. #24

    DC-3

    If I could do any better I'd criticize someone's products! Since I can't, all I can do is politely suggest an improvement, with emphasis on POLITELY!


    I'm so new to FS and computers in general that the only real complaints I have are when I buy a product and it looks like it came out of a cheap comic book.


    If you don't like a product make suggestions, if they don't improve quit buying their products and they will fade out of the picture.


    From the looks of JF's DC-3 all they need is to provide a sweaty flight suit that smells like hydraulic fluid, avgas and south east Asia to have a perfect product.

  25. #25
    And the award for most egregious necro-posting goes to....

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