Round 2 - Avionics

Have you ever watched Mohammed Ali dance around the ring in a fight? It is like watching an elaborate ballet being performed with grace and skill. He basically dances around his opponent throwing effective left jabs and the odd hard right bomb while weaving left and right. Fly! not only weaves and dances around FS2000 and FU3, it has set the new standard for avionics in aircraft simulation. With every simulated aircraft, Fly! throws punches directly into the faces of its completion. How is this possible? Microsoft Flight Simulator has always been the King of Cockpit! Let me explain.

When I first fired up Fly!, I selected the King Air twin as a 'simple' plane to startup and fly around in. I felt that considering my extensive background in Civilian flight simulators and my exposure to real aircraft, starting up the King would be as easy as Flight Simulator 2000. I was looking at the cockpit and noticed a few similarities that F2000 and Fly had in the main window. The similarity ends there. The entire cockpit of the King Air 200 is simulated in all views from the cockpit pressure gauges to the King flight computer. The cockpit is about 90% accurate compared to a real King Air and you can also program frequently used cockpit windows with the function keys.

Fig. 4. One of Fly!'s Hawker Right Cockpit Views

I selected the main battery switch to power up the aircraft, set the throttle and left engine mixture, and then pressed the left engine start lever. Nothing. Nada. Zip. "Wait a second, didn't FS2000 allow me do start the engines with just a simple flick of a switch or by hitting the 'E' key? I'm Mr. Hardcore, and I thought I could do anything since I've mastered FS2000!" With frustration in my eyes, I quickly scanned around the cockpit to check if I was missing any other critical component. I went back to the main cockpit view and noticed that my entire cockpit dash was dead. No lights were on and nothing worked. I had drained the batteries in my five-minute examination of the cockpit since I had left the engine starter on. Fly's auto-engine startup sequence steps through each item in the order required to start the engines with a colored arrow pointing at each sequential switch. It's a nice touch, and after numerous times of being shown the startup sequence, you can eventually start the aircraft on your own. I called a friend who is a pilot in the King Air 200 and who also owns Fly!. His comment was that the startup sequence was nearly identical to that of the real McCoy. He also mentioned that the King GPS is very realistic, and operates like a true King GPS unit found in many general aviation and commercial aircraft.

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  This realism can be a double-edged sword. The complexity that Terminal Reality has built into all their modeled aircraft is breathtaking, and they are obviously targeting the ultra hard-core crowd. You do have the option to simplify all avionics, but I think that takes the fun out of the flight simulator. Apart from this ultra realistic drawback, this type of attention to detail is the same throughout all aircraft and is very refreshing. For some aircraft however, the flight computers do not work as completely as they do in the real world (example: Hawker 800), but they give you an idea of how complicated the real world aircraft really are. Fly! is not a simple "press E and take tune a few radios and you are off" type simulator. Total flight management is now in place with pressurization, auxiliary power unit panel control, fuel consumption, and other realistic elements.

Fig. 5. A V-22 Osprey in FS 2000

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 offers several new aircraft with improved avionics. The 777 cockpits contain simple and pleasant views around the aircraft, and a few nice clicking MFD's. All aircraft in FS2k have only front view control functions. Flight Unlimited 3 is in the same category however the level of detail in the gauges is a generation behind both Fly and Flight Simulator 2000. Flight Simulator 2000 avionics are virtually the same as they were in Fight Simulator 98. There is more attention to detail with crisper looking gauges that appear to function and respond more realistically than before, but here is where the improvements end. There are no other noticeable improvements that add to the simulation effects other than logo night-lights for the Jumbo jet and the fact you need to hold down the start button and wait for the engines to spool up to start them.

Flight Unlimited III is in the same boat as FS2000, sporting simplified cockpits. All cockpits look unrealistic and are ProPilot quality. This may prove to be a drawback for the hard-core enthusiasts but those who have almost no time in civilian flight simulators will enjoy these cockpits due to their ease of use and lack of complexity.


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