Hi,
It is all about the airflow through the engine.
If enough air is pumped from the compressor, the heat of the burning fuel will be carried away through the turbine and out the back of the exhaust. Since more air is continually pumped by the compressor, the hot gases can only move aft.
If the compressor does not spin fast enough, there will not be sufficient airflow and a hot start will occur. At worst case the expanding hot gases will not only move backwards, but possibly also move forward, resulting in flames coming out from both ends.
So ensuring that enough rpm by the compressor wil result in enough airflow, which will keep the temperatures within limits.
That is why you should wait until 20% N2 in case of the JT8D, before introducing fuel.
The update is great, another Study level plane which has amazing FPS. Does anyone know if you populate the weather for the flight plan legs like you can in the PMDG by requesting it (I know it comes from your plan) but if so how and where do you do it in the MD80.
This is such an underrated add-on with many misconceptions.
Yes, on any aircraft which has mechanical fuel levers, you would always wait until you have sufficient N2 speed before introducing fuel. As others have pointed out, the reason is that you have to have airflow through the combustors. The JT8D engines used on the MD-80 are a very old (1960s) design that has minimal protections against doing something incorrectly during start.
The JT8D also has minimal protections against over boosting the engine on takeoff (advancing the power levers too far) which could result in exceeding N1, N2 or EGT limits. If that happens even once, the engine has to be removed from the aircraft, completely disassembled and overhauled.
I dont believe it has automatic wind uplink. Even the ACARS route request (right) only gives you a message telling you which company route to load in manually (in this case KMIAMYMM). This appears to mirror the real world functionality, at least I read that somewhere I canât find right now.
You can enter the cruise winds manually by going to LEGS>RTE DATA. I wouldnât bother unless there are significant differences across the route which wasnât the case in this example.
Yes I would say just close your eyes and let the accident happen Tell no one and have a blast, It is such a nice plane to fly. I absolutely greased it down yesterday at MKJP a bit unstable on approach and despite the landing speed being logged at 112, it was 134 I could see on the PFD, amazing add-on.
Also if you choose the NON honeywell FMC you will not have VNAV. So if you dont know or have not seen this, spend some time in the FlyTheMadDog windows app before flying. The non VNAV FMC is great to go really old school, but I do like my VNAV being a modernist AKA Lazy!
ATC gave me a really late descent as well, the plane handled it perfectly, I had to use the speed brakes a few times, but it is really well done, and you can see the Space Shuttle influence in it.
I resisted purchase for a long time (mainly due to price and poor reviews of sounds/textures), but itâs really unique and the simulation itself is excellent. The yt video " Cockpit Chronicles: Why Iâve fallen for the MD-80" is worth a look to learn about some of the quirky features of this unique aircraft. This bird doesnât get a lot of attention as seems no one puts it on their top 10 list. Takes some effort to learn but very rewarding when you complete a flight successfully.
Leonardoâs MD-8X is probably one of the best MD-80s out there.
However, whether it is worth the money or not, this strictly depends on your personal preference rather than the quality of the product.
The aircraft is no longer in service in most major airlines. But like most classic jets (BAe-146, A310, Dc-10, etc), you might consider it if you have strong emotional attachment to the plane (as many people in Indonesia does, since MD-80 dominated our sky back in 2000-2010). If this MD-80 were A220 or E-jets of the same quality and fidelity, you would pay the price with much less consideration.
My personal take is, you are wasting money if you pay for âmodel onlyâ pax jets like LVFR or Bredok3D or CaptainSim, even it only costs $15. It is the same like wasting your 3-meal a day portion by buying awful food. Yes, we eat to live, but those are for people who donât take eating seriously or enjoy their life. For people who enjoy something (such as Flight simming) more than others, I think you need to pick your planes more seriously (be it helos, GA, fighter jets, etc). If you donât spend on those tempting model payware jets, the money can easily go to this MD-80 and you wonât regret that much.
I fly the Rotate MD80 in X-Plane 11. It took me a while to learn how to fly this bird, but loved every flight once I got the âhangâ of it.
Same is with the Leonardo MD-88. If you like flying these vintage airplanes and are willing to put in the effort of learning how to fly this bird (unless you have the experience), then you will not regret the purchese.
I held off on the purchase in the early part after release, but I think in the current state (there are always bugs to fix or improvements to make) itâs one of the top add-ons. I purchased it as a Christmas gift and am enjoying it a lot
As stated by others it depends on your personal interest and willingness to learn to fly an airplane the right way.
Personally its become my favourite airliner in the sim.
Bad:
The high price is off-putting for a lot of people especially with aircraft like the Fenix and PMDG 737 (some variants) now being priced a lot lower.
The textures arenât great. The way I describe it is it was made beautifully but to an older technical standard. At first glance and so long as you donât look too close it looks very good. But then you start to see the issues like baked in hard shadows when they should be using normal maps and ambient occlusion, some larger details done in the texture that really should be in the 3d mesh (probably even more noticeable if you use VR). Weird low res baked reflections on the throttle quadrant when it should simply have a PBR metallic material and so on. I am able to look past this as I enjoy the jet overall and the general look and feel is still very pleasant so long you dont look tooo close. If you love old school jets its incredibly fun to be inside.
Good:
Leonardo have always had a reputation for being absolutely top tier in terms of the depth of system modelling. And with the updates fixing the various (mostly minor) bugs since release its definitely at or near the top of systems fidelity in msfs aircraft. However unlike the 737 and the A320 we dont have people on YouTube like 320simpilot or 737NGdriver; real world pilots doing detailed breakdowns and tutorials with the add-on getting into the nitty gritty of procedures and systems. Rest assured its all there but the best way to learn the aircraft is to go through the incredibly detailed manual Leonardo includes. Real world FCOM and FCTM manuals can also be found online though the included manual is very comprehensive. There are probably random videos you can find for msfs and the older p3d version but so far Iâve not seeing anything like the detailed series 737NGdriver does for the pmdg 737. Personally Iâm still just about getting to grips with normal procedures but I have turned on the realistic mode which now combines failures with a realistic maintenance schedule as well. Each airframe/livery you have will age over time (which can slowly affect performance and reliability) and you can end up in situations where you have items broken and inop but deferred for maintenance if the malfunction is considered dispatch worthy So far nothing has broken fingers crossed.
Not being an IRL pilot I canât speak to accuracy of the flight model but again Leonardo are good devs and they are probably doing the best they can with the msfs FM SDK. It is challenging to fly at low speeds requiring large control inputs as the control surfaces move via tabs that deflect airflow. I can land it decently now when I cross the threshold and flare but I still struggle to get to what would be called a stable approach on final Leonardo doesnât include any sort of way to sync up your throttle before auto throttle disconnect like the PMDG does which doesnt help. I try to disconnect AT a bit earlier than the autopilot and try to stabilise my speed.
I personally feel like I am getting my moneys worth and as I said its my favourite plane in the sim despite the rough edges in the art.
ps. in terms of procedures its too old to have the ability to fly LPV approaches and it doesnt provide advisory glide path for other RNAV approaches either. So all RNAV approaches have to flown with LNAV minimums in VS mode. Though it was broken at launch with the first update they did it can now fly DME arc procedures properly. Though the real thing canât fly RNP AR procedures with radius to fix legs, they are included in the database and the curved RF legs are defined with multiple fake waypoints like PMDG does (DME arcs are drawn properly though). I dont know if this is a realistic depiction or a simism. I suspect IRL they wouldnât be in the database.
pps. it can do ILS cat III auto land but only if you do the test procedure before take off.
Not excusing Leonardo or anything. But his product has been around since FS2004 days, which is back in 2006. So it is like 17 years old today. So they have that expertise and experience combined, together with obsolescence with modelling & texturing (and other visual) techniques.
What people has been complaining about is understandable. Texture-baked effects like alpha channel shine, specular maps for 3D effects, and so on were just a thing between FS2004-FSX days. I am not sure if his team are familiar with all the latest fancy stuff in MSFS - probably they are still learning. But rest assured, his MD-80 has been thoroughly tested by MD pilots who still actively fly their thing back then.
just restarting to fly the MD again and I´m stucked when trying to import the simbrief flight information through the EFB. Flightplan is already exported to the routes folder with the simbrief downloader (C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\Maddog X Files\Routes) but the files box in the EFB is empty. The "use simbrief for Fuel/route planning and) option is ticked in the load manager.
I hadnât flown this in ages, but with the new update just released and with the addon of the excellent FTSim sound pack, Iâm about to take my fourth flight in as many nights.
The first two were eventful, as I forgot some of the nuances of this interesting aircraft. If you havenât flown it in a while and are used to the 737 or A320 youâll likely screw something up in your first few flights. My third flight last night was pretty good so tonight Iâm going to try for perfect.
Note thereâs also a texture replacement pack at .to which along with the aforementioned sound pack really brings this aircraft to life.
Simbrief ID was setup correctly, but for some reasons after installing the last update yesterday and set a tick at the GSX synchronization (which I do not use) the import works as it should be.
Is the texture pack on flightsim.to noticeable difference over default? And can anyone confirm if itâs possible to make it work with liveries. From comments it looked like it wonât work as soon as you apply a livery.
Tell no one and have a blast, It is such a nice plane to fly. I absolutely greased it down yesterday at MKJP a bit unstable on approach and despite the landing speed being logged at 112, it was 134 I could see on the PFD, amazing add-on.
So far nothing has broken fingers crossed.
Leonardo doesnât include any sort of way to sync up your throttle before auto throttle disconnect like the PMDG does which doesnt help. I try to disconnect AT a bit earlier than the autopilot and try to stabilise my speed.
