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Aircraft Review: RJ70/85/100


Wycliffe

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Aircraft Review Avro RJ100 and RJ 70  XP9.61r and X10.22

Developer Andreas Much

 

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The RJ aircraft are available from The ORG store and the Avroliner Project website http://x-plane.andreasbenjamin.com/, I love this aircraft for several reasons the main one being that it was the most successful British commercial airliner made and of course a small fleet of them was used as the Royal Flight for Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth ll.

 

Although only 387 where made to production and production finished in 2001 many of the aircraft can still be seen around the world and as a regional jet with short airstrip capabilities has remained extremely popular. Go to London City airport on any given day and you will see a large number flying in and out.

 

Installation

 

Installation of the aircraft is as always with Xplane simplicity itself and whilst there is no auto installer it is a simple case of dropping the folder into the appropriate aircraft folder within your xplane directory.

 

I have gotten into the habit of creating folders in my aircraft folder for specific aircraft so I have a Military folder a GA folder and one for Commercial Airliners. You can create as many folders as you wish and place your aircraft as you prefer. Once installed you will find approx 18 liveries for the RJ100 and 26 for the RJ70

 

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RJ100 Liveries

Air Lingus

Aer Lingus 1995

Air Dolomiti

Air New Zealand

Ansetta

BA CityFlyer  Animals and Trees

                        Chelsea Rose

                        Colum Dove

                        Delftblue Daydream

                        Wings of the City

Blue 1

Buzz

Crossair

Swiss International

Swiss International Shopping Paradise

Titan airways

TNT

default

 

 

RJ70 Liveries

Air France

Air Lamia

Air BC

AirUK

American

American Airlines

Braniff Blue

             Green

             Orange

             Red

British Airways

British World

Delta Connection

Eastern China Airlines

MDLR

National Jet

Northwest Jet Airlink

Qantas

RAF

Skyway Airlines

Titan

Titan Blue

US Air

Web Aware

 

 

This number of liveries should keep any pilot happy for a long time without having to look for anymore. All of the liveries are of the same standard and I really like the way that the liveries look a bit dirty and grubby. A good example of this is the British Airways livery, Just take a look at the doorway and look at the dirty streaks, very well done and the dirt from the exhaust of the APU, simply brilliant.

 

The real problem with all the paint jobs is that they don't stand up well, to close scrutiny and the lines become a little blurry. So I think its best to view the aircraft externally from about 50 ft away at this distance its hard to pick fault.

 

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Continuing with a walk around of the aircraft once again the same thing holds true as for the liveries, basically don't get to close or the model begins to look a little poor in places.

 

I always like to look at landing gear, not that I am an expert but I like to see how they look and do they convey mass. The landing gear on the RJ's look great until once again you get to close and they just los their credibility a bit for me. As you can see in the screen shot of a close up of the gear there is something lacking, as if they have just dropped down from the bay unattached to anything.  They look good and the sun reflection on the main gear is very impressive but everything from there upwards just doesn't look right.

 

The tyres look great and so do the wheels with the nuts on but once again to close and they lose sharpness. Walking around the aircraft one notices the engines and how close to each other they are but they are what seem feet above the ground unlike a a 737 where there is only 13 inches clearance. The main airfoil spar is well modelled and the curves of the mouldings to the main body are quite impressive.

Moving to the back of the plane quite high up by the tail section you come across the APU outlet which seems to be a very dirty area no matter which livery you have. it would seem no airline cleans that area to well.

 

When the APU is running the exhaust blur can be seen coming from there which is an effect that is very well done. You have to be careful around this part of the plane because if someone on the flight deck was to operate the airbreaks as you walk by you would be in hospital for sure. The airbrakes on the RJ are huge or so they seem. The back end of the aircraft opens up to 90deg to the body and when they are deployed in flight your speed drops as if you have hit a brick wall in the sky.  This animation is very good and having seen many an RJ land at City Airport London I can testify to the effectiveness of these what look like barn doors opening.

 

Cockpit

The cockpit is where we spend nearly all our time when in sims and so this can be the most important aspect of any aircraft payware or freeware. The cockpit in the RJ across all models is exactly the same and there is a 2d panel and a VC. The 2d panel is far better than the VC (3d panel).

 

The 2d panel is almost photo realistic and as you can see it looks nice and sharp all the way across, I really like the mix of analogue and glass displays and when you look at the glareshield looking at all the scratches in the paintwork really gives it a feel of age and usage, there is even a piece of paper stuck on a clip with some hand written notes on it. 

Whilst it looks sharp and in focus because of the lack of aging on it in other places it looks  as if it has been put together from different bits and loses that believeability aspect.

 

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Where this aircraft is really let down is in the VC. We may well have been spoilt by other developers but we are now aware what xplane 10 is capable of if you are willing to spend time on your build. Which seemingly has not been donw with the VC. Although I am assured that an update is imminent.

 

I found that when one zooms in on certain displays they lose focus and become quite blurry where as other such as the speed indicator remain n sharp focus through the range of zoom, what is even more stark is that at a normal zoom range you can see the differences between some of the displays, some being bright sharp and in focus whilst others are blurry.

 

The best example of this is the Primary flight display next to the airspeed indicator as you can see below. Moving down towards the default FMC's this begins to look worse and the blurriness is such that it becomes hard to read.

 

Now when we move to the overhead we are once again back in sharpness world, its all a little confusing and detracts from some of the better aspects of the aircraft. Finally regarding the cockpit no matter where you click be it on a switch a bulb bulkhead or even the cockpit windows you hear the same switch click sound.

Flight Model

 

I have never flown a real RJ I'm not sure I have ever been in one but the flight model feels about right and sure enough you can take a steep approach angle down to your runway so making it ideal for that famous London city 5.5deg approach. That said it just feels a little twitchy when in the air and you can quickly get out of shape if your inputs are a little on the heavy handed side. The flap animations are really well done and the airbrake as mentioned earlier is superb.

 

I really want to like this aircraft as it is one of my personal favourites and I think this has a lot going for it but it is in desperate need of an update which I believe Andreas is doing and was due to be released at the end of the summer. I know that Andrea almost works on his own and what he has achieved here is quite remarkable apart from the few items that I have highlighted.

 

The whole Avroliner package is $39:95 and for this you get all three variations of the RJ The RJ70, RJ85 and the RJ100 that is good value for money and a really good addition to any hangar as long as you keep in mind some of my comments, but as I said I believe a free update to owners is imminent which I hope will get rid of some of those concerns..

 

Wycliffe Barrett

 

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I have purchased a fair number of X-Plane aircraft over the past couple of years, nearly always when they have been on special offer.  During a recent offer I bought the Avro RJ70 variant and despite having other aircraft such as the Boeing Worldliner Extended 777 This is one of my favourite planes to fly.   I love coming into land as the inflight sounds, right down to the announcements are so realistic.  They really remind me of passenger trips I have made in the UK.  The sounds and graphics (I usually use the British Airways livery) are a main part of what I love about this plane.  I am still very much a novice in X-Plane but have made quite a few successful flights in this aircraft.  I also seem to get pretty decent frame rates using the RJ70, something I cannot say for some of the other aircraft I own, even business jets.  Certainly any of the Avros (or the complete package) would be a worthy addition to an X-Plane fleet and one I am sure you will not be disappointed with.

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