FS2Crew Flight1 ATR Edition For FS2004

By Andrew Herd (29 April 2006)

guess that - like so many things - 767 PIC and the DreamFleet 737 started the trend, but one of the penalties of airliner addons becoming more and more sophisticated has been the problem of getting your head around all the actions needed to control and navigate the plane. Once upon a time it was so simple; you just loaded the plane on the threshold, dropped some flap, released the brakes, pushed the throttles all the way forward and held some back pressure on the stick until the rumbling stopped. Sure, there were the delights of VOR navigation to face, but it was a level of complication most people could handle without their heads going pointy.

Then came the 'procedural' sims. I have mentioned two that became the most popular, but there were others, including Ralph Tofflemire's Boeing 747-200, the MAAM-Sim R4D and even some freeware, notably Dai Griffith's Shorts SD 3-60, which I reviewed as long ago as June 2000. These addons exposed simmers to some fascinating insights, not least the fact that airliner engines aren't started with an on/off switch. While the market was digesting this signal fact, and other developers were taking note and planning their own complex airliners, the vast majority of users carried on loading these addons 'hot' and thundering off into the wild blue yonder in much the same way they had in the simpler sims of years past. Okay, navigating from place to place meant getting your head around a flight management computer, but an hour or so spent skimming the manuals was usually enough - as long as you didn't want to start from cold and dark, because these sims came with checklists at least a mile long and some were so realistic that if you could get the engines running on one, you could probably do it on a real airliner. A measure of how good the standard of coding had become was that 767 PIC (now known as the Level-D 767) gained brief noriety after 9/11 when the media leapt to the assumption that the hijackers might have used it to work out how to fly real 767s, though the truth turned out to be far more prosaic, in that the terrorists had simply paid their money and gone to flight school.

Beyond the majority lay a select group of simmers who took the attitude that if a simulation had enough coding built in to support realistic engine starts, they ought to be doing things by the book, and although these users were in a minority, collectively they had a strong voice and that, combined with the competitive state of the addon market and the natural tendency some developers have to simulate everything but the kitchen sink, meant that it wasn't long before we were faced with a rash of addons so good that real airline pilots were using them to bone up before doing checkrides. But great though these packages were, they produced a new challenge, which was that most simulated cockpits designed to be used by two pilots (and in the case of the 747-200, a flight engineer as well) and single simmer operation wasn't exactly a recipe for freedom from stress. In response to this, developers begain to experiment with the idea of a 'virtual co-pilot', the theory being that this guy could take over some of the tasks that required a third or fourth arm, but for reasons which have never been entirely clear, the concept only went so far, most implementations being restricted to a voice that called out the V-speeds, although a few went a little deeper. As a result, many simmers turned to Voice Buddy, which lets you speak commands to the plane and for a long while this was just about the only way of flying the more complex sims and guaranteeing to stay out of the hands of the brain police and the straight waistcoat. Very fashionable sir, now just let us give you this nice injection and you can stop worrying about those frame rates.

Another issue that cutting edge simmers began to identify was just as different airliners have different checklists, so do different airlines have different ways of modifying them, so a couple of years back we began to see debates in the forums centering around the fine detail of when engine starts and such like were done and it must have been around this period that the developers of FS2Crew had the germ of an idea. What would it be like if a simmer using one of the complex airliner sims mentioned above could have a virtual co-pilot that stayed with him all the way through the flight, carrying out all the actions that a real co-pilot would? Not only that, what about adding in realistic cabin crew calls at different stages in the flight and even allowing the captain (you) to interact with the rest of the team by pressing buttons on a yoke, or joystick? And how about you could hear the two pilots and the cabin crew and even the ground staff talking to each other while they did this? And why not add in animations, so you could actually watch the first officer (FO) holding the stick forward if you were in virtual cockpit view and stuff like that? Wouldn't it be great, particularly if the whole thing was compatible with FS2004's built-in ATC and even with live ATC like VATSIM?

Not possible, you might say.

Welcome to FS2Crew. You have to hand it to these guys, they aren't afraid to think big and to take on challenges that others have thought impossible. Like you, when I was first introduced to what FS2Crew actually did, I assumed that the product would fall far short of what I wanted, but the good news is that FS2Crew delivers on pretty much every count and the developers are to be congratulated on a great idea, well executed. But before we get onto the review, a short quiz.

1. Can you recall, from memory, how to put the ATR no. 2 engine into hotel mode?

2. Can you select AC Wild to on without looking up how to do it in the manual?

3. Can you program the ATR FMC in four minutes flat?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then read on, because you and FS2Crew ATR edition are natural partners. If you are hazy about which panel the AC Wild switch is located upon, you will need to familiarise yourself with flights that start and finish with the ATR cold and dark before you get around to installing FS2Crew, or the amount of reading you will need to get the plane to the threshold will take rather longer than the average real world ATR flight. With FS2Crew installed, the FO does some of the work, but you are required to do everything the captain should, by the book, and that means having the checklists to hand and being intensely familiar with the Flight1 ATR panels and systems, if you are not to spend your entire time with your head buried in the manuals. In the final analysis, you will end up doing more work as pilot flying the ATR with FS2Crew installed than you would if you flew the ATR 'bare', but on the other hand, when you land, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have conducted your flight almost exactly the way a real crew would have done.

Before I get onto the main body of the review, I had better explain that FS2Crew ATR edition is one of a range of products designed to work with various different FS2004 airplanes. When you buy an FS2Crew product, you don't actually get a plane to fly, instead, you get a crew simulation package that is matched to a particular default FS plane or a third-party addon. Earlier packages in the range included ones for the Aerosoft/PMDG 737 sims, the default 737 and the default (or the Flight1) Cessna 172 - an interesting feature of the FS2Crew range being that each new package has included new and more advanced features than the ones that preceded it, with the result that each one is better than the last. At the time of writing FS2Crew has announced a version that will support the incomparable Level-D 767, which is very exciting, and I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a version for the PMDG Boeing 747-400 before long. My great hope is that at some stage FS2Crew will look at some old-timers like the MAAM-Sim R4D, because that would make the most fantastic pairing.

FS2Crew Flight1 ATR edition is a rare case of an addon for an FS addon, so by definition you must have a copy of the Flight1 ATR installed on your hard disk before you can install and run FS2Crew. The ATR is a classic FS package, so it shouldn't need any introduction, but be aware that you must upgrade it to SP3 level before you can run FS2Crew with it - at the time of writing, Service Pack 3 was still in beta and only available in the F1 ATR forums, but the release version was due out soon and should be available here by the time you read this. It is worth noting that Flight1 have incorporated several tweaks into SP3 specifically for the purpose of supporting FS2Crew.

FS2Crew ATR edition is a 155 Mb download protected by the Flight1 key system and the installation went without a hitch, although the version I downloaded repeatedly crashed the ATR to the desktop, until I installed FS2Crew's service update 1.3F, after which everything was hunky dory. The one problem I ran into was a warning error about FS2Crew not being able to find a gauge when the ATR loaded, but the work-around proved to be to load Flight Simulator as the very first action after booting my PC and ensuring that the ATR was loaded before running any other apps. I also took the opportunity to install a new AIRAC cycle for the ATR from Richard Stefan's outstanding Navdata site. Hey, Richard, if you are listening, I have never thanked you for setting up such a terrific service. I and ten thousand other simmers owe you a huge debt of gratitude. Respect!

The installation creates a new program group under the start menu, containing a link to a very well written manual. READ THIS FROM END TO END AT LEAST TWICE. Failure to do so will result in fear, doubt, frustration, tiredness and emotion. Why? The alchemy of putting FS2004, the Flight1 ATR and FS2Crew ATR edition results in the most complicated and realistic simulation I have ever seen, the extraordinary thing about it being that it all works, though only if you do things exactly the way the software is exptecting you to. If you are used to laissez-faire, turn-and-burn simming, then you will have a raised eyebrow or three by now, but FS2Crew takes flight simulation into a new dimension - in fact, I am going to make one of my very rare predictions. I am certain that many simmers will like flying with FS2Crew so much that they won't move over to FSX until their favorite version of this product is ported.

The FS2Crew manual makes a big deal of the need to start with a standard FS configuration, which boils down to loading the default Cessna 172 in 2D panel mode before loading the ATR in 2D panel cold and dark mode. After installing the package, you must also run the ATR configuration manager, click reset, and save the configuration again in order to activate the FS2Crew ATR configuration of the panel. Other than that, the only other alteration you need to make to your normal setup is to assign two joystick buttons or key presses so that you can interact with your FS2 crew - I assigned a couple of flippers on my CH Products throttle quadrant. The only possible issue is that one of the buttons uses the 'increase Concorde decision height' call, so if you are one of the select few running the FS2002 Concorde under FS2004, you have a minor problem. Next you have to learn various additional click spots which are scattered about the ATR 2D panel and VC and do such things as display the captain's watch (sounds wacky, but you will need it), bring up the departure and approach briefing screens, and allow the captain to make various calls. The most important of these is the DSP SEL button, because clicking this launches FS2Crew - if you don't click the button, you can fly the ATR normally. The second most important click spot is over the 'time remaining' numbers on the watch, because once you have got starting the plane down pat, clicking on it lets you short circuit many minutes of wait, although you cannot do this between minutes 22 and 18, which is the time allowed for the FO to do the walk around.

Clicking DSP SEL triggers a female voice which announces 'FS2Crew activated', assuming you still have the parking brake set. Those who clicked it off can go to the back of the class. The next step is to fly the tutorial which makes up the bulk of the manual - if you do not do this, I guarantee that you won't have the slightest idea what is going on and your chances even of leaving the ground are slim, because once activated, the only way to turn FS2Crew off is to exit the ATR in Flight Simulator. I would suggest printing the FS2Crew manual before you begin and most users will also benefit from having Markus Wichmann's excellent flowchart to hand; this is available on the FS2Crew website and is so good that something like it really ought to be included in the installation, because it serves as a template for running just about any flight you might care to make. The flow chart is 14 pages long, but combined with a solid understanding of the ATR panels work, it details exactly what actions you need to take to ensure that you and the FO can work through the checklists and complete a flight. What you don't get, by the way, is a fuel calculator, but a very good one is available here.

By way of a change, the tutorial flight is between Jeju International and Busan Gimhae International in South Korea, a part of the world which I have never explored in Flight Simulator and which is made a refreshing change from simming in Europe and the US. Very shortly after the lady speaks, the doors on the plane will open and your next task is to power up while your number two walks the walk. This is the moment simmers who do not know their way around the ATR panels will run into trouble, because you if you have no idea how to select DC external power and AC Wild on, you will end up scouring the ATR manual, which takes time, a commodity you do not possess in unlimited amounts, given that once FS2Crew is loaded the FS clock keeps ticking even if you hit the pause button. Although FS2Crew doesn't seem to mind swapping out of FS2004 momentarily to read a pdf manual, do it too much and the general effect will be to disrupt the flow to the extent that you will miss something and lose the plot.

Apart from the click spots on the panel and the primary and secondary keys you allocated as part of setup, the only other graphical intrusions FS2Crew makes are the departure and arrival briefing, flight attendant and ramp agent panels, which let you set various parameters and interact with the other characters who populate your plane. The interface is very clean compared to earlier FS2Crew products because of the unprecedented cooperation that Flight1 gave during the development of the product, one of the neatest features being that you are actually presented with virtual paperwork, such as the takeoff data card; these appear on screen, and even a virtual cup of Joe should you get time to ask for it. The ground crew speech is extremely well done, with no less than 21 different voice sets from all over the world; and although you only get two different captain's voices and a single flight attendant, they come from real ATR crews and speak with authority.

After getting the power hooked up, you call up the 'departure brief' by clicking on the ATR RMI and a sub-panel appears to let you setup and examine various parameters which will be used to configure the takeoff briefing 'you' will give. Then, you tune the radios and call Vera at operations to let her know you are getting ready for departure, before you preflight the FMC. You must be slick at doing this, because there are only a few minutes before your co-pilot returns, gets the avionics up and running and then tells you he is going back to talk to the passengers... and your flight attendant will ask for an intercom test, all of which require part of your attention. In all there are 30 minutes available to preflight the plane and get the systems going, which is plenty of time if you know what you are doing, but precious little if you need to read about where to find half the switches and systems. If you do happen to get behind hand, it is easy to get out of synch with the workflow, bringing the risk that FS2Crew will go pear-shaped - and if that happens you will have to start over. For some reason I cannot account for, trying to stay with the process is as fun as all got out, the only problem being that when FS2Crew does throw in the towel it isn't necessarily obvious that disaster has struck, with the result that it is possible to waste a lot of time trying to get your First Officer (or whoever) to talk to you, when his virtual presence is out to lunch. The reason for this behavior is that we are looking at a scripted application, a bit like a very smart adventure - if you remember those - and if you start do things out of sequence there is a risk that FS2Crew will fall over. Basically, what the app does is to assign a named mode to each phase of the flight and you can only progress onto the next when certain conditions are met; if you never meet them, you won't progress.

It is critical that as pilot flying, you initiate the flow of a number of checklists at the correct moment and if you forget (or don't realize) that you have to do this, your virtual co-pilot will sit twiddling his thumbs and admiring the view, while you fume and wonder what is causing the delay. The initiation of some of these checklists is dependent on other tasks being accomplished, so for example you cannot start the before takeoff checklist until the flight attendant has told you that the cabin is ready. Another example of a gotcha is that if your heading bug is not aligned to runway heading prior to executing the before takeoff checklist, the FO will not make the "Runway heading lined up" call and you will wait, and wait, and wait, until either you figure out what you missed, or give up and begin over. And as a final example, if you do not ensure that the FMC has calculated the TOD, then your virtual FO won't be able to work out when to hand you the landing card... and you will have to restart the simulation. It is a game, but a very absorbing one.

I would estimate that expert ATR users who use the F1 addon all the time and have Markus Wichmann's flowchart to hand will probably take at least half a dozen attempts to hit the jackpot and complete a flight; while occasional users who are reasonably familiar with the ATR, but don't habitually start the sim from cold and dark, will probably take double that number; and if you haven't used the ATR at all, well, I wish you luck, although experienced simmers will have fun trying, as long as you have patience. Newbies will just get overwhelmed and my advice is that if you fall in this category and are interested in this kind of flight simulation the best idea might be to buy something a little less complicated like the Just Flight Dash 8 and learn on that, before progressing onto the Flight1 ATR and then adding in FS2Crew later.

By now, many readers will be wondering if this addon is for them, given that it appears that even those who know the Flight1 ATR inside out will have their work cut out to tame it. My answer, curious though it may seem, is that using FS2Crew ATR edition adds an entirely new dimension to flight simulation and many users will discover that the successful completion of an ATR flight becomes an end in itself. If you don't use FS2Crew, ATR flights can be made by treating the plane like an overgrown Cessna, but you can only do that kind of thing for so long before tiring of it and excellent though the ATR might be, the experience of flying it loses something with repetition, just like any other addon. Despite it being almost my favorite package, I hadn't used my ATR for a while before FS2Crew came along, but now I can see some enjoyable evenings before me: first I will master flying it with FS2Crew ATR edition loaded; then I will add in real weather; then FS2004 ATC; and then, who knows, maybe logon to VATSIM and take the plunge into the ultimate in simulation?

Verdict? When FS2Crew ATR edition is working well, the effect is almost magically real, with the FO talking through the cockpit actions and checklists with you, with occasional interruptions by the flight attendant, all of which is interspersed with FS2004 ATC, assuming you have that running. The flip side is that the whole thing is highly choreographed and if you forget to perform some seemingly unimportant action, or do two things in the wrong order, or have to look something up and get too far behind, FS2Crew is liable to lose its place and you will have to begin over. This, as the developers point out, is not so far from the reality of modern day flight operations, a point with which it is very hard to disagree, with the exception that when real pilots lose their place, they also lose their jobs, if not their lives. So whether FS2Crew is for you will depend entirely on the type of simming you like. If the idea of calculating gross weights and following checklists to the letter in order to start an ATR sim from cold and dark appeals, then you have just found nirvana. If you like to turn-and-burn, hours, if not days of frustration lie ahead. But FS2Crew is a very valuable introduction into the way real ATPLs fly airplanes and although I have my own turn-and-burn tendencies, I haven't enjoyed reviewing a product of this type so much in a long time. It really is good.

One more thing. Regular readers will know that I have a strong interest in flying old-timers of the DC-3/4/Constellation generation. Quite a few simmers simply don't 'get' what makes these planes interesting, but part of the appeal is that they were complicated and unforgiving machines to fly in their own way. One of the reasons for the lack of many good payware addons in this class seems to be because that aspect of flying these aircraft doesn't come across particularly well in Flight Simulator, but the more I use FS2Crew ATR edition, the more I am beginning to believe that it could be the key that unlocks a flood of classic sims; because with, if you imagine it, FS2Crew (insert your favorite developer's name here) Constellation edition, fighting your way across the Atlantic on a bad night with one turbo-compound acting up and the FO telling you the oil temps were on the limit would take on a whole new dimension. I think there is a lot to come from FS2Crew, perhaps more than even the developers themselves imagine, and personally, I can't wait to see it.