Please use this thread to provide general feedback and impressions about this aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. For all bug reports, please create a new topic (or upvote an existing topic) in the Bug Reporting Hub > Aircraft & Systems section of the forums. Please use the full bug report template when creating a new bug report.
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate the Flight Model and Aircraft Systems?
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On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate the Interior and Exterior Graphics?
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On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate the Audio and Aircraft Sounds?
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On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate your Overall Enjoyment of this aircraft?
The aircraft has massive issues with cockpit animations. The same issues that happen on Short Skyvan also happen on Do 31. All the cockpit animations (switches, indicators, yaw, throttles, etc) and sounds are updated once every 1-2 seconds. I don’t mean it lags, the game runs normally, just the refresh rate for all those things is once every 1-2 seconds.
Does it make any difference whether or not we use/map the vertical throttle in MSFS 2024? With vertical axis bound to throttle 3 and conventional axis bound to throttle 1 and 2, you can move the conventional throttle without moving vertical, but not vice versa. In other words, if I adjust the vertical throttle, the conventional is also adjusted.
First of all I haven´t flown the MSFS 2020 version so this is my first impression and I cannot tell how it has improved.
Short Version:
Buy it if you want to have fun and want a good looking aircraft.
Don´t buy it when you need to have good systems or even decent systems to have fun.
Long Version:
Texturing:
The texturing is amazing. The outside looks very good with a lot of wear and tear. The aircraft hasn´t flown much in real life so there won´t be alot of wear and tear and I do think the texturing in the sim replicades that very good. It is the sweet spot of wear and tear. The cockpit texturing is good nothing very good but nothing bad. Maybe there is a bit to much wear and tear but thats not a big issue. The biggest texturing issue is that the windows of the plane are dirty as hell. Nothing realistic and nothing enjoyable it really downgrades the fun for the plane. On the outside the engine spinning animation is horrible I really hope they work on that.
Flight Model:
The Flight Model is horrible. You can really feel that it is an MSFS 2020 Plane. The hoverring feels nice with and without the stabilasation option turned on. With the stabilasation turned on it feels very stable maybe a bit too much but its ok. With the stabilasation turned off it feels more challenging which is very nice. Only the transition between turned on and turned off stabilasation feels weird and buggy but you dont do that on a normal flight. The transition from hovering to cruise feels okay like its smooth and you will have fun with it but if you look more into detail you can see that there are limitations in the sim like completly unrealistic performance when you turn the noozles to 30 degrees or 90 degress without the lift engines turned on but again you wont use that in a normal flight. Then the biggest issue is the cruise flight model, it´s horrible. It feels arcady like a normal MSFS 2020 plane just not enjoyable. If you know how the normal msfs 2020 planes feel its exactly like that.
Systems:
They are overall very basic there isn´t much working. For example the taxi light isn´t clickable as well as the wing lights. Such basic features are just not even clickable which is crazy. You also cannot operate the external power switch. Alot of switches which would normally dont do anything in the sim aren´t clickable which is not that bad but it ruineds the immersion. The fire exthingush buttons aren´t clickable and so on alot of the stuff doesn´t work. If anyone is interested the circut breakers also don´t work but the plane is 15€ so it´s very much acceptable.
Sounds:
I don´t know how a real Do-31 sounds so I will keep it short. It sounds pretty massive and nice which I would expect from the real Do-31.
Extra Features:
There are no big extra features. The only “fun” extra feature is cargo loading. You do that through the loading page in the in game EFB but you only get like basic stuff loaded in and nothing millitary looking. After the loading of weight you cannot really feel the weight, it’s still arcady. Also there is no effect of dirt and stuff going off the ground when landing in grass and dirt.
Performance:
I have a decent PC and you can feel a downgrade in the FPS but it´s not that much its acceptable.
Bugs:
It could be a pilot error but sometimes my lift engines won´t spool up beyond 60 percent even though I have followed the checklist. I don’t know if that is a Bug or just a missing feature but there are 2 variants included, The E1 and E3. The E1 didn’t have the lift engines like the E3 it was just for testing the conventional flight testing but the lift engines are there in the sim which is immensly unrealistic.
They are already included in the sim, but are only available with an “S rating” and pop-up in the map as “star missions”.
You can fly the C-17 and A400M that way, and there are always some missions available for those if you have an “S rating”, however no missions are available for the Do-31.
Some big issues with this aircraft after the update:
sometimes two sets of nacelle engines just won’t start
sometimes all of them don’t spool up beyond 50% RPM at all
the thrust capacity of this thing in level flight seems pretty high
the flight dynamics and model is pretty weird in level flight. For a while it was just sitting at a left bank angle but flying in a straight path while following an AP heading
Yes have a look at the centre console, there is a row which has heading, radio and alt. To turn on the autopilot move one of the switches behind that row. Pressing one will turn on all four which simulates turning on the autopilot.
The nacelle engines can easily take 45s to spool up from turned off or from a low power setting. It looks like they are stuck, but they do spool up eventually.
