Hey!
I came back to the beautiful and amazing Fokker 28 addon, and what a blast! I'm now flying for the TAT Virtual Airline, and it's been such a great experience.
While flying it a lot recently, I noticed a few things that could be improved to make this addon even more perfect:
When using individual axes for nosewheel steering and rudder, like on the real aircraft, everything behaves correctly until I press both axes simultaneously. When I do, the steering becomes almost uncontrollable, as if both axes are fighting each other.
The autopilot is much better than when the addon was first released. However, the pitch inputs when changing modes can still be quite brutal at times. This is especially noticeable with the ALT preselect controller when using VS mode, but it also happens with the classic version when switching between PITCH/IAS and HT mode. The aircraft suddenly pitches up/down to capture the new mode, almost as if it had received a very aggressive command. If there were passengers in the back, it would probably feel like a brief zero-G moment! Sometimes the aircraft even oscillates up and down before finally stabilizing. A less aggressive version of this can also happen when selecting IAS during descent with idle thrust getting suddendly set, or when switching from PITCH to IAS during climb.
According to the manual, during a visual approach the recommended configuration on downwind is 200 kts, Flaps 11 and approximately 85% HP RPM. However, this doesn't seem achievable. When descending with the gear up, the aircraft spends almost the entire approach at idle. If I apply much more than about 50% HP RPM, it accelerates very quickly. Once the gear is down, the performance matches the manual much better, but with the gear up the aircraft seems to have very little drag. Flaps do add some drag, but not enough to allow the thrust settings described in the manual, as the power has to remain below roughly 50% HP RPM to maintain the profile.
The new FMS is really cool and feels very accurate. However, I think the DTO function could be improved. When I insert a direct-to, the FMS seems to draw a straight line from the point where the DTO was activated directly to the selected waypoint. This results in a rather unrealistic manoeuvre, with a long turn back onto the overshooted desired course. I think it would be much more realistic if the FMS computed a smooth intercept with a single anticipatory turn, taking the aircraft's speed into account. I've attached a picture below to better illustrate what I mean. Right now the only thing I found to counter this is to spam click my direct until the end of the turn, to make sure the radial is align with the aircraft and not with the first FMS insertion.
[image: 475cd8e8-7593-4cb7-b529-bd2a70da2cb8.png]
[image: f299cf33-4839-458f-a602-5f3bb909c174.png]
Hope it helps !
Cheers,
Alex
