{tag [Review]} {tag [PC]}

Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Check.  MSFS X Acceleration Pack, Check.   First Class Simulations Add-ons, Check-Maybe.  The United Kingdom software company First Class Simulations has released several add-ons to the MSFS X which may be fun in free flight but add little imagination beyond that.

Three add-ons are included in this review. They are: 

Commuter Xpress 2
This add-on offers five different aircraft currently operated by US and European airlines:

•  Dash 8
•  CRJ-900
•  Saab 340B
•  Embraer 190
•  Fairchild Dornier 328 Jet & 328 Prop

Along with the aircraft comes the Commuter Xpress 2 program which allows you to choose from six different airlines in the US and Europe which all operate the featured aircraft.  Depending on the airline, you can choose from several different city pairs and departure times. The program then plops you at your departure airport at the terminal with the route loaded in the GPS.  The rest is up to you.

Hurricane
Fight WWII again by flying six different versions of the Hawker Hurricane.  Fly in free flight or fly a mission called “Hurricane Landing” where you need to return to the airport after your engine fails soon after takeoff.  Either way you don’t get to shoot any guns.

Early Years of Flight Missions
This add-on was by far the most promising of the lot (to use a British term) due to the realism of the simulation along with one historical and several loosely-based historical missions they recreate.  One mission has you pilot the Blériot XI across the English channel which was the first aircraft to achieve this milestone in 1909 winning a 1000 pound prize from London’s Daily Mail newspaper. 

The second mission is to fly a steeple chase route in the Santos-Dumont 14-bis an early European designed aircraft which looks like a big box kite. 

Lastly, you can fly the Wright Model B, the second aircraft created by the famed Wright brothers.  It was the first to fly in circles and other similar maneuvers.  In this mission you fly a circuit over the countryside near Dayton, OH.  In 1908 the Wrights flew a similar circuit near Washington, DC in trials for the US Army and the aircraft became the first to be sold to the US Government.

Graphics:  80%
The aircraft representations were typical for the commuter aircraft and the Hurricane series.  I was impressed with the Wright Model B and the Blériot XI, which both conveyed the rickety-ness of these early craft.  The Model B even showed how the pilot sits upright as opposed to the original flyer where the pilot was prone on the top of the wing.

Sounds:  50%
I was not too impressed with the sounds since the original aircraft of MSFS X seemed to have more believable sounds like the tortured whine of the King Air 350 gear retraction I spoke about in my review of the original software.  What stood out in the add-ons were cheaper sounds and some hiccups.  The gear retraction on the ERJ-190 starts out okay but then sounds choppy like an Internet stream buffering.  Either the sound file is corrupted or the action of raising the gear causes a slow down in processing.  The end result is a bad SFX.  The Hurricane was similar in that when the engine failed in the one mission it offers, it sounded like I tossed a trash can around instead of an engine seizing or throwing a rod.  I did notice however the sound of the wind whipping through the wires of the Wright Model B, which I thought was some nice attention to detail.

Gameplay: 60%
The Wright Model B and the Blériot XI missions were well worth the time spent as these aircraft fly nothing like today’s aircraft.  Early aircraft were so inherently unstable and power plants so unreliable that the term intrepid aviator had literal meaning.  For some perspective, the original flyer could only fly at a speed between 27-35 knots.  Any faster or slower and the aircraft became very unstable.  The Model B had some improvements however; making the Model B climb into the air takes an artist’s touch, try to climb too fast and you will stall.  The Hurricane offers free-flight which can get boring fast, but they did add one mission that, as a flight instructor, I have to take issue with their criteria for success.  The aircraft’s engine falters but does not fail soon after takeoff.  You get about 30 more seconds of engine life before it completely stops. 

The first time this happened I returned to the airport via a 180 degree turn since I had speed and altitude.  (Normally single pilots are instructed to look straight ahead for an emergency landing area if the failure happens below 500 feet)  I was able to return to the runway and landed the opposite direction of departure but due to bad pilot technique I could not stop in time and ran off the runway, deep into the woods. The second attempt I decided to perform an Immelman which is a loop followed by a roll at the top which points you in the opposite direction right-side up.  This allowed me to land on the runway and stop but I failed the mission. 

On the third try I figured out that they wanted you to fly the traffic pattern and land in the same direction I took off, yet I failed because while I landed on the runway I rolled off to one side.  The last attempt I landed in the proper direction and stopped while on the runway.  Mission Passed!

What is the problem with all this?  In aircraft instruction we “simulate” engine failures all the time and many times we don’t have time to fly all the way around the pattern to land.  Usually we look for a field off airport.  Should speed and altitude permit you can turn back to the airport and make a downwind landing.  At towered airports, you declare an emergency and you are cleared to land on ANY runway.  So it is disingenuous to say the only way to successfully make an emergency landing is to fly the traffic pattern, land on the same runway and stop on the runway.  A successful landing is one you can walk away from! 

The Commuter Xpress 2 program was a fair attempt at helping create some scenarios for armchair airliner pilots. The program was helpful in creating city pairs, schedules, and preloaded flight plans. Where the program falls short is that it doesn’t challenge you to achieve anything.  Once you fly the flight there is no analysis of the effort:  No penalty for flying too fast under 10,000 feet, or flying through an assigned altitude, or burning too much fuel for the run.  Do any of the above and in real life the FAA or your company will give you grief.

Controls/Interface:  40%
As mentioned before the controls are pretty typical in the airliner add-ons with a few important exceptions.  The mode control panel for the flight director/autopilot on some models is outdated if not somewhat inaccurate.  After consulting a friend who flies an ERJ-190 some of the buttons in that area are missing.  You can set the vertical speed however there is no way to engage that mode so the autopilot will follow it.  I could not get any vertical modes of the autopilot to work.  The only thing the autopilot would do is follow the heading bug, hold altitude (but it won’t auto capture like most autopilots do) and follow the GPS.  I had to hand-fly the pitch in climbs and descents while the autopilot did the rest.  In addition the GPS is a G1000 which is in none of the advanced cockpits today.  If this is supposed to be a first class simulation then where is the Flight Management System (FMS) which is the true navigation interface?  The controls for the other add-ons behaved quite normally as their designs are much simpler.  I noticed that you can’t fly the Wright Model B at full power and hold altitude, it will overspeed.  I have no information as to if the actual aircraft behaved in the same manner.

Summary: 58%
Harrison Ford said to me once, “Like most pilots, I don’t have as many airplanes as I’d like to have".   That can be said for the virtual pilot as well.  The Early Years of Flight add-on would be my first choice of purchase for its attempt to show the true nature of these early craft and teach some history through some of the missions. Commuter Xpress 2 is a 2001 version that was updated for FS 2004 and again for MSFS X.  The aircraft fly like many of the other airliners available for MSFS X, however I was troubled by the unavailability of some of the key functions. (vertical modes of the autopilot)  In the pro-pilot world we would call maintenance if these parts didn’t work.  In addition, the scheduling program could use further development to include challenges that help the gamer experience the operational aspects of the job.  The Hurricane add-on could also use more development to include more missions.  The Commuter Xpress 2 and Hurricane add-ons however are not fatally flawed and would always make a nice addition to the virtual aircraft collector.  But before you tackle the big iron or the fast and deadly, you may want to start where it all began.