My Favorite FSX Add-Ons

I've been thinking about a few of my favorite FSX add-ons lately. A lot of these are perennial favorites is most flight simmer's hangars, but I am probably a little less picky than most. I won't do a similar list of most-disliked add-ons, as I like to keep the general overall tone of this blog positive. Just the same, I do plan to be truthful as to any shortcomings I run across in particular products as I review them.

This list is in no particular order:

1. 747: Queen of the Skies by PMDG. This is an extremely well-done simulation of a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. The freighter version (747-400F) is also included. I love flying this baby on transoceanic routes such as New York to London. There are also a ton of free downloadable liveries available at the site, representing most major operators of the 747 currently. I honestly can't say anything bad about this particular product at all. The only downside is the price: at €59.99, this is equivalent to nearly $100 US! Quite expensive -- even more so than the original game itself. Gotta hate the weak US dollar these days.
   
   
2. 767-300ER by Level-D Simulations. This is a very high-quality simulation of a 767-300ER aircraft. This one happens to be another favorite of mine for running transoceanic flights, as well as some domestic flights on high-capacity routes such as Chicago to Los Angeles. Lots of liveries are available for this one as well. The developers have been very responsive at the Flight1 product forums with product support issues, and they have come out with a few service packs over the last year or two to address software bugs. The price on this one ($54.95 US) is fairly reasonable for such a quality product as well. You definitely won't be disappointed with this one.
   
   
3. 737 PIC by Wilco Publishing. I know a lot of people knock Wilco for quality issues with their products, and I have certainly had some mixed experiences with their add-ons in the past. However, I will give them their due and say that the 737 PIC is quite good -- easily one of their best aircraft add-ons available. Note that this is a simulation of the 737 "Classic" series (-300/-400/-500) and not the latest "NG" series (-600/-700/-800/-900). They have quite a few free liveries available for this one as well. The only drawback with this one is an apparent bug in the installation scripts that seems to corrupt FSX's dll.xml file. This is known to cause both the 767-300ER and 747 products above (and quite possibly others) to crash when loaded. Fortunately, fixing this file is a relatively simple procedure. PMDG has some instructions here. The only other unfortunate thing about Wilco's products is that they also happen to be priced in Euros, which puts customers in the US at a disadvantage.
   
   
4. ERJ-145 PIC by Wilco Publishing. This is far and away my favorite regional jet add-on for FSX at the moment. I really enjoy flying this one from hubs to smaller, outlying airports. I only wish there were a comparable CRJ add-on as good as this one. Wilco's CRJ add-on is rather outdated, and quite underwhelming. There are relatively few add-on liveries for the ERJ available from Wilco, but lots of folks over at AVSIM have created some really nice repaints for this plane. I really like the American Eagle, AmericanConnection, Continental Express, and ExpressJet repaints, among others. I will omit mention of Wilco's Embraer Legacy PIC product in this list, which is nearly identical to this one.
   
   
5. Airbus Series PIC Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 by Wilco Publishing. A lot of people have complained that these have been rather buggy, although I think they have gotten much better within the last few months or so. I know I have tripped over a few irritating bugs on these myself in the past. However, I rather like them now -- I think they are fairly immersive renditions of the Airbus A318/A319/A320/A321 (Vol. 1) and A330/A340 (Vol. 2) airplanes. CLS makes a competing version of the Airbus heavies (A330/A340), but their product lacks some comparable functionality such as a FMC and VNAV modes. However, some people say the Wilco models aren't very realistic.
   
   
6. Cessna Citation X PIC by Wilco Publishing. Staying with the Wilco theme, I really enjoy their Citation X add-on as well. Cessna has even officially endorsed it as of fairly recently, so this apparently speaks very well of the quality of this particular plane. I dunno, there is just something really fun about cruising along at Mach 0.88 at FL510 and waving to everybody flying down below you. One of the best corporate jet add-ons around.
   
   
7. Ultimate Airlines: Super 80 by Coolsky/Flight1. This is an absolutely fantastic rendition of a McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 aircraft. The MD-80 series remains a workhorse in American Airlines' fleet (among others), and this is a fun plane to fly. The add-on simulates an MD-81, though these are relatively rare in the U.S. these days. Midwest Airlines still flies a few, while American prefers the slightly upgraded MD-82 and MD-83 models. I have had some troubles with this one crashing in the past (particularly in the load manager), but recent beta updates seem to have fixed quite a few of those issues.
   
   
8. ATR 72-500 by Flight1. This represents one of the few turboprop add-ons available for FSX, and it is very nice. I use it to simulate flights to mostly small-market routes in the U.S. that are typically served by Bombardier Dash-8 and Saab 340 props, as there are no high-quality add-ons available for those airplanes yet. I have encountered a couple of bugs in this one that have caused crashes on occasion, so beware.
   
   
9. McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 series by CLS. One of my favorite add-ons for simulating cargo flights by carriers such as FedEx. The CLS aircraft has some kind of minimal FMC, which I find interesting. I suppose many DC-10s have been retrofitted with FMCs, but these were obviously not standard equipment on the DC-10s when they first came out in the 1970s. The CLS FMC is fairly minimal, mainly consisting of importing the existing FSX flight plan into the autopilot, not unlike the planes shipped with FSX by default. Still, for a realistic "old school" DC-10 experience, you could probably just avoid using automatic lateral navigation and fly from VOR to VOR the way things used to be. At any rate, this one comes with quite a few liveries, including some nice retro liveries dating back to when the DC-10 was in regular use as a passenger aircraft.
   
   
10. Boeing 747-200/-300 series by CLS. I honestly haven't looked at this one much, but it looks very interesting. I will probably do a mini-review on it soon once I have a chance to play around with it some more. I think the navigation situation is very similar to CLS's DC-10 product above. Again, another good plane for "old school" flying.

Any other planes out there you like?