Customer Reviews

A340-500/600 Expansion for MS Flight Simulator X/2004

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this dvd but when I started using it unfortunately I found out the following defects:

1) The arplanes don't stay still even with the parking brake pulled and the engines on idle (minimum power). They keep "inching" forward.

2) Transponder cannot be set. The tower keeps telling me that there is something wrong with my transponder. At that point I went to set the frequency by hand using its console but it does not accept the value that I want to set. It automaticaly goes back to zero untill the tower cut me off and cancels my IFR flight following.

3) There is a nice effect with sparks when, rotating during take off, the tail of the plane touchs the gruond. On my Flight Simulator the sparks start as soon as I turn on the engines and they won't ever go away.

Graphic and details are great but I cannot play with them because of those troubles. I would like to use these plane more and find out all it can offer but unfortunately my experience with this product stops at two stars...

A340-500/600 is gorgeous and a true beast of an airliner if there ever was one. Much more clear and crisp exterior details than the big three Boeing jets included in FS2004. The real airline liveries are always nice. Rolls-Royce Engines sound like real engines especially when run up to full power. The add-on engine sound is set so loud that the engine sound settings in FS2004 must be lowered down to almost 10 on the slider otherwise it may overpower your speakers and distort the sound as it did on my 2.1 speakers at first. The aircraft handles like a big aircraft should and truly feels heavy when taking off - more so when landing. Only complaints are with the 2D cockpit panels. The right MFD panel that displays engine information (thrust%, fuel levels, etc.) cannot be maximized or enlarged thus the information is small and barely legible, at least for me, for them to be informative when needed. All in all, a superb addition to FS2004.

A word of warning before installing this add-on. The system requirement for hard drive space on the box indicates "1.0 GB". After installation, I was blown away to see that the Just Flight A340 has taken up nearly 4.5 GB of HD space. It is larger than the entire FS2004 program itself which is about 2.7GB on my system. Apparently there are other add-ons pre-loaded onto the disk which subsequently get installed also. The instructions say that all I have to do is purchase a key online to unlock the add-ons and guess I will not have to download them. No mention of this on the packaging until you open it up and read the included manual which then says "The product disc contains a large amount of additional free, demonstration and purchasable software." Would have been nice to acknowledge this on the box and indicate the additional HD space needed. To my knowledge, there was no "custom install" option given to install only the A340. The add-ons loaded on this disk include the following:

Airbus Collection
Airliner Pilot
F117A Stealth Fighter
Lancaster
Tiger Moth
Spitfire and Tempest Double Pack
Flying Club - C152
Flying Club - PA34 Seneca II
Flying Club - PA38 Tomahawk
Flying Club - PA28 Warrior
PlusPak Jet Airliners 1
PlusPak Commuter Aircraft 1
Traffic 2005 (Download Version)

So if you like any of these then go for it. Otherwise you will give up a lot of HD space. Do they mean the A340 aircraft itself only requires 1.0 GB to use? Am I missing something? This makes me very skeptical about buying another Just Flight product since there was no way to know this information up front and how much space will have to be surrendered without our consent.

I bought this for my son like a month ago and he say's it's great!
But he also said that the ILS and the autopilot took time to get used to.
So overall I rate this 5 stars.

This program is the best for long flying the airplanes fly themselfs it's great and it's up to date with everything.