Just Flight DC-10 Collection Review

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In the past, airliner add-ons for Flight Simulator tended to fall into one of two categories. They were either rather simplified, offering not much more than the default aircraft, or what should really be described as “system simulators”, offering most, if not all, of the functionality of real aircraft Flight Management Computers. I’ll confess that I love the latter, but suffer from a lack of time to be able to spend with them.

This is where Commercial Level Simulations, in conjunction with Just Flight, come in. Their F-Lite range  specialises in producing add-ons with excellent visual models and flight dynamics and, in my opinion, just the right level of complexity. For instance, there is an FMC of sorts modeled on this, their DC-10 Collection, but it’s a fairly basic affair. The plus side to this is that you can simply create and load a Flight Plan in the simulator and it’s already there in the FMC for you. Couldn’t be easier and this now means I have more time to fly the heavies

The DC-10 collection is for both Flight Simulator X and Flight Simulator 9/2004. You get a very impressive collection here. No less than 38 liveries included across multiple aircraft variants. The following variants are supplied:

• DC-10-10 x 2
• DC-10-10 CF x 2
• DC-10-15
• DC-10-30 x 2
• DC-10-30CF x 2
• DC-10-40 x 2
• DC-10-40F x 2
• KDC10 Dutch Air Force
• KC-10A Extender

It’s very nice to see military variants provided in the package. You also get a highly detailed Virtual Cockpit (more on this later) from which you can complete the entire flight should you wish. As well as the usual animations you come to expect these days, they have included some nice touches, such as the pushback tug (see below) for the Flight Simulator X version. I have used the FSX version as the basis of this review.

I must start by saying that the visual models provided in this collection are amongst the best I’ve ever seen in any add-on. They are, in my opinion, at least a match for Captain Sim’s products, and that’s about as big a compliment I can provide.

Back to the Virtual Cockpit. On loading the aircraft, you’re rather disconcertingly presented with a view from the cockpit, but with no cockpit! The manual makes reference to an “icons” panel in the 2D display, but I couldn’t find this, either. After much hunting around, I noticed the ”Icons” option, under the Views/Instrument Panel menu option. So, I found the best sequence was to load the aircraft, select the 2D panel, select Icons from the menu, then click the VC icon to enable it, then switch back to the VC view. I think this should be clarified in the manual, because it’s certainly worth finding! The VC is beautifully modeled and doesn’t have a significant impact on frame rates. Using Track IR Pro with the VC (reviewed here), I was happy to spend a good 10 minutes just looking around, admiring the detail.

So, what’s this lady like to fly? I took the option of trying the excellent tutorial supplied in the documentation. (Note to add-on developers: Always provide a tutorial flight for your aircraft. There’s nothing worse than loading up the aircraft for the first time, then thinking “Now what?”!). The tutorial takes you on a flight between Penang and Singapore. This is a relatively long flight, which is ideal, as it gives you plenty of time to get used to the systems. The tutorial allows you to take the flight either starting with a cold and dark scenario, taking you through the complete engine startup sequence, or allows you to simply press Control-E for a quick start. I decided on the cold and dark start,thus allowing me to explore all of the plentiful sub panels provided.

It took a little while to find all the switches I needed, but that’s all part of the fun with flying the heavies. The manual was excellent in telling me where I needed to look for each sub-system. As mentioned earlier, flight planning is ridiculously easy. Plan your flight in the FSX planner, save it and it’s already sitting there in the FMC for you. The FMC is a simplified model, but provides enough data to complete your flight successfully.

Time for take-off. The DC-10 has a fantastic feel to it. It actually feels “heavy”, which many add-ons don’t quite manage to achieve. It’s also a refreshing change to go back to an almost completely analogue cockpit, which again has been modeled superbly.The labels on the main overhead panel are a little difficult to read, but there is a magnified sub-panel for each section which is perfectly clear.

After the initial flurry of activity at take-off, I settled in to the cruise phase and had time to admire the superb external model.

This really is a beautiful aircraft and is a joy to fly. The provided sound set is also very evocative, bringing back memories of large noisy aircraft. Just how they should be I used the auto-pilot almost down to the runway and was greeted with an almost perfect landing, which is immensely satisfying on a first flight.

Conclusion

This is one of the first “heavy” add-ons for Flight Simulator X and it has certainly thrown down the gauntlet for other developers. I am extremely impressed with virtually every aspect of this collection, from the number of provided variants, to the modeling and textures and the superb manual. I have no hesitation in recommending the DC-10 Collection to anyone who’s a fan of this type of aircraft.

The aircraft is very frame rate friendly. I experienced in the region of a 10% drop in performance compared to the default aircraft, which is quite an achievement given the quality of the model.

The DC-10 collection can be purchased from the Just Flight web site and is available both in download and DVD formats for £24.99.

System Requirements

 Just Flight specify the following requirements:

• Flight Simulator X or FS2004
• 2GHz PC (2.5GHz for FSX)
• 512Mb RAM (1Gb for FSX) 
• 128Mb+ 3D graphics card
• Windows Vista/XP
• 1Gb hard drive space

I tested the aircraft on a machine with a 2Ghz Centrino processor with 1Gb RAM, a 256Mb nVidia 7800 graphics card.

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