I’ve seen so much talk about the DC6 and all the work required to startup and handle take off. While that sounds awesome if you want to truly “sim fly”, I’d really rather have an easy button. Does the DC6 support CTL-E startups, so I can just go fly it? I’d love to buzz around in that thing! But I just don’t want to spend the time learning it and I’d rather just have easy mode. I know it has the AFE, but wasn’t sure if it was automated enough.
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Absolutely, it has cold&dark, ready to start, and ready to taxi presets, so you are up and running in no time. You choose the complexity you want.
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Might have misread your post, and don’t want to set false expectations here… Although it is indeed easy to start and get going if you want to, it certainly will take time and effort to properly handle and operate the aircraft.
I mean… I guess you can. It’s just a little strange to me that someone would think about buying an aircraft that has the deepest systems simulation out of anything released for MSFS and then not actually want to learn it or get the most out of it.
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Fantastic! Thanks!
@BostonJeremy77
My purposes for sim flight are different I guess. I love aircraft, love flying around, but have no interest in all the details of flying an aircraft. I love some of the old planes, they are super cool! But mainly , when I fly around, I like to get in camera mode and slowly pan around the scenery and watch the aircraft too. Its relaxing. Also I do screen recordings and save them on the network and later playback my favorites while I’m working, just to have the relaxing sounds and scenery. That’s not to say I don’t like flying too. I like the feeling the sim gives during take off and landing. In fact I love practicing landings. It’s fun. But I don’t want to get more detailed on controls than dealing with flaps and simple things. I probably would enjoy learning more and getting more into the flight simming part, but I just don’t want to spend the time on that, too many other things to do and I just want to sit back and enjoy the simple parts for the short time I spend on it.
I think its awesome they have the sim and some aircraft that can go into idiot mode for someone like me, but still provide the real simmers what they want. They’ll get a sale from me for that. 
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For my test flights before learning all the tutorials, I used the pad to tell the automated flight engineer to set the plane up for takeoff. Then you have to remove the Gust Lock. Once you do that, you can very much fly it in “easy mode.” You can turn on engine damage, etc. and do everything yourself if you want to go ultra-hardcore, but with the automated flight engineer, you can very much just jump in and fly.
Not quite CTRL-E, but “click the gust lock between the seats and use the pad to choose the current phase of flight” level easy. You can choose to learn all the systems later — and it’s pretty fascinating — but you can get flying without doing so.
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yeah, it can be flown rather easily, still you do need to know a few things.
so i am not too sure whether you should get this one.
Yeah, for the MOST part, the AFE has you covered. You still need to know power settings for climb, cruise, descent, and you HAVE TO plan your descent and landing. It has a VERY specific descent profile and radial engine management is VERY different from everything else you may be used to - you don’t really cut the power all that much on descent… and you don’t put them to idle until you are about to touch down. So, your descent rate is gonna be only 500 ft/min… so you have to start early and plan and check to see if you are on profile. And if you need to climb further while in cruise, you gotta know cowl flap settings, prop level settings, mixture, and throttle settings. You also have to know how to activate superchargers and you have know how to manage the fuel system - the AFE won’t do that for you. Keep in mind, you have 8 fuel tanks to deal with.
So… keep in mind that while AFE is active, you will have NO throttle control.
It’s not really a “buzz around” kinda aircraft… It IS, but it isn’t. 
I think editer has it spot on. I have been amazed just how easy it is to fly this airplane. Once you get used to the automated flight engineer (which is a brilliant implementation in my opinion), you can really just jump in and go if you want to.
The PDMG video tutorials are excellent - quite short, to the point and delivered with an excellent sense of humor - well worth watching a few of these for familiarization. The nice thing about MSFS is that you can get it wrong, trash a $80k engine (or worse) and not worry about it.
As BostonJeremy says - you can fly low and (fairly) slow, but it is a big heavy airplane and feels like it. One warning though - it is truly addictive!
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Most of the default aircrafts come with the MSFS are what you wanted. DC6 even can set to easy mode (I think) but still a little bit complicated (you have to deal with 4 engines, mixtures and prop speed netvigation etc.)and I won’t spend money for that if relax is what you prefer.
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I think the way you use the sim is really awesome actually.
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Thanks all for the info. I’m not sure if I’ll get the DC6, at least not for now. But I may at some point just because then I’ll have it. I kind of want to do some random mission flying way up north in Cananada using Neofly and pretend to be on Ice Pilots. LOL. I think they had some DC3’s but close enough I guess.
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It’s great PMDG have provided the state options for those who just want to get the DC-6 in the air, no fuss.
I personally thought it would take a ton of time to get comfortable getting through the startup and takeoff. After only a few flights, I can easily get things set and started up in about 10 min or less using the AFE to tidy up any checklist items I may have missed. Most of the time is waiting for the AFE to call prop blades and doing the run up.
It’s so satisfying bringing this beast to life from cold and dark though.
DC6 is on the Buffalo Airways roster.
DC3…sure is similar to the DC6…they both have wings and a tail plane…but that is where it pretty well ends…but yes they both have radials…and therefore engine management will be vaguely “similar”… 2 versus 4…more to nurse and worry about 
There are plenty of tutorial video’s from PMDG .
It’s not as hard as it looks , basically you can use the pad to tell the automated engineer ( AFE on the pad ) to set the plane ready to fly .
Little steps, it will all come together very quickly .
good luck
PMDG have put a lot of work in around accessibility, as others have said you really can get up in the air quite quickly, however mastering flying and landing will take some time and patience
The 3 available states cold and dark, ready to taxi etc and the fact it is designed to be used with a flight engineer to let the pilot concentrate on flying works really well for those of us who want to jump in and fly.
The way it’s been designed with integration of a tablet and flight engineer also makes it a plane you can grow with and further understand the detail over time.
I usually stick to ga aircraft as I don’t usually want to get bogged down with procedures but so far I’m really enjoying the dc6.
It might be worth watching the pmdg tutorials to see if it’s for you
Then you should get this one. It’s an extremely relaxing airplane. It just floats along like a tank under a hot air balloon. And it looks pretty.
I do tend to doze off in any airplane, which so far has mainly been the Airbus 320. But let’s face it… in that one you fall asleep because it’s boring.
In the DC-6 you just dream away on those humming engines…
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You might want to wait for the Aeroplane Heaven DC-3.