Testing 747-400 for x-plane 10

First of all, I wish you a very happy new year, and I welcome you again to my blog.

As you can see I made this site a bit more international, the posts will almost always be translated into English.

For the translation I rely on two excellent translators, Matthia and Salvatore, so this “internationalization” is due to them.

Let's go back to us: it's been a very long time since I tested an airplane, so I want to start the new year testing the Rollon's B747-400 given with the brand new X-Plane 10; I'd like to remind you that you will find the plane in the “Heavy Metal” folder even just in the Demo version.

I need to clarify a few things: first of all, I tested the 744 on XP9 because I still have to get used to XP10; secondly I used my own Alitalia livery, and it gave me a big satisfaction.

Let's analyze the plane.

Esthetically, it's a great work, on the outside and in the 3D passenger area too.

The .dds file allows to optimize the texturization of the various parts of the plane, giving a very good result.

There’s also a beautiful Business Class, with the toilette door which can be opened and closed.

You can find a paint kit within the plane folder, but it doesn't enable you to modify the cabin texture, so only a good photoshop user could make inner textures.

There is a .rtf file in the folder explaining the start-up procedure; I followed it and i found it very quick and intuitive, anyway the plane starts up even if you make some mistakes; there is no pdf manual.

There is an interesting function, which allows you to change the course directly by the FMC, in the central part of the pedestal; unluckily, I didn't manage to do the same with the NAV2 course, I probably did some mistakes; otherwise it would be a bad gap.

While flying the plane you can truly feel its weight, it executes very slow turns and you have to try to land several times, if you want to do it manually without the ILS, just because of this slowness.

Sometimes you may have some troubles while modifying the altitude settings on the MCP, because it permits only a thin regulation, you will need to use the subjective view to change the altitude settings quickly.

There is a small bug too: while changing the HDG settings, if you pass the 360° value the next one will be 361 instead of 001, thus losing the cognition of the set value; you need to turn the knob back to have a correct heading value.

Overall it's a well made plane, but it's a resources-hungry plane too, you need to increase the resolution in order to read clearly the signs in the cockpit, and it will penalize an old-hardware owner.

This plane will surely satisfy most of us, but I believe that just a few of us will use it properly: this is a long-range plane, and I will hardly do a 7-9 hour flight.

I hope you will spend some time testing this plane and that this information has been useful.

I'd like to thank Salvatore for the translation into English.

Here is the 744 promotional video.

Happy Landings

I-LAIR