Took me a few days, but here’s my review of the CRJ by Aerosoft. Not only it’s MSFS’s first complex airliner, but it’s also great. Not 100% perfect, but great none-the-less. As a matter of fact, it’s a lot better and more complex than I expected.
That being said, it’s likely not for everyone. Whether it’s study-level or not is arguable as usual (it’s not a very meaningful definition anyway), but it does require study, and a lot of it.
As usual, it comes with plenty of video content and even a bonus livery, because why not?
Nice review! Thanks for sharing your experience. I agree that what attracts me to the CRJ is the mix of old & new as you mentioned. And, the idea of shorter legs and smaller regional airports to appreciate MSFS’s stunning scenery.
There is still however a satisfying amount of automation to keep people from drowning in too much study, however it’s totally recommended for those unfamiliar with the CRJ, as you mentioned.
For example, handling the bleeds is fairly automated on the 700 where the older 200, you had to select on/off different bleed “stages” at different times during the flight. Starting most FADEC equipped jet engines is almost a non-event and totally simple for the CRJ as well.
Where the study will come to play is in the avionics, autopilot, and pilotage. As I understand it, the CRJ autopilot has the ability to include the coupled VNAV yet that is a rarity for line-flying CRJs and one had better get used to climbing and descending using SPEED and VS. The lack of an auto-throttle, as in the real aircraft, may throw folks as well but it’s super satisfying getting your cruise and descent speeds dialed in and also while managing your approach speeds.
You feel like you are piloting the CRJ, not managing computers. I love my Airbus but this will be an aircraft folks will feel a sense of accomplishment when they get it just right, I’m sure.
Yeah, same. I love the a32nx. It’d be hard to choose between the two, but it’s good that we have such different options so early in the lifetime of the sim.
Excellent add on.
I would like to add that while useable in VR there are still some oddities.
Running an HP Reverb G2, cockpit displays are small and the text virtually unreadable. ( All tweaks from this forum for an nVidia 2080 ti applied )
If mouse zoom is not used I have to lean in to a virtual 12 inches from a display to read it in detail.
For comparison the Asobo CJ displays are more realistically sized and twice as readable.
Despite seating position the flight deck on the CRJ seems to have a scaling issue, appears small which would explain the tiny unreadable displays.
I have seen scaling issues in VR mentioned here before.
Has anyone found a fix?
And no I don’t need a link to the guy with the ruler proving otherwise.
A zoom setting I can customize in VR for the overall view for example?
Thanks for the review, but I disagree about the HUD, right now it’s pretty useless, the flight path symbol is buggy and won’t show you where your aircraft is going. We are very far from PMDG HUD.
My biggest issue with this implementation of the CRJ is disregard for continuity. Instead of programmatically implementing the FMS in MSFS, they chose to hard-code arbitrary csv files of data without regard for the user or the host application designed to provide this data. They don’t even cite the source of the data to help users create tools to support the generation of flight plans. It’s a black hole to all but the creator.
This is completely incorrect. The source of the data has been openly announced (several times) as Lufthansa Datasystems, which is the same used for NavDataPro. If one doesn’t like that, Navigraph is usable as well.
Incidentally, MSFS’ database isn’t usable not because they somehow didn’t want to, but because they could not. They’re waiting for Asobo to make it accessible to this kind of custom implementation.
So you’re telling me SimConnect suddenly does not provide FLT/Flight Plan data? That I’m required to use 3rd party subscription services even though other planes don’t have this issue?
Hey, I don’t like it either. But it’s up to the dev. I’ve never seen a need for Navigraph until now. IMO using the updated navblue database should have been a priority, at least pester Asobo about it.
I’ve had the CRJ-500/700 for several months and not really had any issues. The most recent update apparently caused a significant problem, possibly only with the 900/1000, but I think it’s fixed now. In short, I wouldn’t let worries about sim updates stop you.
I thoroughly enjoy flying the CRJ’s, they’re a lot of fun, and have been getting better with each update Aerosoft pushes out. Sure, there are still some quirks, but nothing that’ll stop you from enjoying a flight from A to B, providing you set the aircraft up properly before flight. There are plenty of manuals, references, and video tutorials to look at, and certainly become familiar with how the autopilot works.
No more updates apparently. It’s really hard to continue to build my home cockpit when everyone is moving on to the PMDG , Its really quiet from Areosoft now in days and it makes me ill to think coming to the MSFS platform would warrant new and exciting times. The only plane I tested where everything worked… even the switches … was the Fenix. I really enjoyed this CRJ for as long as I could, sadly it’s time to let it go and restructure my home sim for FBW which seems to be the only long-term folks on here that give a rat. I do not expect a reply, but it makes one bitter to think that a product so promising can just die out in a year. Not today Satan and never again Aerosoft.
