If you have ever been on a package holiday, there is a good chance that the aircraft that took you there was a Boeing 757. Most medium and large sized airports will almost always have a large number of 757’s present at any time, that’s how popular they are. Just Flight has now teamed up with PSS to bring the PSS 757 out in a boxed format. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look upon it) the PSS/Just Flight 757 won’t be made compatible for FSX.

This package from JustFlight includes all the 757 variants along with the various engines which they used, so in total you get 7 aircraft that comes with over 60 high quality liveries, as well as the ability to download and install other liveries from various sites around the internet. The majority of the liveries are for the 757-200 with Rolls Royce engines because that was the most popular variant. But with the ability to create your own liveries, you can have as many as your imagination and talent will allow.

The flight model of this aircraft has been custom designed based on real world data and has been tested by current 757 pilots to make sure that everything was as it should be. PSS and Just Flight are renowned for the accuracy and quality of their add-ons, so there is no need to worry that what it says on the box isn’t true. The virtual cockpit for this aircraft is highly interactive and fully functional and was my preference when flying as it is more interactive that the 2D cockpit and I felt gave a much better view on landing that the 2D cockpit. It was really easy to get the hang of very smooth landings from the VC, from the 2D cockpit they were more of a crunch! The visual model of the 757 is of the very high standards which run throughout all of PSS and Just Flight’s products and features all the usual animations that complex add-ons are featuring more or less as standard now, remembering that this isn’t a new product as it is a few years old now. The fact that this 757 can still hold it’s own against some of the more up to date add-ons just goes to show how good it is. Many of the systems from the real 757 are also featured here, things such as the air conditioning system, LNAV and VNAV, pressurisation system, GPWS warnings and more.

 The system that attracted me most to this package was the FMC. I have never reviewed an aircraft which is as complex as this one, so thought it would be great fun to do so. I am used to using the FMC’s on the Airbus Series 1 and PMDG 737NG package, but I know just enough to get me from origin to destination. It was going to be a challenge to get to know the FMC of this aircraft as I am more at home using the flight stick to fly smaller aircraft than I am letting computers fly it for me. Before even attempting the fly the 757 I read the manual through a couple of times so that I would be a little bit more familiar with the flight deck and systems of the aircraft before I took my first flight. I found that my knowledge of the FMC from the PMDG 737 was a massive help when programming the 757 FMC as most of the inputs were the same when planning a flight. I liked the option of being able to import the FS flight plan into the FMC or to program the whole route yourself. Having the choice of what to do here makes this package a great step up for simmers who want a more complex aircraft as they can get to grips with it gradually.

The package comes with a load editor and fuel planner so that you can set the aircraft up correctly with passengers and cargo (and even how many flight attendants are on board), as well as making sure that you have the right amount of fuel for the trip. Planning the fuel required is very easy as all you have to do is fill in a few blanks and the planner gives you the required fuel, which can then be loaded into the aircraft via a tool from the flight deck once you load up. It is worth mentioning though that you will need to change the international settings in FS to ‘Metric (altimeter in feet)’ so that everything loads correctly. This is something that is common with PSS products, but not so common with other developers. It can get a little annoying that you have plan the route using the US System to get the distance in miles, and then have to remember to change the settings over again before you load the fuel.

Another problem I had was on start-up because I had changed the default flight so that I always start with a cold and dark cockpit. I don’t know why but for some reason this package doesn’t like it. The flight tutorial points out that to get the best out of the aircraft, make sure that you load up with the default flight before switching airports and getting into the 757. I found that by just using my own cold and dark default flight I would encounter lots of problems, either the radios didn’t work, the engines wouldn’t start or the plane wouldn’t follow the correct route after take-off. It is a bit annoying having to load up and switch between airports and aircraft etc… just to get the thing to work, but it is well worth the extra few minutes wait.

Once you are loaded up and sat in a cold and dark cockpit it’s time to bring this plane to life. I followed the flight tutorial for my first flight, but don’t select the saved flight it instructs you to select as it won’t work because it looks to load an aircraft that isn’t there! It’s far easier just to load up at the airport and start from scratch. For an airliner as complex as this, I expected the tutorials (and manuals) to go into much more depth than they did. But this isn’t a bad thing as everything is to the point and very informative so that you can get on with flying with the minimum of fuss, even the FMC manual is easy to follow and isn’t excessively long. However, in order to get the 757 in the sky and functioning as she should, you need to follow the start-up and FMC programming instructions fully; otherwise you may take-off and not have a route loaded to follow! After you have gone through the start-up procedure a few times it will become almost automatic for you, once you get into the routine of what to do it’s very easy.

The biggest problem I had with this 757 was ground handling, sometimes when turning the rudder had little or not effect at all on steering, which led to some pretty erratic parking after landing. Taxing around the airport from the VC was very easy once I had learned when to turn the aircraft so that I wasn’t cutting corners and churning up the grass along the sides of the taxiway.
When you are programming the FMC it will tell you what the required take-off trim will be, which you then set by watching until the marker on the pedestal is lined up correctly. I found that it was best to set the trim level a little lower than what the FMC suggested as the aircraft would take-off with climb rates that might alert NASA! Setting the trim a little lower also made the aircraft easier to handle on climb out because I didn’t have to frantically trim down to prevent a stall. Once you are clear of the runway and have been assigned to your route, turn on the auto-pilot and relax, the plane will now fly itself, you just need to monitor the radios and enter the new altitudes as you are issued them.

On descent however, I found it was much easier to use the vertical speed function to let the aircraft descend to the next level. Sometimes when I used level change or VNAV to descend, the aircraft would descend at stupid rates, sometimes approaching 5000fpm just to be able to meet the target airspeed, which is very unrealistic. I’ve never been in a plane that descends like a roller coaster! But when the VNAV worked correctly, descent was very smooth and the passengers were happy.

When landing you have 2 choices, land by hand or let the aircraft land itself. I must admit that I prefer to land by hand, as this plane handles superbly and doesn’t feel like you are flying an aircraft this big. The flight characteristics are superb and flying by hand at any stage of the flight is fantastic. Letting the aircraft land itself means that you need to put a lot of trust into the systems, even though it is only a simulation, there is nothing more annoying than coming into land after a flawless flight only to crash upon landing. At first I didn’t trust the autopilot to land the plane, and as soon as I had the runway in sight I took over. Eventually I gave in and went for a fully automatic landing, and it went perfectly. The 757 touched down nice and smooth bang on the centre line of the runway and was probably even smoother than some of my efforts.

So do I recommend this aircraft? The answer without a doubt is yes. It is a fantastic package that has something for the systems purist and those of you who want to step up from something like Just Flights F-Lite range to a more complex airliner. The ability to load the FS flight plan into the FMC is great and makes the learning curve that little less steep whilst you get to grips with everything that this simulation has to offer. You need to fly the aircraft as the manuals dictate; otherwise you may be in for some nasty surprises during your flight. It is a bit annoying having to mess around at start up with the default FS Flight and swapping and changing aircraft and airports, but it’s one of those necessary evils. The package is available as either a download or boxed version (I reviewed the boxed version). The download is not very large at 189mb, but it will occupy 1.3mb on your hard-drive once it is installed. With this being an older add-on the system requirements aren’t as astronomically high as some of the new add-ons, so it will run well on a lower end system, but the fact that this is an older add-on that can still cut it with the new add-ons just goes to show how well it was designed. The price isn’t bad either, only £29.99/€44.95/$59.99. I have flown many hours in this aircraft during the last couple of months, and I will be flying many more.

Flight Simulator 2004:

Pentium IV 2.5 GHz PC
Windows XP
512Mb RAM
64Mb 3D graphics card
1.3Gb hard drive space

http://www.justflight.com/product.asp?pid=174

PAY8156