#1: Flysimware Cessna 414. What an amazing airplane. It knocked the Milviz C310R out of #1 for me. Flies great, has some very interesting old-school avionics and systems and yet can still take the great PMS50 GTN750. Itās got the capabilities of a turboprop (almost) to get over weather and cruise in the FLs. Super-versatile, beautifully modeled airplane. Well worth the money and until somebody puts out a decent King Air-style turboprop for MSFS this is my cruiser of choice.
#2: Milviz Cessna 310R. In FSX/P3D I was a huge fan of the A2A Simulations planes because of the whole persistent āownership experienceā tracking wear and whatnot. This does that. In addition it flies awesomely, sounds great, and looks super sexy.
#3: Just Flight BAe 146. What a neat airplane. Quirky enough to be interesting but also supremely capable and boy does it fly well. The only thing I would ding it on is I wish the FMS was a little more full-featured, and I wish we had the Avro RJ variants with the updated cockpit, but maybe those will come down the road.
#4: PMDG 737-700. What can you say? Itās a PMDG product. Study-level simulation, flies like an absolute dream, and all the ancillary stuff (fuel loading, payload, ACARS simulation, etc.) just works. (Unlike my Maddog, which Iām having constant problems with getting OFPs and fuel loaded over into the sim from the flight bag.) Itās the best follow-the-purple-line aircraft in MSFS right now by miles.
#5: Just Flight Arrow package (and the Warrior II as well). Iāve always thought Just Flight stuff was kind of hit or miss, some were good, some were meh. They hit this one out of the park. All the PA-28s are fantastic.
Honorable mention: SWS Quest Kodiak. Awesome bush plane and the WT G1000 integration has gotten me over my dislike of MSFSās G1000 implementation. I canāt put it in the top 5 because Iām having some pitch control issues with it (donāt let your CG get too far aft or she gets spicy!) but itās very close.
Honorable mention freeware: Cessna CJ4 with the improvement mod for the avionics. It doesnāt suck anymore!
PMDG DC-6 is still the best aircraft overall. Convincing flight model, great sounds, fun to fly and to create flight plans for. Great for admiring the scenery.
Fenix A320 for its fidelity, visuals, sounds and fun to operate.
Milviz C310R for its flight model, sounds and systems modeling. Cockpit visuals, windshield and gauges reflections do not match the quality of other aircraft though.
FSReborn Sting S4 for its flight model and systems modeling. Not fan of the avionics (default GSX3).
SWS Kodiak for its attention to detail and WT G1000 avionics.
Honorable mentionsā¦ Sting for sureā¦ just odd jittery turbulence and G3X ruins it for me. Milviz 310 is not bad, but I like the 414 a whole lot more.
Not so many submissions this week so the shape has not changed too much. The gap to Kodiak is definitely closing up though (just 13pts in it now, was 22pts gap last week).
2 new planes mentioned this week bringing the total to 132:
We went there today. Very cool collection. Sat in the Hunter too. Blimey with the canopy shut it was roasting in there (very hot day). I really wouldnāt fancy flying that and having my life on the line. So claustrophobic.
They have a great amount of scale models of all sorts in the hangar (cars, bikes and boats too) - hundreds and hundreds of them. Didnāt get around to sitting in any other aircraft today, as my boy was getting fussy (too hot) but Iāll definitely go back one day to do that. Thanks for the suggestion @Vapour75
ā¦perhaps modify the app of yours to (if a box is checked) run automatically once a week, and upload the results to you, and infer the top-5 via the top-5 flights filtered with a rolling 3-week (or so) snapshot?
And to think that this add-on is about to get a major overhaul too!.. I love this plane as it is already, but itāll be interesting to see how the new changes affects peopleās views.
Weāre about to the point where, with hundreds of aircraft, itād be feasible to have a top five for each aircraft category. Airliner, GA, STOL, military jet, Classic/vintage, etc. Business jets are really the only category that doesnāt even have 5 aircraft yetā¦