I'd been hankering for a little civilian flying in FSX lately, but after having such a great payware stable of aircraft in FS9, the stock FSX planes were letting me down.

So over the weekend I started doing a bit of research on FSX payware...and once again it came down to the Level-D 767 and the PMDG 747. I was just about to take the upgrade on my Level-D 767 do to the upgrade cost being so low, but then I saw that PMDG had a boxed version (published by Aerosoft) available at Best Buy, for $30.

I've always been curious at how good the 747 was after spending 100s of hours in the Level-D, so I grabbed it at a local BB yesterday afternoon and spent the remainder of the day plus most of the evening between the manual and quick test flights. The systems are all similar enough to the 767 that I was able to get it up and running quickly enough, program the FMC, and get it in the air.

'In the air'...ouch! I have no touch hand-flying this beast at all. I set up a few quick take-offs and landings to get comfortable, and it helped...but I still felt far behind the aircraft. More reacting than acting, so much more practice needed.

Well, I have to say I'm pleased with the purchase. It matches the bar that Level-D had set in my mind...which was pretty high. If you're looking for a payware heavy, but don't feel like spending upwards of $60USD, I think this would be a great addition your FSX.

And now some pretty pictures from this mornings first 'real' flight from Atlanta to Denver.

How's the performance?

You'll take a fairly hefty hit from stock aircraft, but it's still very flyable with the sliders cranked up and my payware scenery/weather on my PC at a 19x12 res (C2D8500,GTX280,4G RAM)

I'm getting ~20-30fps at takeoff vs 45-50 with stock aircraft.

I bought it the moment it was released, and I've flown hundreds of hours in it. It's a great aircraft. Used it for short hops and for long distance.

...get a little proficient in it, then start playing with the failure modules for the best part of this simulation

Any tips for hand flying this monster to a half-descent landing?

I took another medium range flight earlier today and it was smooth as butter all the way down until it all went to crap at about 5 miles out. It was a bit windy, and I may have been a bit heavy, but I went 'missed' 3 times before I just finally gave in and exited the flight.

I can hand fly my departures without issue now, so I'm feeling a bit more on top of her, but I just can't get the feel of landing...it's so damn big that it has an odd sight picture, plus it seems to have sluggish throttle response.

Anything that anyone can add would be helpful at this point.

Well, it's several hundreds of thousands of kilograms you're flying, so yes, it's very sluggish, both in control surface response and in responding to changes in your throttle changes. And your passengers will thank you for not making too abrupt movements

Regarding the throttle, best if you use autothrottle as much as possible. It will slow down in the air at a rate of 1nm IAS per second; acceleration is faster though. And think ahead. Much further ahead than when flying the 767. When landing, first try landing a few times completely automatic. Then set up for a landing and when the aircraft is stabilized and descending with 700 fpm, disable autopilot (keep autothrottle, though) and take over yourself. Make sure you have the flight director turned on - it will show you where to point the nose (i.e. keep it centered).

...and there are some good training tools on the PMDG Wiki - see here.

Ugh.

Nah, not for me then.

Thanks for the links Legend. They set me in the right direction...through a ton of reading, I found tons of tips that were extra helpful.

I fact, I was able to perform my first long flight (8 hrs)and ended with a hand flown night landing that was quite gentle. Granted...it was on the threshold, but it was a greaser.

Great jet, too bad about the FPS though, defiantly lower, the MD-11 gets better FPS, on a par with LDS 763 FPS.