Captain Sim 707 For FS2004

By Andrew Herd (9 October 2004)

he genesis of the 707 lies in the ashes of Nazi Germany, when a Boeing employee named George Schairer happened on wind tunnel data relating to swept wing aircraft. Schairer got the information back home as soon as he decently could, where it became a key data source in the development of a radical new swept wing bomber, the B-47. Over 2000 B-47s were built and the design was hugely influential, but it so happened that at the same time, Boeing was looking to develop a turbojet powered replacement for the Model 377 Stratocruiser, but faced a significant obstacle in that the investment required was phenomenal and the airlines weren't willing or able to fund it. So the company came up with the Machiavellian strategy of trying to sell the military a tanker/transport design that could be adapted for civilian use. Boeing's carefully designed bait was a jet powered derivative of the KC-97 tanker, but to the board's chagrin, the USAF did not bite, so a rethink was needed - in the end, the company gambled $15 million of its own money and went ahead, hoping that military purchases would get them out of trouble if airline sales failed to materialise.

The design was something of a hybrid, with a fuselage section borrowed from the KC-97 and the wings from the B-47. Initially, the new plane was dubbed the Model 367-80, because the KC-97 was known as the 367 within Boeing, but the name soon got shortened to 'Dash-80' around the time the prototype first flew in 1954. Tex Johnston did two barrel rolls in it over Lake Washington in Seattle and the USAF promptly ordered 29 KC-135 tanker/transport variants, but there was little civilian interest, so Boeing cast around for a sexier name. The company had used numbers in the 500 range for gas turbines and the 600 range for missiles, so it seemed natural enough to use the 700 series for aircraft, thereby inaugating a system they have stuck to ever since. Why they chose to begin with '707' is anyone's guess and if you talk to enough people you will hear all kinds of explanations. Superstition may even have played a part, because 7 has always been something of a lucky number for Boeing (it is interesting how many of their designs either have a 7 in them, or use numbers which can be manipulated to produce the answer 7). Whatever the case, the 707 was a huge success and over a thousand were built before the line shut down in 1991.

The first production 707 flew in 1957 and later became known as the 707-120. This had a flightcrew of three or four and seating for 179 passengers, or 110 in two classes (44 first and 66 economy). Numerous variants were built, which was the secret of the airliner's success - Boeing's pressing need to service their capital meant that they weren't shy about modifying the design if a customer was prepared to place a significant enough order. Prior to the 707, a version change usually affected an entire assembly line with older variants being dropped in favor of newer ones, but with the new jet Boeing threw out the rule book and snatched market share by being prepared to custom build for individual airlines. So the -120 was followed by the -220; the short fuselage, long-range -138 for Quantas; and the stretched -320. The -120B and -320B had the original turbojets replaced with more efficient turbofans; the -320C was a convertible; the -420 had Rolls-Royce engines; and there was also the Boeing 720, which was a 707 with a shortened fuselage and flap and engine modifications so it could be competitive on shorter haul routes; finally, there was a list of military variants as long as your arm. Boeing's competitors never really recovered - the DC-8, for example, only made a fraction of the sales the 707 achieved - and it was only when the Airbus came along that Boeing faced any significant competition in the airliner market.

Forty years later, few of the original fleet survive, those that do being relegated to hauling cargo for third tier operators - though one or two have found their way into private hands, John Travolta's personal transport being a good example. I don't have any trouble understanding why Travolta laid out his cash; modern jets might be quieter and more efficient, but the 707 was a classic.

Boeing's $15 million gamble paid off by giving the company such a head start that it has never lost its place as lead supplier to the airlines. True enough, the Airbus is sniffing at Boeing's heels, but in sales terms, the European consortium isn't an immediate problem. Where Airbus does pose a threat is in the very area where the 707 was such a success - design flexibility - and I am sure that there are people in Boeing with a good enough grasp of their own company's history to understand that a response will be needed, and soon.

Captain Sim's choice of the 707 isn't too surprising after the success of their superb 727. Any readers who haven't tried the trijet yet should seriously consider buying it as well as the 707, because not only do the two sims make a great pair; they demonstrate to perfection what it was like to fly these early passenger jets. Forget Flight Management Computers, forget glass cockpits; these planes came from an age where if a task required pressing two switches, they would be sited at opposite sides of the panel - and if you could see a runway, you could land on it. Though the 707 was fitted with an autopilot, the planes were hand flown much more often than their modern counterparts, not least because the electronics weren't always up to the job in difficult conditions, but also because there was a different breed of pilot in those days, back in the time before accountants did the flight plans.

The package is an 82 Mb download which costs $37.07 and (after the obligatory key code activation is completed) installs five different variants of the 707 and creates a program group containing links to the manual and the '707 TCE'. The latter is the textures and configuration editor, a standard feature of Captain Sim products, which allows the user to load the plane with passengers, cargo and fuel; select crew nationality; toggle smoke and fuel dump effects; and add new liveries. I counted twenty liveries installed with the main package: two for the cargo variant, BOAC and Varig; two for the -320B, American and TWA; thirteen for the -320 Adv, ranging from Air France to PanAm; an Air Force One VC137C; and two for the E3A, a NATO fiftieth anniversary scheme and the standard all white. I have no doubt that many freeware liveries will be posted, because this is going to be an extremely popular simulation indeed.

In addition to the TCE, links to a 14 page systems manual and a 24 page operations manual appear on the desktop, together with a 'Legendary 707' start menu group which has additional links to the repaint kit and an update page. Although I didn't find any particularly major bugs during the review, you can bet the farm that an update will be appear at some stage, as I can't recall an FS project of this size which hasn't needed one sooner or later.

The visual model is extremely good with every animation you could possibly expect, including a sliding pilot's window, rotating tubines, working thrust reversers, smoke effects and as many opening doors as one could possibly want - although controlling them all means assigning the wing fold and tail hook extension keys. The textures are very crisp and most of the liveries show at least some degree of weathering, which enhances the feeling of realism. The highlight of the animation is undoubtedly the control surfaces, which were remarkably complex on the 707, including virtually every high lift device in use at the time, ranging from leading edge slats up to massive Fowler flaps that occupy most of the trailing edge, and of course there are spoilers a plenty as well.

The sim loaded remarkably quickly on my 3.0 Ghz Pentium and I found myself staring at the 2D panel in glorious 32 bit color. Having just upgraded to a 20 inch flat panel - a Dell 2001FP, if you are looking for a recommendation - I have been reassessing my ideas about standards of panel graphics and have come to the conclusion that the quality ranking goes something like: Flight1 and Captain Sim, DreamFleet, then, a long way back, the rest. While the majority of panels look worse as the resolution increases, releases from the top three actually improve. It is no coincidence that all these developers edit very high resolution images using Adobe PhotoShop, while the rest use 1024 x 768 resolution at the editing stage - each retouch losing a little bit more quality until the final result ends up a mess of indistinct color and shadows like bad hangovers. Here is a link to what the panel looks like at 1600 x 1200.

Anyway, with the panel loaded, you find yourself staring at the standard six, a steam HSI, a gyrosync compass, a rad alt, sixteen engine instruments which are slightly too small to read comfortably, four big red fire handles and a set of icons which you are going to get to know and love. And that's just the main panel - depending on whether you choose to use the VC or not, there are another nine to play with (the tenth being the icon stack at bottom left).

The nine include: a radio panel; autopilot panel; two panels for the second officer; the default GPS295; throttles; radar; control column; APU controls; fuel dump; left and right passenger views; and a 'voice' panel. While I am sure Captain Sim aren't trying to pass off the 295 as original Boeing equipment, it is a curious choice of instrument for navigating a large airliner around the skies - the 500 seems more appropriate. A full set of extremely crisp 2D cockpit views are provided, which is a big plus at a time when many developers rely on using fixed VC views instead, and the standard of all the panels is very high indeed. Captain Sim have chosen to simulate a plane which looks as if it has several thousand hours to its name, which makes a change from the factory new cockpits that seem to be the FS standard, and this shows in scratches, dings, dints and patches of exposed primer here and there - all in all, the 'office' looks nicely lived in.

Dealing with the secondary panels in turn, the throttles are well done and the control column is neat, but most users will usually run the sim with it switched out; the APU will be of little interest to the turn and burn brigade, but worked fine when I tried a by the book engine start. The voice panel is a bit gimmicky - different in flight announcements playing depending on which button you press. I tired of this after the first trial, but I am sure younger simmers will love it. The passenger views are also neat, but I would swap the pair of them for a larger pop-up view of the engine gauges.

The overhead carries no less than 102 active knobs, switches and dials, covering the hydraulics, lighting, cabin comms, engine start and anti-icing systems. This is another place where a study of the manuals pays off, because due to the angle the base image has been taken at, the pitot switch isn't that easy to find, but I guess this sustains the spirit of the original. All the traps you can see are operational and flick open when you hover the mouse over them. A particularly well thought out piece of coding means that when you go for an engine start, the relevant rpm, temp and fuel flow gauges pop up, saving you having to shuffle back and forth between the overhead and the main panel and taking the sting out of my criticism of the engine instruments being too small.

The first second officer panel has the AC electrics, air con and cabin pressurisation; while the second is taken up by the fuel system, a thing with so many different gauges, valves, switches, blue and orange lights that it makes me glad I didn't take up a career in the airlines back in the seventies. Yet again, aquaintance with the docs is necessary, unless you want to end up making an unscheduled landing someplace enroute. That being said, the 707 being a relatively simple airplane, the SO panels aren't so complicated that they will discourage the average user; but having played around with the sim, I reckon they are a key part of the enjoyment to be found in working it.

That leaves the autopilot and the radar. The autopilot will be instantly familiar to afficionados of the Captain Sim 727 because it appears to be exactly the same two axis unit with alt hold and localiser functions - the throttle setting is up to you, which is how God intended man to fly. This means that there is a little bit more to think about on the approach than many simmers are likely to be used to, which makes for an interesting challenge, given that the 707 has tiny bit more inertia than the average Cessna. If you haven't seen the unit before, it takes a little time to get your head around, not least because the graphic is too small to use comfortably even on a 20 inch monitor and if it wasn't for the tool tips and the manual there would have been no way I could have worked out what I was doing with the mode selector. The pop up should be at least double the size if it is to be usable - it is the one thing that could be improved in the package.

The autopilot might not be very complicated, but you need to think carefully before you use it. Operation is the reverse of what you would expect from a modern unit - just about the only thing you can do in advance is tune the heading bug, after which it is a case of turning the unit on, selecting the mode, and adjusting the pitch; unless you have hit a height restriction, in which case there is an alt hold function. This unit is not the best part of the sim from a performance point of view and frequently failed to maintain altitude when the airspeed fell below 250 knots, which made testing the approach mode tricky to say the least. Given Captain Sim's excellent record, I would anticipate that this will get fixed with a patch. The radar is a very early unit with an orange screen and three selectable ranges, showing incoming traffic and weather as irregular blobs - there is no rear scan, but then again, overtaking aircraft weren't much of a problem for 707 pilots, in the early years at least.

The virtual cockpit is outstanding and easily good enough to fly the plane, just as long as you don't need to access the functions of the engineering panels. Just about the only problem with it is that some components take a while to load, but this only happens when you first switch into VC mode. Some of the gauges do not work, notably the radar, which is a shame, but then again, you can't have everything and this sim is packed with so many features that I find it hard to criticise. The VC is bright and frame rates were very good - one of the things that it also shows and which I hope the screenshot demonstrates, is how roomy the cockpits were on early jets. There is space to stretch your legs up front in the 707, which will come as a shock to pilots of modern jets, most of which have cockpits designed for Z-shaped gnomes who don't plan on moving around too much. Armed with a copy of ActiveCamera, it should be possible to set up enough views to be able to operate the 707 almost entirely in VC mode, although that would be to miss the glories of the 2D panels, which, at the risk of repeating myself, are among the best in the business. I can't tell you how much of a pleasure it is to review panels where you don't find yourself arguing with the developers about the readability of panel legends - most outfits seem to be content to edit at 1024 x 768 in 16 bit color and end up with a blurry mess. And, joy of joys, it VC mode runs at an acceptable speed on a 3.0 Ghz system, though I would imagine it slows up a good deal on sub 2.0 Ghz systems.

The sound set is very enjoyable; I don't know what you would have to do to a 707 to reduce the noise footprint to acceptable modern levels, but I suspect it would involve removing a couple of engines (-: These were deafening beasts and they smoked their way around the sky in glorious style, but nowadays it is a whole new ball game and the high bypass turbofan is king, which is one reason why so many 707s have found their way to the breaker's yard. I have hardly touched on the flight model, but it is also excellent and this sim will be an education to simmers who have grown up squirrelling Cessnas around the sky - perhaps the best comparison is the default 747 and even then, there is a need to make allowances. At anywhere near gross the 707 needed a lot of pavement to get airborne and nearly as much to set back down again and the sim brings this out extremely well - 6000 foot runways are marginal if you want to fly this sim with anything other than a couple of suitcases in back. Despite there being a surplus of power that makes overspeeds a cinch, the inertia of the real plane is very well modelled and if you drift too low on the glideslope due to lack of thrust, you will be toast.

As you may have gathered, I like the 707 a lot, even if the autopilot needs attention. It succeeds because it has bags of personality and it is nothing short of a breath of fresh air in a market dominated by anodyne simulations of modern tin. Sure, glass cockpit sims are all the rage now, but any fool can fly along a magenta line, particularly when the flight management computer is doing all the work. Developers have an understandable tendency to concentrate on stuff that they know will sell, but what beats me is why simmers don't show a little more imagination when they buy. When it boils down to it, planes of the 707/727 and early 737/747 era were the last generation of airliners that was actually interesting to fly, not least because their cockpits were so idiosyncratic. Modern standardisation is a good thing in terms of crew training, but it surgically removes most of the character from the aircraft and results in sims that are boring to use - ultimately, if you are looking for passes for high street cred in the forums, there is more to be got from flying a beast like this one well than any number of modern airliners.

I have absolutely no doubt that the Captain Sim 707 is going to be a huge seller; because although it is only their second airliner, it completely blows the competition away. The only way of describing it is as a tour de force and despite the fact that it isn't perfect (yet) it qualifies for an Armchair Aviator Award, because it is going to be a classic. I am also sure that the price will cause more sensitive simmers to faint dead away and that there will be endless posturing in the forums about it, but considering that this is the best airliner sim ever released, I don't think the price is excessive. Buying ain't compulsory, but if you have any interest in big tin, you will want it.

The next Captain Sim release is a C-130 Hercules, to be followed by an F-117. Having taken a look at the 707, it would be really interesting to see these guys do some airliners from the Convair 440/540, DC4/6, Constellation era. But right now, there is a lot to look forward to.