Advice Needed

[Ntr09]

The CH quadrant is the best for the money.

 

-NR

[Longranger]

Thank you very much for putting the time in to write this! It was very helpful and brought to mind some things I had not considered. I had totally forgotten about the ATR! I will surely look into that.

Forget it. The ATR is in my opinion one of the worst paywares to choose from. (It isn't really difficult to satart and fly but its interior leave a lot to be desired and accuaracy... Sorry it has npthing to do with the real flight profile of an ATR... To even compare it with the B777, sure there are some minor points but the FMC is in a league of their own. In comparison the the CRJ starts to show its age.

 

And the Carenado and the default planes: there is a huge diffewrence. If you really look at the Carenado B58 and the X-Plane 10 model they really look, sound and feel like different planes (although the Carenado B58 isn't officially 64 bit capabale yet, it works fine with a 64 bit SASL plugin.

[Peter T.]

Forget it. The ATR is in my opinion one of the worst paywares to choose from. (It isn't really difficult to satart and fly but its interior leave a lot to be desired and accuaracy... Sorry it has npthing to do with the real flight profile of an ATR... To even compare it with the B777, sure there are some minor points but the FMC is in a league of their own. In comparison the the CRJ starts to show its age.

 

And the Carenado and the default planes: there is a huge diffewrence. If you really look at the Carenado B58 and the X-Plane 10 model they really look, sound and feel like different planes (although the Carenado B58 isn't officially 64 bit capabale yet, it works fine with a 64 bit SASL plugin.

According to their description, they aim for eye-candy and shallow system depth, the exterior models are one of the best I have seen so far, with ultra high definition textures. Because I do not have the plane I cannot speak for the flightmodel however I have heard that the performance and movements are realistic.

 

You cannot compare a 777 to an ATR, that's like comparing Laminar Research to Microsoft...completely off. BUT! The 777 has many flaws in its modelling, such as the wheels are modelled to big and high as well the gears belong in the ER not LR version, the engine modelling is highly inaccurate, and the wingflex looks really strange, the cockpit is better though but still looked somewhat cartoonish. I have more but I will stop so that people won't bash on me

The CRJ still is a great jet, with 3d modelling and system both realistically developed, same goes with the Carenado planes however (I think) they are converted so it is in a slightly different category...

[Longranger]

According to their description, they aim for eye-candy and shallow system depth, the exterior models are one of the best I have seen so far, with ultra high definition textures. Because I do not have the plane I cannot speak for the flightmodel however I have heard that the performance and movements are realistic.

Well, I would only talk about planes that I have. I have the Dash 8 and the ATR. The ATR has a oretty basic flight model  but you can do things with this plane that are everything but not realistic. The cockpit of the ATR is worse and simply cant't compete with the Dash 8. And even the exterior model isn't so much better than the updated Dash. Especially if you look at the ATR directly from behind it doesn't really llok realistic. You could say that the Dash 8 with its carrige in the wings looks a bit weird, but that's more a questuion for the design of the original.

In my opinion there was only one time when this plane made sense: At the time of its release you were able to use it in the 10.20 betas since it doesn't depend on a plugin. Since most of the planes now have their 64 bit plug-ins especially the Dasdh 8 I would have a pretty hard time to advise someone to buy the ATR. It is simply to expensive for the things this plane can do. I would always say take the Dash. It is the better plane.

Concidering the B777, thanks I know its weaknesses pretty well, although I am not so sure how far they are still valid after the last update. At the moment I have more to do with smaller airports so I was not really able to check it out ion detail. But I can tell you why I don't consider these details so significant. I pretty much knew what to expect, before the plane was released. It was obvious from the history of the plane. There was Ramzess who wanted to start something in the 7x7 series but he alwayas said: I start with one of the smaller planes, and just after he met Philipp it became suddenly the long range version of the 777. It was obvious who was the reason behind this: Philipp simply has the best FMC package for X-Plane at this time. He had the existing CRJ-200 and he looked fo5r a better plane for his FMC.. The core component of the Boeing 777 is the FMC, nothing else. When I looked at their timetable it was pretty obvious that there would be several huge bugs. Such a big and complex plane needs a lot ot of man-hours. With onlky two main developpers in this timeframe this was pretty much impossibel. So in the beginniong there were reallay big problems like the wing flapping. Especially in the first release it looked more like a bird than like a plane.but with each update it became better and better. I think now the 777 is a pretty food stepping store for the 757, and after this plane is done you could try to merge several of the new developments into the 777.The cockpit got better and better and the FMC simply doesn't find a real competitor in X-Plane at this time.OK, If I look at the flight behaviour in its class I would probably choose the A-380 from Peter Hager.

The CRJ-200 was a pretty siginificant plane but I think it reaches the end of its lifetime. It is simply a different generation than the B777 and due to is complexity it would be pretty hopeless to do something like Carenado or the Mu-2 and bring it up to date to todays planes, they can probably keep it running till the end of X-Plane 10 but it will show its age. The B777 or the Jetstream 32 simply show their release dates. They are the childs of a different environment.But in fact even these planes are now a generation old. All newer projects like the 727 the A320neo (although I believe that they have a severe problem: to much dependency on LUA-JIT) or the coming Saab 340 are the next generation. They no longer look at their compatibility to X-Plane 9, which simplifies some things. and enables them to concentrate on X-Plane 10.

We are simply in an evolving simulator.But not only X-Plane evolves, its environment too. If I compare some flights in 10.03, 10.10 or 10.21 You could ask if this is really the same simulator. This is not only the result of changes in X-Plane 10 but tools like OSMA2XP and regional librarties now offer totally different possibilities.

Edited June 13, 2013 by Longranger

[Peter T.]

I can say that is your opinion only, I still think the ATR is a great plane, the CRJ isnt that old honestly, released approx 1 year ago. The dash looks alright, but it is released way before the CRJ, so isnt that ageing as well? The Mu-2 is also "old" released years back,

The "next generation" of aircraft add-ons, is all not compatible with x-plane 9, because youre correct...they simply move on, ditching the ones not able to upgrade.

[twgin]

Someone mentioned turbo props, can't fail to mention Felis' planes, esp IL-14 (ok, radials) and AN-24.  I've always had a weakness for the russki planes and Felis has to be one of the more imaginative designers out there.  The planes aren't easy to fly or manage (russian avionics !) but are challenging and fun; his methods of interfacing with the planes is unique and fun to use.  The IL-14 is a outstanding freeware plane right now; read a few threads and it can be made to work in 10.21 64 bit...

 

Terry

 

p.s. happy belated B-day to the OP !!

[Longranger]

, the CRJ isnt that old honestly, released approx 1 year ago. The dash looks alright, but it is released way before the CRJ, so isnt that ageing as well? The Mu-2 is also "old" released years back,

Well, I could probably say time fliues, since the CRJ was released two years ago (although I bought it only in the feburary 2012 since I decided for a big switch with X-Plane 10, after I decided to freeze FSX August 2011). Yes the Dash 8 and the Mu-2 are older but they are in a different situation. The strength of the CRJ-200 is at the same time its weakness. While the Dash 8 and the Mu-2 had the advantage that they could also profit from new tools and features that were developped independendly. The biggest feature of the CRJ is at the same time probably its biggest weakness: the FMS. While the FMS of the CRJ was obviously a foundation for the FMS of the B777, which will be the foundation for the FMS of the 757, I am quite certain that the differences are growing from month to month. It gets harder and harder to merge features back and at one time it is simply easier to say: Okay this is only on general support, but I won't merge features back. The differences are simply too big. I think the CRJ already passed this point.

It gets more interesting and makes more sense financially to simply design a totally new plane with all the new features that you now have, then to merge the "old" to the new standard. If we look at Dan Klaues statements it is quite obvious that even the older Carenados had past this point already and he had to rewrite  several of the older planes. And in fact even after the update you feel the difference. IMHO the Mooney simply doesn't meet the same standard that the Cessna 172 or the Bonanza F33 have. But on the other hand it is logical. There simply is a limit what is feasible in a free update. You always have to consider: How many new planes will this update sell? 

For the CRJ-200 this number won't be very high, since the Dash-8 and the CRJ were updated X-Plane 10 and even 10.20 some time ago. The Mu-2 on the other hand will generate several new sales with its update. The old Mu-2 was simply not very attractive for people who started with X-Plane 10. The CRJ-200 on the other hand was really the MUST HAVE plane when X-Plane 10 was released. Now there is more competition and it is only a question of time when there are several new, and more attractive planes in its segment. And we arte talking about a C++ program which was started probably more than 3 years ago. You can bet that there are several functions in the CRJ that are simply clumsy and inefficient compared to the B777 or the B757.

And if we look at the ATR. While ATR will probably get an update in the next few weeks I must admit that I don't see any real interest in this plane from McPhat or Aerosoft. I would even go so far to say that Aerosoft was more interested in X-Plane when X-Plane 10 was released than it is now. Although this will probably start to change. With projects like simheaven.com X-Plane 10 simply starts to deemonstrate its superiority even for FSX-Users. Now there are the tools and the projects that totally change the face of X-Plane.10. Simply take a look at    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYp9Irum-8E. While this mainly shows the new Anchorage airport, he also integrated the resources of a small change in the autogen buildings, which will become a small regional library for germany... Only with some modifications for the deafault buildings and some modifications from one of the old "standard" libraries...

But even if X-Plane becomes more interesting for Aerosoft again they will be more interested to sell new planes that they develop and not this "old" plane that probably brought them more complaints than real sales. The ATR simply has nothing that would make it special. Furthermore it is not a typical GA plane and it is primarily VFR that will profit the most.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Longranger

[BWolf7]

Well, all I can say is that I want my $30 back for the ATR