Mini-Review: Kickin' It Old School with the CLS 747

I have been playing around with the recently released CLS 747 add-on this week, so I thought I would take a few moments to share some impressions about it.

The CLS 747 product represents the classic -200 and -300 series of the 747, which when originally released, lacked many of the modern features found in the flight decks of today, including the 747-400. The 747-200 and -300 still do see a fair amount of use these days, especially among cargo airlines as freighters. (In fact, a 747-200F freighter made the news in May 2008, when one of Kalitta Air's planes broke apart after overrunning the runway in Brussels.) Many airlines that still happen to fly the type have probably retrofitted the flight decks with modern flight management systems and other conveniences, but these are not really simulated much in the CLS product. CLS does simulate a basic FMS similar to their DC-10 product, but the functionality is minimal. Nonetheless, for a pure old school 747 flying experience, you won't miss the FMS much anyway.

The rest of the cockpit represents a typical set of steam gauges from the classic 747. Experienced 747 pilots are probably used to it, but some of the presentation is a bit unique compared to other aircraft. For example, EPR, N1, and N2 are all represented as vertical bar graphs for each engine, rather than dials. This is actually a rather clever presentation, as it minimizes the amount of space required to display four sets of values (one per engine). Once you become familiar with it, it's not a big deal.

Flying the CLS 747 is actually not much harder than flying one of FSX's built-in planes, as it turns out. (The CLS 747 is very similar to the CLS DC-10 series, in this regard.) The trick for me was figuring out how to engage all the various aspects of the autopilot and autothrottle. I actually didn't even use the autothrottle for the first couple of short test flights, just to make the experience even more authentic. The CLS manual provides a good illustration of the panel and where the various switches are, but it does not clearly spell out how to engage IAS hold with the autothrottle armed, for example. It took a couple of short flights before I finally figured it out.

The CLS 747 manual actually has some really nice tables reproduced from Boeing's 747-200 flight manual regarding takeoff N1 settings, and V1/Vr/V2 speeds based on aircraft gross weight. This is a particularly nice touch. The manual also includes some checklists for every aspect of flight. I don't remember if these are available online from the kneeboard, but it would be nice if they were.

Overall, I had no trouble taking the CLS 747 out for a spin on a few flights this week. I was able to navigate from VOR to VOR quite easily using NAV radio mode on the autopilot. The autopilot also supports FSX's built-in GPS navigation mode, but I figured this wasn't old school enough for me.

Bottom line: if you're looking for a classic 747 flying experience, the CLS 747 is a fun choice. Don't expect a detailed sim along the lines of the PMDG 747-400, though. CLS has made quite a few free liveries for the CLS 747 available as free downloads from their website, which adds a nice touch of realism when flying around in this aircraft. I do wish they had an easier way to install these as an all-in-one package, rather than having to download, unpack, and install each ZIP file individually.

I'll post some screenshots in my next blog entry.

Rating: *** 1/2