Looks like the 737-300 is near completion/release, and it is going to be pretty exciting to beable to fly some Air NZ routes with this stunning pocket rocket as well as the many airlines around the world that operated one of the most versatile and globally spanning/popular 737 variant, or a very close second to the 737-200.
A330 driver has just done a early release review of CSS 737-300 (cant velive that Jet2 still operates this aircraft with those Nexgen like winglets.. and makes you wonder if the 737-300 size does have a untapped market potential ??) It seems that he has enjoyed flying this aircraft, he had some promising words and a good review of the 737-300… They also will be doing the 737-400 which will be a little throw back to MSFS95
Exciting to have almost the complete lineup of the 737 including the 737-100 I hope we will eventually see a twin engine 737-100 even though only 30 odd were built…
Just waiting on milvis/Blackbird 737-200 along with the complete max series although the max 10 isnt out and the dash 7 hasn’t seen many takers it was hoping..
That would basically be the entire 737 family in msfs 2024 from book end to… I guess the max will be the book end for the 737 family as a whole…
While the inception of the CSS 737 series had a rocky start with the subscription model and quality of product, I am hopeful for its future. The entire -300/-400/-500 lineup has now been released, with a number of updates to-date which have certainly increased its level of quality. I think upon the release of the V2 edition of the aircraft, it will be a quite robust edition of the 737 classic.
What is the cost? I looked on the site but nowhere (that I can find) is a price mentioned. Which is kind weird. Maybe I’m not looking in the right place.
You can go either with the subscription model or go more traditional way of buying each variant (or all variants in a bundle) separately. For that you need to download their CSS Launcher from their website first. Or you can purchase the variants (not the subscription) on SimMarket:
Don’t straightforward at Simmarket, if I may recommend, it is far more expensive than getting it directly from the developers. The launcher is a bit tricky, yes, but their support helped me to purchase the lifetime licence andit saved me (EU) about 45EUR compared to Simmarket. It always helps to check various vendors or the developers insite stores prior making a purchase final. But that’s my opinion.
In USD which a lot of people are more used to comparing prices in :
Contrail - each of the 3 variants is $55.25, or everything for $152.81. Direct from CSS the complete pack is $120 - so yes a significant reward for buying direct from the devs.
So what’s the general consensus on the updated classics? Worth buying? Each variant is only $45 (£33) direct from CSS, and the freighter upgrades will be $10 when released.
For the price, I’m prepared to swallow the imperfections… as long as they’re not capable of completely wrecking a flight.
The YouTube consensus is a bit ambiguous, with taglines such as “not worth it” and “still bugged” but once past this clickbait, the opinions are actually not too negative. Seems the issue is that this 737 family isn’t as advanced as it should be, given how long the core product (-500) has been available (FSS E-Jets: hold my beer… ).
My main concern with these 737s is the alleged terrible performance. There’s also the clickspot issue, and that concerning compatibility with third-party peripherals (depending on what exactly they mean by that).
I have only purchased the $5 monthly subscription a couple of times as a “check-in” of sorts, with the most recent being at least 4 months ago, so my opinion isn’t recent. However, I will say that the plane was serviceable for my purposes, even back then. Performance admittedly wasn’t fantastic, but I was able to fly a number of times on VATSIM with no issues. Though I am comfortable hand flying SIDs/STARs if the automation gets a bit wonky, so if you’re looking for a perfectly bug free autopilot experience, maybe not for you? (Again, my experience is at least 4 months old, so this very well may have improved since then).
With all of this being said, I am looking forward to the “V2” update of these aircraft, and very well may commit to a full purchase if reviews are good. I believe you do get a free upgrade from V1 → V2 if you do purchase now. If I were to make a recommendation, I would purchase the $5 subscription to try it out and see if it meets your standards. It only costs 1 cup of coffee, after all
To start with, I am a fan of older generation airliners in this sim, when the L1011 came out, it’s all I flew for 6 weeks, and my dream plane is a DC-8 at something approaching PMDG fidelity.
The CSS does have few annoyances like not being able to use normal mouse functions on the switches, and you have to type your route into the flight computer (which I’m ok with) but overall I really like these planes. They generally work fine for me it’s enjoyable for me to work around the differences between these Classics, PMDG’s NGs and IFly’s Max8, and there are differences, the automation is more hands-on during takeoff, but the Vnav on descent works fine.
The one problem I have is the autopilot is very sensitive to control movements, and I just bought a Moza Force feedback yoke, whic moves the yoke when the autopilot moves, and does vibrations to mimic those you’d find in a real yoke, but this stuff disconnects the autopilot over and over again, It is a matter of figuring out how to set the Moza up properly, or CSS allowing pilots an option to disallow autopilot disconnects when the yoke is moved.
In summary, if you enjoy it as much as I do, it would be totally worth buying now, but you can do a rental from them for $5 and see.
