They DID IT. They managed to put out something that’s even worse than their Beech 99.
PRE-EVERYTHING ELSE DISCLAIMER:
It uses a Frankenstein of A320 and CRJ avionics. The FMC says A320 on it and lists the LEAP engines. Therefore, it is either NOT COMPATIBLE with Working Title CJ4 or not compatible with itself. I am not about to remove WT CJ4, so I am not gonna find out which it is… But since your default planner loads a flight plan into the FMC of A320, and it doesn’t into the CJ4, while your FMC will have the flight plan listed, the PFD is actually not aware that there is any (you can see that in the screenshot)… So unless you want to fly visually, good luck. I have also tried to manually change the flight plan in the FMC to see if at least THAT will get into the Collins ProLine, but no such luck. No flight plan.
GRAPHICS:
See screenshots. Stop telling PMDG their stuff is not good looking. Wanna see not good looking? Look here! Everything looks completely unnatural, that cockpit door is straight from Windows 95 era, everything else is not much better. Externally, it’s a BIT better, but it all still looks like some weird paper cutout. Again, see the screenshots.
SYSTEMS:
Um. No. See the disclaimer above. Everything in cold and dark mode starts in weird positions too. Checklist is only half-complete in-sim and goes up to Climb and stops there. They also don’t intend to supply any manual because they made some YouTube tutorial.
FLYING:
Ground handling is awful. Turn radius doesn’t exist on taxi. It flies like their Beech 99 - underpowered, clunky. I haven’t tried stalls or anything of the sort, I am not about to prolong the torture.
SOUND:
It makes those weird creaky sounds like the Cessna 172 does while taxiing. I don’t know, everything else sounds… passable, but that’s the least of their issues here.
OVERALL:
This is on CaptainSim/Beech99 level. Except they don’t have the graphics fidelity of CaptainSim. So, it’s pretty much useless. Like I said, you have to remove Working Title CJ4 to MAYBE get this to work? I haven’t tried and won’t. Why would I get rid of a high fidelity business jet to fly this bargain bin eyesore? Not a chance.
I am NOT gonna defend “at least they say it’s not a study level product”. It doesn’t need to be study-level. It can be a simple implementation as long as it’s believable and done well. This is neither. It’s just straight rubbish. Bredok3D’s 737 MAX is better than this thing, and I don’t like their MAX.
I am not some guy who is gonna look for positives here just to throw them SOME bone. I am not gonna look for “at least they got THIS right”… cause they got the majority of it wrong, so one or two positives won’t redeem this.
I’d stay away from this AS FAR AS YOU CAN.
OK… here is ONE redeeming thought: MAYBE they will make it better? But… these guys still haven’t been able to get the range knob on a DEFAULT G1000 work on their Beech, so… how can you hope for anything to get better?