Flight1/Level-D 767 For FS2004

By Andrew Herd (10 May 2005 / Updated 19 September 2005)

here is little doubt that if one was ever to assemble a flight simulation hall of fame, one of the addons which would surely have to take pride of place in it would be '767 Pilot in Command' - a product which, although it was not quite the first of its kind, changed the face of our hobby by inspiring a flood of ultra-realistic airliner packages. Before 767 PIC, it was possible to charge good money for airliner sims that had panels little more complex than Microsoft's default Boeings; but after the package hit the streets, users' expectations were sky high, and many developers found themselves struggling to fulfil them. The problem is that until FS2004 came along, Microsoft's Flight Simulator development cycle didn't allow enough time to conceive, code and debug a big 'procedural' sim; one symptom of which has been the post-release patches that we all know and love. 767 PIC users were spared some of the pain traditionally associated with ambitious addons, because although it was first released as payware for FS2000, the product could trace its roots back much further, to a series of freeware panels by Eric Ernst and Christian Kugler - and before that, to a very popular Boeing 777 panel for FS98 developed by Antonio Ambrosio. This long development history has been one of the addon's greatest strengths.

No-one who bought Wilco's 767 PIC when it was first released could have failed to be impressed with it. Although there were (inevitably, given its tremendous scope) several patches, it was about as perfect a simulation of real 767 operation as you could get outside a dedicated level D simulator. It was also one of the first addons I had seen in which serious attention had been paid to modelling the flight management computer and even inertial reference unit (IRU) initialization was simulated. Sure, other addons had done some of this stuff before, but never in such detail and never in such a balanced package - if you excuse a visual model that could definitely have been improved upon. We devoted a considerable amount of space to reviewing 767 PIC and it goes without saying that we liked it - how could we not, when the only way to improve on the experience would have been to get a captain's seat in a real one?

There was an FS2002 upgrade, but things went quiet after that. Eric Ernst went on to become a real 767 pilot, which speaks volumes for the quality of the sim, but the eagerly awaited FS2004 version never showed and it seemed that the huge amount of effort involved, compared to the likely commercial return, might have killed the project. If you ever find yourself developing an airliner simulation with the depth of a product like 767 PIC, don't ever try dividing the time you spend coding it into the profits, because the only possible conclusion is that there are more sensible ways of ways of making money. But now Level-D Simulations have brought the 767 back under the Flight1 label and the good news for fans of 767 PIC is that the FS2004 version is every bit as good as its predecessors.

The package is a 173 Mb download, protected by Flight 1's well known key system - I also installed the 74 Mb Service Pack 2, which fixes many minor problems and adds several new features, but this download is only necessary for 'old' users. Hardware requirements are a 1.6 Ghz processor or better, with 512 Mb of RAM and a 128 Mb video card - note that the package will not run on Windows 98 or Me. After the installation had finished, I found a new 'Level-D Simulations 767-300' group nested under the Flight 1 banner in the Start Menu and opening it revealed links to a configuration manager, repaint manager, the operating manual and various other items including the credits. The latter document makes interesting reading, not least because it shows what a big team was needed to develop the FS2004 version, but also because many of the original members are still hanging in there, which means that Eric, according to my calculations, has been with the project for at least eight years. Development was led this time by Wade Chafe, Laurent Crenier and Pedro Sousa.

Configuration manager must be run to finalise the installation and lets you load and fuel the plane. This applet gives three options for configuring the virtual cockpit (VC): present; present with wing views and window reflections; and absent. The applet also displays useful numbers like zero fuel weight and total gross, which come in very handy later on when you get around to preflighting the flight management computer (FMC). One very welcome improvement would be a fuel and route calculator, with options for printing off weight and balance and flight plans, as in Lago's Maddog, but as it was I got used to keeping config manager on-screen until I was ready for pushback. The installation also puts a 'Level-D' menu into FS2004, allowing you to customise certain aspects of the addon, such as the rate at which equipment failures occur and it also lets you save panel states.

The manual is a 175 page pdf which takes the reader through each of the 767's many systems in considerable depth. The only possible criticism I can make is that it doesn't include a tutorial flight, nor was one available on the Level-D website when I checked it out. Given that the simulation is so complicated, this is likely to be problematic for inexperienced simmers, although to be fair, you can fly the plane, as FS2004 loads it, by dropping 15 degrees of flap and firewalling the throttles, though to do so is missing 99% of the work the developers have packed into this giant of an addon. With SP2 applied, the Level-D 767 can justifiably claim to be the most sophisticated and accurate simulation of a large airline ever released for Flight Simulator; virtually every system and feature of the real plane is replicated, right down to accurate EGT peaks during startup and such minutiae as the way low hydraulic pressure will disarm the autobrake only in landing mode and not for rejected takeoff. If you want the very last word in simulation, or are facing a checkride in a real 767 read the rest of this review, because while this simulation might be equalled, but I doubt it will be bettered as far as FS2004 addons are concerned.

The addon has clearly come on a great deal since I last reviewed it, with the visual model having been vastly improved and boasting some of the most impressive flap animation I have seen. The original visual model was done by a different team, as far as I can recall, the result being that many simmers replaced it with Project OpenSky planes, but there is no need for such shennanigans with the FS2004 version of the 767. Here, I have got to confess that once again, life being too short, I haven't actually counted all the cabin windows (didn't do that the last time I reviewed the plane and guess what? Yep, the pesky developers had gone and left some out, how careless can you get?), but comparison to the pictures I have to hand confirms that the current plane looks as real as one could wish, one feature worth noting being that other than the cockpit, the windows in the fuselage follow the increasing trend in recent large airliner sims of not being transparent in order to save some frames. The wheels and the fans go round, the thrust reversers open, as does the forward passenger and cargo bay doors and the APU deploys.

Eight repaints are supplied with the package, with twenty nine more available as free downloads from relevant page on the Level-D site; and you have the choice of whether to install lower quality DXT3 sets, or 'regular' 32 bit textures, which will consume more system resources and are slightly larger downloads. The first time I fired up repaint manager, I found 32 bit Hawaiian and DXT Varig liveries ready for installation, which were processed without any problems, inspiring me to download some of the other 32 bit textures, which are very good indeed, particularly the Gulf Air livery, which features in the screenshots. Repaint manager is an absolute no-brainer to use, all you have to remember being to install the paint sets in the correct folder before running the app, which also makes it extremely easy to remove any liveries you don't happen to like. The process could not be simpler - when you load Repaint Manager, it displays any schemes it finds in the ...\Aircraft\LVLD_B763\Downloads folder with a checkbox alongside them - you left click the ones you want to install, click the 'install repaints' button and that is it. The 'remove repaints' option works exactly the same way and is a welcome addition to the manager app, since most of its kin leave their users with no way of removing unwanted schemes other than deleting and reinstalling the addon.

On a 3.0 Ghz Pentium with a couple of gigs of RAM and using an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, which must be a fairly standard setup by today's simming standards, I didn't have any significant problems with frame rates even with the VC enabled and running the cold front weather theme at EGLL. This isn't to say that I was getting high figures, there being plenty of times when FPS were in the low teens and I experienced the occasional hesitation, but nonetheless the 767 remained very usable. It is probable that with 100% AI enabled drops into single figures would occur on very active ramp areas in complex airports if you use a less powerful system; however, if frame rates are a problem on your system, it should be possible to improve them by loading DXT3 textured planes and by using the non-VC visual model, which makes quite a difference to the fluidity of the sim.

Readers who bought the FS2000 version will remember the 2D panel as being one of the best around at the time. The competition has moved on, so this isn't the case any more - and the main panel bitmap is sized at a curious 1280 x 680, resulting in some loss of definition when Flight Simulator resizes it to more standard resolutions, however, it looks much better than any of the default Boeing panels, though it is not in the same class as the DreamFleet and Captain Sim Boeings. The good news is that you can fly the 767 from the right hand seat as a first officer view is now included and you get all round 2D views, instead of the usual VC 'stills'.

An impression of the incredible complexity of the codebase underlying this sim can be gained from dropping down the Level-D item that appears on the FS2004 menu. This gives access to a wide range of options concerned with the sim, ranging from importing/exporting panel states (useful for saving and reloading flights); setting up 'countdown' or random failures, which can be done with virtually every part of the plane, from the avionics to the engines; a slew of realism settings, including just about everything you might want from GPWS callouts to IRS drift; ground request options which allow you to set up services ranging from external air source connection to pushback; 'quick tips' which are configured by default to pop up a dialog with different pieces of useful advice every time you start a flight; and links to the Level-D website. On top of that, the Level-D menu allows you to choose between the standard Electronic Attitude and Direction Indicator (EADI) as seen in the screenshots, or to select one with a speed-tape, and to toggle the style of the Flight Director bar. This useful menu also gives access to an absolutely vast range of options including the ability to choose different voices for the virtual first officer and even to delegate the handling of the gear, flaps and resetting of the mode control panel (MCP) altitude.

All the gauges are sharp, bright and show good refresh rates, the only better gauges you are likely to see being the ones from Reality-XP. The instruments implement every mode the real ones do - which in the case of the navigation display, is really saying something. In addition to the captain and FO panels, you get an overhead, pedestal, FMC, mode control panel and standby instrument pop-ups; which are controlled via a very unobtrusive set of simicons distributed along the lower part of the main panels, although switching can also be done using hotkeys or the menus. Both upper and lower EICAS displays are simulated, the former showing the full range of crew alert messages, thrust and N1 displays, outside air temperature, assumed temp for derated power (if set), whichever thrust reference mode is set on the thrust rating panel and the command thrust display if the engine electronic control is selected on. The lower display shows the oil temp and pressure, N2 data and fuel flow - and is switchable to show status on the hydraulic system.

In front of the left hand seat are the expected electronic attitude direction indicator (EADI) and electronic horizontal situation indicator (EHSI) displays. The EADI displays the full house of real-world 767 data including the attitude indicator, pitch limitation indicator, flight director, glideslope and localizer, autothrottle mode display, vertical and lateral mode, AFDS mode, ground speed, radio altitude and decision height. As mentioned above, a special feature of this unit is that the Level-D menu allows you to change its configuration between the standard and 'speed tape' versions which are the two flavors found in this variant of the 767. The EHSI has a working TCAS and offers a choice of modes between FMC route map and plan and ILS/VOR compass/rose displays, which are selected using a small mode control panel in between the EHSI and lower EICAS unit. Navaids, airports, route data and waypoints can be switched in and out when the unit is in its very comprehensive map mode. In addition to the main glass displays, you get an RMI and all the expected standby flight instruments, which for once have a chance to earn their place, as it is impossible to fly the sim without them in some of the failure modes.

No zooms of the main instruments have been made available, but the gauges are reasonably large and should be usable on anything except the smallest monitors. In passing, it is worth mentioning that when you save a flight, all the panel settings are saved too, giving the 767 a huge advantage over many other complex airliner sims, which have to be set up again from scratch every time you reload a favorite flight situation. As if all that wasn't enough, the panel includes a tape radar altimeter and a working TCAS built into the EHSI - activated via the pedestal. One thing you cannot accuse the developers of is failing to provide the users with choice.

I imagine that owners of multiple monitor setups are already beginning to salivate over the possibilities this addon offers and the developers have catered for power users extremely well - if the 767 is run in windowed mode, the FMC, MCP and pedestal can be migrated onto a second flat panel. With such a setup, the 767 is ideal for users who fly with live ATC, especially with the first officer ramped up to handle the gear and flaps, it being possible to simulate a real 767 flight from cold cockpit to cold cockpit, though doing so will involve many late nights spent studying the manual and checklists.

Automatic flight control is possible using the combined features of the flight control computers (FCCs), the automatic flight director system (AFDS), the autothrottle, the AFDS mode control panel (MCP) and the Flight Management Computer (FMC), all of which are simulated in depth, as is the thrust management computer, which is controlled via the 8 mode thrust rating panel (TRP). The AFDS is a system which is rarely simulated that well in addons, partly because many developers don't quite seem to understand what it does - which is to provide a visual and electronic reference system capable of commanding all phases of the aircraft's flight. When the Flight Director (FD) switch is engaged, guidance from the FCCs is annunciated on the EADI in the form of 'command' bars, which can either be used to guide manual flight, or automatic flight if one of the autopilots is engaged, with the MCP controlling the FD mode. All the possible MCP modes are implemented, including flight level change, vertical speed, vertical and horizontal navigation under command of the FMC, heading select and hold, altitude hold, localiser approach, backcourse and ILS approach. A novel feature is that the function of all three autopilots is simulated, so in the event of left electrical bus failure, you will lose the left and center APs, and in the event of right bus failure, the other - again, to give you an idea of the complexity of the sim, the three hydraulic systems are also fully simulated and failures in each one will disable the respective autopilot to which it provides hydraulic power. Apart from failures, the main reason for having all three autopilots simulated is so that you can use the 767 to practice realistic autolands and the addon is one of the few I have reviewed which is capable of doing reliable automatic landings and rollouts. Even if you only do this one time, it is worth seeing, starting with the three autopilots switching from 'armed' to 'engaged' mode at 1500 feet on the radio altimeter, annunciating 'LAND 3' in the autopilot status annunciator and arming FLARE and ROLLOUT modes, which appear in white on the EADI and replace the previous GS and LOC modes. This part of the sim is so well coded that it displays the correct behavior if any of the electrical buses drop out after autoland has engaged - a complex situation to simulate, given that the unit's response varies depending on the height at which the failure occurs. Once again, if you want to see just how far in advance of the competition this simulation is, set up an left main AC bus failure so that it happens with the aircraft at 500 feet and watch in awe as all the correct instruments and subsytems drop out with it, but not for too long, as you have to land the plane (-:

I could go on for about twenty thousand words about the workings of the other systems in the addon, but take it from me that they are all simulated in a similar level of detail, from the workings of the ram air turbine and the APU fire controls to the alternate flap switches - this is why the manual is 175 pages long.

The FMC code works extremely well under FS2004 and I had no trouble with it at all, which is unusual for an addon of this type, many of which give you an FMC with a limited range of functions and almost as large a range of bugs. One of the things that differentiates the Level D unit from other 'fully featured' FMCs is that it actually does have the majority of the features implemented and you will have to get to know the control display unit (CDU) extremely well, as the plane can't easily be flown without a good understanding of it. For most users, the CDU and the MCP will be the only outward evidence of the 767's sophisticated flight control system, which is centered around twin flight management computers, three autopilots, a flight director, autothrottle and thrust management system. Data from the flight management system is displayed on the CDU and the Electronic Horizontal Situation Indicator (EHSI - that's the lower of the two big gauges set directly in front of the pilot); taking input from the MCP, whose modes are echoed on the EADI. Yep, it is awful complex and I wouldn't recommend the 767 to new FS2004 users, unless you are the sort of person who enjoys a real challenge; although if you want to learn how real airliners are flown, the Level-D 767 is definitely a good place to start.

Implemented pages include INT REF (six pages including ident, pos init, perf, takeoff, approach and nav data); RTE; DEP ARR, with SIDs, STARs and approach procedures; 3 pages of VNAV; the fix page; LEGS pages; HOLD; PROG; MENU; and NAV RAD. The POS INIT page has an iconic status with long term fans of the 767 because this is where you enter the aircraft position coordinates during the simulated alignment of the intertial reference units (IRUs). If you are wondering how this is done, the choices are either to transfer the last aircraft position, to use the airport's ICAO code to get a set of approximate coordinates, or to hit shift-z a couple of times and mentally convert the lat/lon figure FS2004 gives you to decimal before typing it in manually - fortunately, the FMC includes a facility to enable the PC keyboard to be used for data entry, as using the mouse to 'press' the CDU keys can be a little long-winded. In a real 767, the position the IRUs calculate the 767 to be in is updated constantly using navaid fixes - assuming both nav radios are set to AUTO - and the sim models this behavior right down to displaying an IRS NAV ONLY message in the scratchpad if the plane goes out of range of suitable navaids for more than twelve minutes.

Depending on whether you go the whole way or not, preflighting the flight management system involves aligning the IRUs, before initializing the CDU with aircraft weight, position and atmospheric data. Interestingly, takeoff reference page two includes the ability to set runway slope and condition, despite the fact that all runways are flat and dry in Flight Simulator, but it is a nice touch. Once everything is done and the departure and destination ICAO codes entered, a flight plan can be built up, using the time-honored waypoint/airway/waypoint system, before exec-ing that to create the legs page. Ten different types of waypoint are accepted, including published intersections, calculated intersections, VORs, NDBs, ILS ids, airport ICAO codes, place/bearing/distance DME ranges, along track waypoints, lat/long coordinates and custom programmed conditional waypoints. With all the data in place, the speed bugs can be set using data calculated by the FMC and you are ready for pushback. Needless to say, full lateral and vertical navigation (LNAV and VNAV) data is generated by the flight management system, so once the 767 is cleaned up and established in climb, all you have to do is engage the relevant modes in the autopilot and comply with ATC instructions; with all the virtual co-pilot modes set, you don't even have to worry about setting the altitude on the MCP, although you do have to control climbs using vertical speed or FLCH mode.

At the end of the flight, the approach reference page can be called up, on which the FMC automatically calculates the gross weight of the plane and derives the Vref speeds from that figure. This page also shows the ILS frequency and course for the selected arrival runway once the plane is either more than 400 miles from the departure airport of halfway to its destination.

I have included a few of screenies of the CDU and panel to show how they work together - pay particular attention to the center pic, which shows off the fix page implementation. Air traffic has a horrible habit of asking crews to report radial or 'abeam xxx' intercepts en-route, because it hands over responsibility to the pilot for reminding the controller that the blip on his radar will need closer attention at that point. In a light aircraft, the only way to comply, other than keeping a close eye on the chart, is to use a VOR radial intercept, but in an airliner like this one, you just access the fix page, which draws unmistakeable lines all over your EHSI, as shown in the screenshot.

The CDU section of the manual is 54 pages long and even then, you will need to read it a few times to ingest all that it is trying to teach you. Impressively, it is capable of handling conditional waypoints, including heading to radial crossings (where air traffic requests you fly a heading until crossing a particular VOR radial, before doing something else, like turn back on course), heading to distance and radial intercepts. And of course, the little piglet does SIDS, STARS and holds, should you be dedicated to making your flights as tedious as reality sometimes makes 'em. A very large number of procedures are included with the package, but be warned that the database is by no means comprehensive, particularly for airports outside the US.

The virtual cockpit is neatly done, with active controls all of which work so long as you don't move the point of view too far back; a common problem with FS addons, that ends up leaving you slightly too close to the panel for comfort if need to pan around and make alterations in a hurry. As you can see, the VC looks convincing, but note that the CDU keys don't work and clicking on the units pops up a windowed 2D-panel style CDU for data entry. I have never felt that the FS2004 VC quite makes the grade as far as flying complex sims is involved and while you can use it to fly the 767, I wouldn't personally volunteer to do so - but that is hardly Level-D's fault.

Given the degree to which type-rated aircrew have been involved with this project over the years, it isn't surprising that the 767 has a very good flight model; one of the best I have come across in an airliner sim, ever. Pitch, in particular, stands out as being better modelled than usual, and while some FS big iron gives the impression that loops might be possible, the 767 rotates realistically and stays where it is pointed, just as it should.

The sound set was considerably improved by update 1, although it isn't oustanding by modern FS standards. Curiously, although both P&W and Rolls-Royce engined planes are modelled, there appears to be a common sound set, though to be fair, one jet engine sounds just like another to me, but there may be readers out there who can tell the difference.

Overall? Well, while there is no way that this addon could have had the impact on me that it did when 767 PIC burst like a bombshell on the FS scene four years ago, I am extremely glad to see it back in such good health. This is a absolutely classic simulation which launched a whole genre and if my FS2004 setup seemed incomplete without it, I am sure there are ten thousand other users getting their credit cards out right now - if you are an experienced simmer and enjoy flying big airliners, you should be thinking of joining them. One of the advantages of the addon having such a long pedigree is that the code is almost perfectly stable and I experienced no problems running it with Service Pack 2 applied. Okay, so the 2D panel graphics could be improved a little and the sound set isn't going to win any awards, but I suspect that most of the people who want an addon like this one aren't going to be distracted by such things when the prize is getting a nearly perfect simulation of the aircraft systems that really matter. Better panel graphics would get my vote for Service Pack 3, though, guys (-:

The times they surely are 'a changing and we are spoiled for choice these days as far as big iron sims are concerned - the Level-D 767 has to contend with the Flight 1 ATR, the Captain Sim 727 and 707, the DreamFleet 727, the PMDG 737 and the PSS Concorde and Airbuses. All those addons take FS2004 to the limits of what can be achieved, but the Level-D 767 is kind of special, because it four years ago it pointed the way to a better future that we are in now. The 767 is the leader of the pack in terms of accurate system replication and flight modelling - which is what most of us were looking for when we got into this hobby in the first place.

As I remarked right at the beginning of this review, it is hard to see how anyone could improve on the Level-D 767 in terms of the depth and integrity of the simulation. The package is not only the best simulation there is of this very popular airliner, but the best procedural simulation of any type available for Flight Simulator and I am seriously glad to see it back in such good shape. If you like your big iron flying to be as real as possible, this is it.