Mini-Review: Captain Sim 767 Captain

The Boeing 767 represents one of the most successful and popular wide-body aircraft models in existence. Developed by Boeing in tandem with the narrow-body 757, the two aircraft share a common flight deck and pilot rating. The 767-200 variant first took flight in 1981, and United Airlines launched it into routine service in 1982. It represented a smaller, more economical wide-body aircraft than Boeing's 747, and enabled Boeing to effectively compete with McDonnell-Douglas's successful DC-10. (Indeed, the more efficient, twin-engined 767 is a chief reason that the tri-jet DC-10s no longer see active service as passenger airliners anymore.) Boeing launched a freighter version of the 767 in 1995, and cargo airlines such as UPS and DHL/ABX have readily adopted it as well. The 767 remains in active production at Boeing's facilities in Everett, Wash. to this day, although it will likely be eventually succeeded by the 787 "Dreamliner" whenever the latter finally takes flight.

Level-D Simulations first brought the 767 to life in the flight simulation world with their fine 767-300ER product a few years back. This one came highly recommended to me; so much so, in fact, that it became the second add-on I ever acquired. I have not been disappointed with it at all. It is rock stable, framerate friendly, and always ready to take me on my virtual adventures over the seas to Hawaii, Asia, South America, or Europe from North America. More recently, Captain Sim has gotten in on the act with a 767 of their own: the 767 Captain. This is a very logical step for them, as the 767 shares much commonality with the 757, which Captain Sim already released a high-quality model of back in 2008. So what does Captain Sim's version offer over the Level-D version?

Captain Sim's 767 Captain product represents a first for me: it is the first time I have picked up an add-on plane representing a model that already exists in my virtual hangar. In short, Captain Sim offers several new takes on the 767 over the Level-D version. Whether you find them compelling enough to pick up the Captain Sim version is largely a matter of taste.

In the usual Captain Sim practice, they have announced several variants of the 767 will be available. The base model will be the 767-300, and other variants will be sold as expansions that require the base model. Just recently, the first of these became available: the 767-200. Sometime in the near future, they will also produce freighter and military (e.g. AWACS) variants of the 767 as well. Longer term, they also have plans to produce the 767-400. This will represent a very interesting development, as the 767-400 is not just a mere stretch of the 767-300. The 767-400 also utilizes a newer, all-glass cockpit, which happens to be nearly identical to the ones Boeing used in the 777 and the 747-400. Could this mean that Captain Sim has long-term plans to produce a 777 once the 767-400 is out? It would make a great deal of sense, much like producing the 767-200/-300 series after they did the 757 series. This will bear watching.

Owners of Captain Sim's 757 Captain will notice a lot of similarities in the 767 Captain. The ACE (livery and load manager) and cockpit are nearly identical. As with the 757, you can optionally determine whether a given airplane repaint should have winglets on the wing tips. I think in both cases, the effect is largely cosmetic, and does not model the increased fuel efficiency that winglets actually deliver in real life. Still, it's a nice touch, particularly if you want your 757 or 767 to really look the way they are actually deployed in the field right now.

Here is the Captain Sim 767-300 in an American Airlines livery:



Here is the Captain Sim 767-200 in the same repaint, with winglets enabled:



And just for contrast, here is a third-party supplied-repaint of the Level-D 767-300 in American Airlines livery:



One rather interesting thing here is that the American Airlines repaint is the only 767-200 using Pratt & Whitney engines shipped with the 767-200 expansion pack at the time of its release. American Airlines has a well-known stance against commercial entities selling virtual repaints of their aircraft in flight sim games. It will be interesting to see if this offering stands the test of time, or if the lawyers will get involved.

The American Airlines 767-300 repaint is not shipped with the liveries included in the 767 Captain base pack, but is available as a free download linked from Captain Sim's support site.

The 767 Captain has a very rich set of 2D panels. If you are familiar with the 757 Captain, they directly correspond to the same ones used in that product. In fact, even the keyboard shortcuts are all the same.

As with various other Captain Sim products, they provide a bunch of nice little animations associated with the aircraft. Once again, these can be controlled via mouse clicks on a popup menu. Here is the 767 Captain's version:



Here is the 2D overhead panel of the 767 Captain. I will do a direct comparison with the 757 version later, just to spotlight the similarities (and minor differences) between the two:



Here is the FMS from the 767 Captain. It is largely identical to the 757. One nice thing is that, on the 767, Captain Sim has fixed the bug in which a bunch of terminal procedures (SIDs and STARs) were missing at large airports like KDFW. Apparently they are in the database, but due to a bug in the FMS, they do not currently appear on the 757. Given that Captain Sim is planning a 757 update within the next week or two, hopefully this fix will be backported into that aircraft as well:



Here is the 2D lights panel (at the bottom of the overhead panel in the actual aircraft):



This 2D popup governs the RA and range of the EFIS display:



This 2D popup gives you the full autopilot controls. I use this one a lot even when flying the 3D virtual cockpit, as it saves me the trouble of having to pan over to the autopilot in the middle of the cockpit in order to tweak a setting:



This 2D popup is the radio stack, including the transponder and TCAS. One interesting quirk of the 767 compared to the 757 is that the Captain Sim 767 will display a "TCAS FAIL" message while you are below the decision height (i.e. on the ground). This was confusing to me at first, as I thought the TCAS had actually failed. What could I have been doing wrong, I wondered? I finally figured out that the warning goes away once you takeoff. I don't know if this behavior is based on actual 767 behavior, or if it is just a bug:



Here is a 2D popup for the IRS settings on the overhead panel. In practice, I usually just set these on the overhead panel during preflight anyway, as I am busy flipping other switches up there in order to get the plane ready to go:



Last, but not least, here is the 2D popup for the settings for the weather radar. The weather radar looks fairly realistic, as it actually uses Captain Sim's Weather Radar product, which is included with the 767 Captain:



If you are familiar with the 757 Captain, getting airborne in the 767 Captain is a breeze. The differences are mostly minor, and you can figure them out in less than 5-10 minutes of fiddling around. If you are not familiar with the 757, then getting airborne is not terribly complicated, but takes a little getting used to. Overall, I find it generally simpler than getting a DC-9 or MD-80 ready to go, for example.

Lest I forget, the 767 Captain also has a wonderful 3D virtual cockpit. It is actually my favorite way to fly Captain Sim's planes these days, as they have done such a nice job with the 3D VCs on their 757, 727, and 767:



Notice much difference from the 757? I couldn't either. The differences between the overhead panels between the 757 are 767 are a bit more stark, but still fairly minor. Here is the 757 overhead panel:



And the (slightly) more complex 767 overhead panel:



Just for comparison sake, here is the main 2D panel in the Level-D 767-300ER:



Personally, I have mixed feelings about the graphics quality of the Level-D. I think it is less realistic-looking than the Captain Sim 767 -- it almost betrays its FS9 origins, in many ways. However, it is a very clean design, and the displays are easy to read. It is also much more framerate friendly on older video cards. Again, it really comes down to taste. I suspect many diehard Level-D 767 fans will probably not even so much as sniff in the general direction of the Captain Sim 767.

So why would you even want to pick up the Captain Sim 767? I can see a few main advantages:

• Support for physical models of the different 767 variants, including the 767-200, freighter, and military variants.
• More realistic 3D graphics.
• Lots of eye candy, including extensive 3D modeling of a cabin inside the 767.

However, if you are perfectly happy with the Level-D 767-300ER, then these minor enhancements may not justify the pricetag for duplicating an aircraft that is already in your hangar.

On the other hand, other simmers may balk at the pricetag, particularly for a product which is largely derivative of another existing product (the Captain Sim 757). At €49.99 for the base 767-300 package plus another €9.99 for the 767-200 expansion, the pricetag runs around US $75 for these two planes. However, Captain Sim is well known for running sales, especially around Christmas, so keep your eyes open for a temporary reduction in the pricetag in the near future.

Now I know the question many are asking: what about bugs? I have found a few, mostly minor problems with the Captain Sim 767. Conventional wisdom with Captain Sim dictates that you generally want to stay away from their 1.0 releases anyway, as they can be frustratingly buggy. Captain Sim has gone a long way to improve their quality, but still, for this reason (and a host of others, too) I held off until Captain Sim released a few service packs of the 767 before diving in.

The bugs I noticed included these:

• Once, the taxi lights on the 767-200 got stuck on. No amount of switching them off in the lights panel made them go away. This seemed to be a very random, intermittent problem that I cannot reproduce with a known sequence of actions, or I would have opened a ticket on it with Captain Sim.
  
• Very occasional program crashes, especially when ending a flight or pulling up a menu option such as the map. These didn't happen often enough to be bothersome, but they are lurking out there. Hopefully Captain Sim will squish as many of these as possible.
• There is a well known bug involving ILS-controlled descents in which the plane rocks from side to side or "porpoises" up and down. I observed the rocking problem with the 767-300 last night, and I finally had to just land the plane manually. This one is a bit irritating; hopefully they will fix it soon.
• I wouldn't call this a bug, per se, but the 3D virtual cockpit takes a long time to render on my ancient video card if none of the textures are in memory. Render time can be measured in seconds, at times. Ick. Beware.

Bottom line: in and of itself, I think the Captain Sim 767 Captain is a faithful, well-done representation of the 767. Some simmers may balk at the similarity to the Level-D 767 or the Captain Sim 757. If you are a diehard simmer or 767 fan, this one is definitely worth picking up. I completed a short flight from DFW to Chicago-O'Hare with no trouble at all, other than the ILS issue mentioned above. The price is a bit steep, but hopefully it will come down in the years to come. Hopefully Captain Sim will iron out the remaining minor bugs soon, as well.

Rating: *** 1/2