 |
|
|
|
|
y
first review was of
Dino Cattaneo's F-14 Tomcat, and that was about a
year ago. Here's my second review, this time it's a photo realistic Concorde
panel by Norbert Jaun. I’ll be writing more this year, in fact I’m already
planning a third review which should be out in a few days.
I guess first of all I should go over my system details.. This is a homebuilt computer with Windows 98 Second Edition, Flight Simulator 2000 Pro, an AMD K6-2 400 MHz processor, 96 MB of RAM and a Voodoo Banshee video card. When I'm at full-screen mode I am at 1024x768 resolution with 16-bit color. I usually get decent frame rates in FS with the default aircraft, but some aircraft and/or panels tend to slow down my frame rates. I'm hoping this panel isn't a problem.
It’s a 4 MB download, and most of that size is from the BMP files, sound files and gauge files. The sounds included are altitude callout and pushback sounds, plus switch clicks, air conditioning and brakes sound. In order to avoid overwriting my existing Concorde panel, I put the panel files under Aircraft/FSFSConv/Panel.Conc. I backed up my Concorde’s panel.cfg file before modifying it, and you should too. Once you’ve saved a copy as panel.bak then simply remove all text from the panel.cfg file and insert:
[fltsim]
alias=fsfsconv\panel.conc
I didn’t want to fly all the way from New York to London, so I decided to fly from New York to Miami, an actual flight the Concorde used to make (or so I’ve read).
I loaded Flight Simulator and selected the Concorde. The panel isn’t bad at all, however many of the gauges are "stretched", but still readable. Nearly all the gauges appear to be the default Concorde gauges, with the exception of the air conditioning switch, the fasten seat belt switch, the no smoking switch, and one or two others. Remember when I mentioned the brakes sound earlier? While I was there at the gate with my parking brake on, I could hear the brakes sound, even though I wasn’t moving. I guess it’s because there was a slight wind that was registering a little bit on my indicated airspeed so the brakes sound gauge thought I was moving. This is a feature I could do without, because I’m sure the brakes on the Concorde wouldn’t sound this crappy, and they probably wouldn’t be that loud.
This panel displays a yoke, but it pretty much gets in the way so I turned it off. The button to turn the yoke on and off is a big Y, which is just below the GPS button and to the left of the fuel button (I highlighted it in yellow on the screenshot).
After starting the engines I was ready for pushback. This panel includes a pushback gauge, which is pretty simple to use. First you have to bring up the pushback gauge, and the button to do so is to the upper right of the yoke button (I’ve highlighted this button in red on the screenshot). The pushback gauge appears over the transponder. I had to resize it to a larger size in order to read and operate it. All you have to do is turn the knob to select how far back to be pushed back and what direction you wish to be pointed in, and press the call button. You can hear the transmissions between the plane and the pushback crew, and then the slew activates and you are slowly pushed back.
After going through my preflight checklist I taxied to runway 31L. I noticed that the fuel gauges on the top panel seem to be non-functional. They show zero, even though my tanks are full. I hit the fasten seat belt sign (ding dong) and taxied to runway 31L. I set my autopilot for 45,000 feet at 1200 fpm, airspeed hold at 250 kias, and heading hold at 314 (the runway heading). I taxied into position, gave it full throttle and afterburners and away I went. I think I need to practice my Concorde piloting skills because when I lifted off I only had about 10 feet of runway left!
This panel didn’t seem to cut down on frame rates very much. The climb and cruise were uneventful. While I was cruising at FL500, I made some turns to check out the autopilot. Speed and altitude remained pretty steady, except I lost just a little bit of altitude (only 100 feet). As soon as the turn was complete the autopilot regained the 100 feet.
I began my deceleration and descent about 400 nm from Miami. The autopilot made a very nice ILS approach, but my landing could have been better. Like I said, my Concorde skills need practice.
This panel deserves a 90 out of 100. The only problems I found with this panel is that a few of the gauges were stretched and distorted, and the fuel gauges don't work for some reason (the Fuel Low lights work though). This panel did not seem to cut down on frame rates, if at all. If you asked me, I would say go ahead and try it out for yourself.
I apologize that this review may not have been 100% focused on the panel. There's not much to report about the panel, since it's mostly made up of default gauges. I hope you liked the review anyway, and I would appreciate your comments. You can contact me on ICQ if you like, my number is 9677084.
Curtis Kooiman
crk112@pldi.net