Looking for maybe a Long Haul Jet?

[Nexus]

Oh come on Gary.
Managing an INS is not that hard.
The hard part is to understand how it really works, but that is not really a necessary knowledge to have when you operate it.

And the freeware CIVA isn't a 100% replica anyway, so it's not required to study 100pages of manuals.

I encourage people to try it, it's a neat way of navigating  8)

[Gary R.]

I know it's not 100% but in some ways though it does require more attention than an FMC.  An FMC is as complex or simple as the user wants it to be. If one flies it as I do, it's nothing to do the perf init and then enter a basic LNAV flight plan.  I fly under ifr with commercial planes.  So, when ATC gives me routing changes or altitude assignements I find it much easier to just disconnect the CMD and fly on heading hold and select my altitude hold and descents as required. Basically, that fnacy FMC isn't doing a lot more for me than a Carousel would the way I set it up.  The INS on the other hand is what it is.  It does one thing.  But, on a long flight, if you want to be anywhere close to your target you do need to update it periodically.  Even in triple mix it can wander up to 10 nm from one side of the "pond" to the other.  Also, it can only hold 10 waypoints.  If you have more, you have to add them and at that it would be cycled back to waypoint 1 and onwards.  You don't need to worry those things with an FMC.

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

I'd wait for the CLS A340-600...it's due any time now...

[Alphajet_Enthusiast]

Yeah but arent those guys waaay inaccurate...  :P
I may be wrong, but the only good payware airbusses I know of are Phoenix.

[Ecko]

Yeah but arent those guys waaay inaccurate...  :P
I may be wrong, but the only good payware airbusses I know of are Phoenix.

Incorrect. The only good one is the SSW A310.

PSS... :-/

[Nexus]

[quote]I know it's not 100% but in some ways though it does require more attention than an FMC.

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

Incorrect. The only good one is the SSW A310.

PSS... :-/

The SSW is pretty good...but I also like the CLS A300...and the A340-600 by them looks stunning...

[Gary R.]

Nexus, what's an ARINC box?  Is that similar to the Delco Carrousel?  The only INS systems I am familiar with are the Delco and the Litton, more so the Delco thanks to the add-on.  I've heard about the Litton systems and that the later models were fairly advanced and used laser gyros.  I wish somebody familiar with both code and the realworld Littons would create an add-on version of that one to.  I heard the Russian equivilant of CIVA has been done for FS but the link I followed took me to avsim.ru which is entirely printed in Russian/cyrelic of which I have no knowledge at all.

[Nexus]

ARINC stands for Aeronautical Radio, Inc.
Which really makes no sense - yet

[Gary R.]

Unfortunatley, CIVA is the only reasonably well represented INS add-in that we have right now albeit inferior as INS systems go.  But, because it was an early system, it fits well in classic airliners.  I wish somebody was able to code an accurate Litton INS.  They were fairly prolific and I'm sure there are some in use today.  It is a decent size hole in our avionics inventory.

[Hussein Patwa]

Getting back to the original point, I have the PMDG 737 and 747.  I found the 737 panel to be very hard to use, it doesn't have tooltips and the print is tiny, especially as I'm visually impaired so I used another panel (see the main FS2004 forum for the new 737NG panel) and that's making things easier, even though I don't use some of the main systems.  I think the 747 panel is probably similar, so I'd probably recommend the PSS 777 or Level-D 767.

Hussein.

[simonmd]

Sorry, don't agree. The LD 767 panel is very good and has some 'voice stuff' to add to the environment but some of the displays are very hard to read. The PSS 777 has loads of flight dynamics problems. See their forum on AVSIM for more details.

Although the PMDG 747 is very complicated, I find the panel very easy to use. The panels are 'zoomable' so you can see them better and the frame rates are pretty good for such a complicated aircraft.

[Hussein Patwa]

Oh i've no doubt they're great products, and yes the voices and flight dynamics do add great realism, but to fly a plane you need to be able to use it's interface.  I guess having a visual impairment just compounds things.  In any case, I'm looking for replacement panels - there's a great one for the PMDG 737, maybe there's others for the others.

Hussein.

[simonmd]

You do know that the PMDG panels are zoomable right? If you ditch the PMDG panel and add another, there is no point in buying Payware in the first place. There are plenty of reasonable models out there, the reason must of us fork out money for payware is the improved and more realistic flight environment and panels. If you remove the panel you may as well be in a POSKY 747 which is free!

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

To wrap things IMO, I would rank the LDS 767 first, the PMDG 747 next, and then the CLSA340-600...each has it's ups and downs...which at the moment, I am too busy to discuss