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I love flying the heavies in Flight Simulator. I enjoy the involvement of, say, programming the FMC on PMDG’s Boeing 747, preparing for the flight, doing everything by the book. There’s an immense feeling of satisfaction in doing it just right.
However, there are many occasions when I simply don’t have the time to set up a flight in this way. For those times, you want something you can fire up quickly, jump in, take off and just wing it. I think I’ve found the perfect aircraft for this. It’s the Dornier DO27 from Digital Aviation for Flight Simulator 9/2004. For a start, this add-on has bags of character and realism. Start the engine, or power up, and the whole airframe shudders 
Drop the flaps at too high a speed (as I did on my first flight) and they’ll jam, requiring you to repair them once on the ground and parked before they’ll work properly again. This adds a whole new experience to flying in that you have take care of the aircraft, rather than just whacking on full throttle and gunning it all the time.
I’ve seen a few other add-ons that have attempted similar functionality, but none have hit the mark quite like this one. It really is satisfying to complete a flight without damaging or over-stressing the aircraft in any way.
It also happens to be perhaps the perfect sight-seeing aircraft. With a low cruise speed and superb visibility, it’s ideal for checking out the details of all your add-on scenery. It really is great fun tootling along slow and low, just enjoying the view.
The aircraft has 2 “modes” - “Pro” and “Simple”. In Simple mode, it behaves pretty much the same as the default aircraft in that you can thrash it, bounce it along the runway and generally abuse it without any repercussions. In “Pro” mode, you have to watch how you handle the aircraft as mentioned above. You can switch various levels of realism in and out to suit. It really is very configurable.
The manual is very detailed (and also presented in an old-fashioned manner, in keeping with the age of the aircraft) and covers everything you need to know to get the most from the package.
To top it all off, it has a quite exquisite visual model. I love watching the thing fly-by in the external view Oh, and almost forgot, it has a Skydiver mode, too, enabling you to gain points for a good “drop”!
If you’re looking for something a little different, I have no hesitation in recommending this wonderful add-on. You can download it from the Aerosoft web site. At only 19.95 Euros, it’s an absolute steal.
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