Paul Golding's MD-80 Panel For FS2000

By Andrew Herd (4 December 2000)

Once upon a time, when things were a lot less complicated than they are now, and there were commercial planes that you could land anywhere providing you could see the runway; the Boeing 727 and the DC9 were the workhorses of the airways. There were a few tucked in on the stands at every airport you visited, and I couldn't begin to guess how many times I have been a passenger in one or the other. For some reason the 727 hasn't had that much attention from flightsim developers, but the DC9/MD-80 has proved very popular, with releases ranging from Eric Ernst's classic freeware panel and Lago's 'Mad Dog'. The release of a huge DC-9 series by the Project Freeware Group encouraged Paul Golding to develop a compatible panel for FS2000 and having flown with it for many months, I can confirm that it is a classic.

Paul's inspiration was Ernst's popular MD-83 panel, but his ambition to design an analog cockpit soon led him to the realisation that any new project would have to be built from scratch. The result is outstanding and represents many hundreds of hours of effort, with realistic shadowing on the panel bitmap, an atmospheric virtual cockpit, and some Flight Simulator firsts like two-speed working wipers with sound. Although this is an MD80 panel, being all analog it is close enough to the DC-9 to pass muster, the only real difference being in the workings of the autopilot. The simulation has been very carefully designed, being based on photographs of American and Austrian Airlines MD-80s and on panel drawings. Within the limits of FS2000 it is about as realistic a panel as it is possible to achieve.

The package is a 9.5 Mb download [pm8fpv2.zip] and it includes not only the panel, but also two aircraft by the Project Freeware Group, in the colors of Evergreen and North Central. I have long admired the Group's aircraft, and they are well painted and animated, but it has to be said that neither of the planes have transparent cockpit windows, which detracts from the overall effect to a certain extent.

Beginners will be delighted to hear that the zip includes an automatic install program, so it should be possible for the least technically minded flight simmers to enjoy Paul's work. The install routine even tucks the panel into the \fsfsconv folder so that it is a cinch to alias to it from as many planes as you want (see my tutorial on installing panels if this has always foxed you.) If you have any problems, support is available via the FAQ on Paul's web site.

Any developers who are reading this might note that by far the most frequent type of email I get is from people asking how to install freeware panels and while I can't answer more than a fraction of their queries, the message is simple: if you want the maximum number of people to enjoy the hundreds of hours of work you have put into a panel, include an install routine! Fortunately this is becoming much more common and it has helped thousands of people to enjoy panels and airplanes that they would otherwise never have had a chance to use.

When you first load an aircraft running Paul's panel you will be faced with the sound of engines spooling down and gauge needles heading for the stops en masse. First time this happened I simply reloaded the plane, only to be comfronted with the same thing happening again. Intrigued, I hit ctrl-E and beyond a brief flicker from the engines, nothing happened. Then I got really mad, pulled down the overhead panel and, after a certain amount of trial and error, started the engines from there. If you don't want to do it the hard way, the whole procedure is covered in the manual which accompanies the aircraft, although you have to know where to look for it - it is hidden away in the \fsfsconv\panel.pg.md80\document directory, which takes a bit of finding if you aren't familiar with the guts of FS2000.

While the overhead panel is simplified compared to the actual aircraft, it is a reasonably close facsimile as long as you aren't anally retentive about the AC buses not being there. There are a few other bits and pieces missing, but on the whole I can cope with Paul's interpretation.

The panel graphics are very appealing, as you can see from the screenshots. With one exception, the gauges are clean and easy to read, and the layout is acceptable. Compared to the last version, the engine control graphics have been spruced up, removing one weak point, but the pushback gauge on the overhead panel is a stock item that could do with a new graphic and it stands out by comparison with the other gauges. All the various annunciators and glareshield warnings are there and I seem to spend most of my flying time extinguishing them, so I guess at some stage I will have to give the manual a thorough read!

The autopilot is pretty self-explanatory and anyone with experience of the default 737 ought to be able to use it. There are a few nuances to using it though; ILS approaches can be flown either 'fully coupled' using the ILS button (and so locking onto both glideslope and localizer) or by using the LOC button if you want to use the localizer alone. The speed knob can be used for setting the airspeed in increments of 10 knots (mouse the central/inner edge and the knob will rotate) or by clicking on the outer edge for mach (in which case the knob doesn't rotate). For speed selection in increments of one knot, you have to use the adjuster on the ASI. Most users will be pleased to find that Paul hasn't let purism get in the way of a good sim and there is a selector for the default GPS gauge below the RMI, so you needn't worry about getting lost like last time.

The star turn on this panel is definitely the moving wiper, shown in the screenshot above, useful for cleaning off the odd bird strike and even rain, if you have a fast enough machine to enable any kind of weather in FS2000. The accompanying sound seems to have been borrowed off an old truck - which means it is pretty close to anything you are likely to hear on one of these aircraft. There is also a fully functional heads up display which not only is a nice bit of programming, but is handy for difficult approaches.

The night lighting is a refreshing change from the Microsoft default orange, and there is a panel lighting gauge which lets you adjust the settings. This gauge contains 3 knobs: 'panel' switches on the panel lettering illumination; 'bright' switches on the cockpit floodlighting; and 'dim' gives you a dimmed version of the floods.

Now for the frame rates.

I ran the tests in clear skies, using Carlisle in England as the airport. This has very basic scenery, so the frame rates represent the best you are likely to get. Both machines were running Windows 98 second edition, MS Flight Simulator 2000 professional edition, update 2b applied. Specs: 733: Intel Pentium 733 MHz, 256 Mb RAM, Creative GeForce 2 GTS with 32 Mb RAM; 300: Intel Pentium 300 MHz, 128 Mb RAM, Voodoo 3000 16 Mb RAM. Terrain detail distance was set at 25 miles on both machines and the 733 was running FSUIPC.

The bad news here is that the MD80 panel is definitely a frame rate killer, imposing a nearly 70% hit in some circumstances. On a 733 this is tolerable, although I did get frame rate drops to below 10 approaching more complex airports, sometimes less in cloud. The reason is undoubtedly the sheer complexity of the panel - there is a price to pay for all those beautiful analog gauges and I would recommend that only people with faster machines download this one.

And that is more or less it. If you are like me and enjoy the odd flight in classic aircraft from this era, then you will have to have this panel. Sure, it isn't anywhere near state of the art and if you stay true to the cause and ignore the GPS you will have to depend on VOR navigation, but I have had a lot of pleasure from using Paul's simulation and have watched it get better and better with each new version. It also has the advantage of being the most realistic freeware MD80 panel available and in my estimation it gives Lago's payware Mad Dog panel a serious run for its money in a number of areas, though the latter represents an early glass cockpit and differs in many details. What is more, Paul plans to release an MD88/90 version very shortly; hopefully as the panel matures he will manage to squeeze better frame rates out of it by tweaking the code.

Give it a try. Even if you are a glass cockpit fan, you may be surprised to find how much you end up liking it.