I’ll agree with @QueazyTable959 on the 414 vs Duke. I just finished a 34-leg around-the-world tour with the Duke, so decided to dust off the 414 over the weekend to do some Cape Air ops around Boston.
The 414 is still an excellent plane and a lot of fun, but the Duke tops it in most areas. Failure modes, prop animations, the persnickety engine startup behavior of the Duke in cold weather, etc, are all a notch above the 414. I’ve never done a full checklist on the 414, but it takes me all of 3.5 minutes to do the full runup checklist on the Duke.
I have an absolute blast with the Duke. Everything is very deeply simulated, the sounds are fantastic, the panel is perfect, fantastic documentation, amazing efb, and she flies like a pro.
The 414 is also great, but personally, there’s always been something lacking, and it could simply come down to the comparatively very high quality of the Duke, which takes advantage of the much fuller feature set which has become the norm in the intervening period between the inception of both aircraft.
The 414 was an 8.5/10 for me (after a few early updates worked the bugs out), but the bar has since been raised and it’s more like a 7-ish now. Whereas the Duke is a solid 9.5. The only thing missing on the latter is a preflight walkaround mode.
That evolution and constant bar-raising is a very good thing. I can’t wait to see how both companies leverage the new features in 2024.
And speaking of the turbocharging, and the latest comments about sound, I love the turbo noises the Duke makes. That spool up sound at run up or when setting takeoff power chef’s kiss.
Is it me or is there really veryl little audible feedback relating to the surface the wheels are on? You would expect some difference between landing or taxiing on concrete or on grass. I don’t hear none.
I don’t think I’ve taxied the Duke off of runway. IIRC, it’s modeled that if you don’t have the cowl flaps closed and taxi on grass/dirt, it can ingest debris and shorten engine life, so there must be a simvar for the surface type. But don’t know if this sound is modeled on the Dukes or any other plane…anyone else know?
A possible correction: I believe the FOD ingestion damage is limited to the turbine Duke and use of the inertial separator.
As for the question, with out looking at the current SDK I can’t say for sure, but past iterations of MSFS/P3D had a ‘surface type’ variable so I’d imagine 2020 has one as well.
Yes it does for sure. I had FOD damage in the Tuke when I forgot to flip the switches when I was taxiing on a sandy / dusty surface. That would have been OK on a hard surface or taxiway.
The tablet definitely shows the surface you are currently on, but how that is represented behind the scenes I’m not sure, but I assume a simvar of some description.
Is it? I don’t recall ever seeing it anywhere but the black square radios. I had always learned that it was a function of cross channel interference or interference in the area. The more distance from the VOR, the Greater than likelihood of signals competing for that frequency band. I suppose they work really well in rural pristine areas?
Yes indeed. Fly towards the outer range of a VOR with some significant terrain between you and it and as you reduce in altitude the terrain will mask out the virtual signal and cause VOR loss.
Looking forward to an update on the Dukes. The lack of rain sounds on the canopy is the one glaring omission I hope is addressed soon - especially as we are heading towards winter in the northern hemisphere. Mind you, I fly a lot around Scotland so seasons are irrelevant - it always rains!
