more Connie experience

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   I am happier with further experience of the JF Connstellation. The visuals are excellent - both external model and cockpit. The flight model is also first class; with yoke, pedals and throttle quadrant, I does feel like a big prop airliner (although my largest real-life was a DC3). As to the matters requiring further work:
The fuel system needs fixing. At present the four levers at the bottom right of the FE panel are supposed to be the fuel tank selectors. Two have been seconded as fuel valves, which does is not workable, and their mouse selection is quite clumsy. Also there are no fuel cross-feed valves, which should be located low down behind the co-pilot's seat. Without these the fuel system is too basic to be acceptable in a JF Pro product. 
Much more could be made of the tooltips. Nearly every gauge and switch should be tool-tipped, even if not essential or even functional - again the Pro concept. The tooltips should carry more information - digital readouts of the settings. The tooltip hotspots could be better arranged in some cases.
The pop-up radio stack works well, however its counterpart on the VC is ususable. The magneto switches on the overhead are likewise unusable. I recommend a pop-up for the overhead. The use of hotspots to activate the pop-ups usually works well.
Some labelling of controls is incorrect. Please check the FE lower left reostats currently labelled for cargo bay lights - should be de-icing.
The switching for the inverters is confusing.
The animation showing No.3 starting activates when No.4 is started.
There are three unused levers on the throttle pedestal. One of these could be for prop thrust reverse. The four lights above the throttles are marked as Vacuum Fail - should be thrust reverse lights.
This is a beautiful aircraft with the potential to be a great sim. Good luck with the changes.

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rjpart Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Check-In Staff Joined: 13 May 2008 Location: Australia Points: 20	Post Options Post Reply Quote rjpart Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: more Connie experience Posted: 02 Jan 2010 at 8:45am
	I am happier with further experience of the JF Connstellation. The visuals are excellent - both external model and cockpit. The flight model is also first class; with yoke, pedals and throttle quadrant, I does feel like a big prop airliner (although my largest real-life was a DC3). As to the matters requiring further work: The fuel system needs fixing. At present the four levers at the bottom right of the FE panel are supposed to be the fuel tank selectors. Two have been seconded as fuel valves, which does is not workable, and their mouse selection is quite clumsy. Also there are no fuel cross-feed valves, which should be located low down behind the co-pilot's seat. Without these the fuel system is too basic to be acceptable in a JF Pro product. Much more could be made of the tooltips. Nearly every gauge and switch should be tool-tipped, even if not essential or even functional - again the Pro concept. The tooltips should carry more information - digital readouts of the settings. The tooltip hotspots could be better arranged in some cases. The pop-up radio stack works well, however its counterpart on the VC is ususable. The magneto switches on the overhead are likewise unusable. I recommend a pop-up for the overhead. The use of hotspots to activate the pop-ups usually works well. Some labelling of controls is incorrect. Please check the FE lower left reostats currently labelled for cargo bay lights - should be de-icing. The switching for the inverters is confusing. The animation showing No.3 starting activates when No.4 is started. There are three unused levers on the throttle pedestal. One of these could be for prop thrust reverse. The four lights above the throttles are marked as Vacuum Fail - should be thrust reverse lights. This is a beautiful aircraft with the potential to be a great sim. Good luck with the changes.

Van Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Check-In Staff Joined: 03 Jan 2010 Location: London Points: 1	Post Options Post Reply Quote Van Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 03 Jan 2010 at 7:49am
	Am a new member to this forum. My background is that of flying the Connie way back when I graduated from HighSchool in the USA. By chance I landed training and work for a company that Im not allowed to mention. However the experience gained was that which remained for a lifetime. My area of operation was USA/Pacific Theatre. I agree with most of the posts in that JF has been for me a trusted standard. I purchased some of its pro stuff couples years back and was very satisfied. Hoewever I wanted to really only fly the old bird stuff like I myself am and only flew A2A377 (as i feel the jet simulators are simulators of computers) as it is for me the best in the world for the money. As an old Connie jock I was thrilled when I heard that JF was going to bring out the ultimate in Connie experience. I have the download version. I use MS XP as this Vista stuff is the pits. Now... once I got the Connie installed up and running, I just had to jump in and go. Am delighted that this is not a plane for the Gerbils but rather an acquired taste. You need to prepare just like the real thing, which for me is the way it should be. Still we did get it rolling and and spin around was very satisfying. I was more interested in the handling in relation to the real thing. Mind you it's been a lifetime ago since I sat in the left-seat of a real Connie, but it all comes back as you fly this wonderful simulation. I don't expect everything to be perfect but there are plenty of bugs and nearly all of them have been addressed in this forum. So where am I coming from? 1. I don't see much in the way of "real" response from JF really which saddens me as I do know the crew there from years back and it was a dedicated bunch. 2. I purchased this aircraft because it was the bird i flew, not the 377 - I planned to use it to fly some of the ferry routes from my old days plus around the world. One of the major benefits this plane was supposed to have was navigating in the old fashioned way, no GPS, we didnt have it then. So to my great dissappointment I found that the radio stack was IMPOSSIBLE to tune. What really gets me is that even the tutorial flight is not possible. All the manual says is roughly tune with the outer ring and fine tune with the center ring for frequencies after the decimal point. Zurich airport 114.05 cannot be tuned in - there is no fine tune facility. 3. I keep hearing about the download vs. the Boxed version. In this day and age of electronically distributed software you'd think that the downloaded version would be the most up-to-date. Seems not the case and I for one shall never use this facility with JF again. 4. I feel that the recent admonishment to contact support with these issues is kind of counter to what a Forum should be all about. Here we should have freedom to air our complaints in hopes that there would be a response. The only thing I've seen sofar is some mention of add-on pack in the present form. How can I purchase an add-on when the core product is full of bugs. Yes I admit that it was mentioned that the add-on has addressed these bugs, it would be good to know which bugs have been addressed before spending more money on something that in my book was an inferior product to start with. 5. Having punched that out. The present Connie "pro" package it not PRO by a long shot. It is however an excellent attempt at the norm. It can be used to mess around with but NOT for serious cross country flying using the old system of navigation. 6. Since JF is now aware of all the bugs and they have all the email addresses of live customers that purchased this plane, it would be good for customer relations to send out a notice as to when the bugs will be fixed and where SP can be downloaded. Once this is done I will consider purchasing add-ons. Iam not asking for money back, but this plane which I do love dearly has left a bad taste in my mouth. I definitely will refrain from any further puchases untill my present product has been brought up to proper JF standard. James Van
	Ferry Pilot Ret.

Voice of Reason Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Just Flight Staff Just Flight Staff Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Points: 603	Post Options Post Reply Quote Voice of Reason Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 03 Jan 2010 at 7:03pm
	James A few responses to various points you've raised. The numbers are respective to your questions: 1. We are still a dedicated bunch and we do try and be involved in the forum answering queries and helping folk out where we can. But and it's a big BUT, the forum isn't intended as a customer support tool it's here for you and other fans of FS to engage in discussion, debate, post screenshots, share views on add-ons etc etc. It's simply not logistical to carry out support on a case by case basis on the forum. There's a reason why we ask people to contact us directly for support and that's because we can focus on their specific problems, log all emails and follow the issue through to it's conclusion. It simply can't be done via an open forum. Regular users will I'm sure back me up on this. That said I know a colleague has posted on this forum within the past week or so to say that an update will be released that should address a number of the issues that people have spotted and rasied with us. That's about all we can say at this point as things are still being finalised so no point in raising hopes too high. We do hope the update will be ready early January for sure. 2. I'm not sure about the Radio Stack issue, I'd hope a colleague will reply on that point for you. 3. Feel free to never use the Just Flight download facility again. At least three quarters of our customers are regularly chosing this method nowadays but again it's your decision. The boxed version of Connie is more up to date because we were waiting on other things (print, masters etc) and then we were made aware of a few other niggles that we wanted to correct, hence the slight delay and a slightly updated boxed version for customers. Current owners of the download version will soon have the chance to update their version to a higher standard., rest assured. 4. The forum issue has been touched on above adn of course you have the freedom to ait your complaints a much as you like. I just can't guarantee that you'll see a reply on the forum from JF members of staff in the same way we don't reply to every positive post. Details of the update will be made public soon. 5. Point taken. Hopefully the update will move it up a notch. We'll see. 6. Already addressed above. We'll do our very best to make sure everyone knows exactly when the update is availbale and where it will be made available from. As we do with every update we make available to our customers. I hope this makes things just a bit clearer for you James. Thanks Scott