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As most of us high quality simmers know, Commercial Level Simulations, also known as CLS, make extremely high quality aircraft for both FS2004 and FSX. However, it seemed that they lacked the ability to make as high a quality 2D panel and virtual cockpit as the rest of the aircraft in most cases. That was, up until now.
CLS now has refined their modeling software to make new high quality aircraft models, 2D panels and virtual cockpits. As you can see in many of the screen shots that I have taken of the aircraft the model just looks that little bit more detailed and that VC and 2D panel look that much more real, or rather not as much like a picture taken and stuck onto FS.
In the following review I will touch highly on the actual visual model and the interior model of this fine product. As you can tell I am extremely happy about the VC in this product and the overall outcome of CLS's newest product, and I hope that if you have it or are going to buy it you will as well.
As I'm sure you don't want me to give you a whole history of the actually aircraft like in some other review's on FlightSim.com, so I'm not.
Let's get right into the review...
As most simmers know there have been several payware and freeware models of the 747 and some have excelled and some have gone to the recycle bin of our desktop. For example on the 747 what is really hard to get right on the exterior model is the first class 'hump' right behind the flight deck. Yes, we all get that but if a developer or a modeler is going to do a 747 then they must be prepared to spend timeless hours on their computer modeling then tweaking then tweaking and over and over. It's just not the best aircraft for someone to try if they have only done a few models for flight sim. CLS on the other hand worked their magic at Project Open Sky before trying a payware 747 at CLS. Yes it's true several members from CLS are on the modeling team at POSKY. Back to the modeling part. CLS's modelers have done a superb job of creating this masterpiece for flight simulator. As seen on most 747 models it is hard to smooth the upper deck into the bottom deck as it is so hard to get both the angle from the swoop down to the rounding of the fuselage.
Another part of the fuselage that is hard to get right is the angle of the flight deck windows and the pointyness of the nose on the aircraft as on the default FS model it looks like Microsoft stuck the Concorde nose on that thing. But as seen in the screen shots compare the two photos, look how the nose just slightly bends down from flight deck window to the round where the radar is.
One section of the wings that just bothers me on this product is the wing flex that is so common with the 747. On this model it seems that the wing flexes more at the engines and we all know that the wing flex has nothing to do with where the engines are mounted on the wing. I think that CLS could have done a better job on the wings. It seems like they spent so much time on the fuselage getting it perfect which it is they were rushed by the release date trying to get the wings right. Although the wings look good while on the ground and the actual model of the wing is good but it goes all wrong when they go flexing.
As usual CLS has done a great job on the paint jobs of all the airlines and I found that as they are not used to doing older aircraft they did the paint chipping very well. In fact, they did it better that the Captain Sim 757 which is considered by most to have excellent paint chipping on the aircraft. One issue I had about the painting was the APU section of the paint job. The model was fine but the painting didn't seem to quite line up with the ridges of the APU exhaust. Not too much difference though but just enough to notice to the plain eye and high performance computer where small details are noticed more.
Like most other simmers out there all I used to care about was a good visual model but as the years pass I was looking more and more for realistic flight dynamics. No I'm not saying I want the aircraft to fly well, I'm saying I want it to fly like the real thing. This means that the developer has to do extensive research on how the aircraft flies. Most important is the pilot's best friend... "V-Speeds". These speeds are very important to how the pilot flies the aircraft in terms of flaps and pitch and AOA.
In this case I think that CLS has done an excellent job on the flight dynamics. Now I'm not no 747 pilot but from what I have seen and heard of CLS has got it spot on this time. Unlike on some of their other models when you are on final and you put out some more flaps the whole aircraft goes a hundred feet in the air. Aircraft just don't do that. With this product it is so nice that you can be flying along and tracking the VOR inbound and you put some more flap out all you notice is that you can fly a little bit slower and your aircraft flies a little bit more nose down.
Now I'm not going to be writing three more paragraphs about the V/C but what I'm going to do is show you a series of pictures side by side and you can nit pick all your way through them and find the smallest differences. But there is one thing that I have to say is that all other developers should be very scared about this V/C because it is the most realistic V/C I have ever flown from.
Over all this aircraft is revolutionizing the way that we think of flight simming. There are minute imperfections that could be fixed but I'm guessing that when you look at the overall aircraft, that means from model to V/C to flight dynamics, you will be astonished at how far CLS has come since their founding just a few years ago. My congratulates go out to CLS and everyone that was involved in the making of this superb aircraft.
Graeme Herbert
aviator.777@hotmail.com
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