Mini-Review: QualityWings Ultimate 757 Collection

QualityWings debuted onto the flight sim scene this past winter with the release of the Ultimate 757 Collection. The Ultimate 757 Collection actually spans several of the most popular variants of the 757, including the 757-200 (most popular), 757-F (cargo), and stretched 757-300 variant. Variants with and without winglets are also included. I decided to hold off a bit until at least one service pack came out, which happened in early April. Much to my delight, the v1.1 update included support for Navigraph nav data updates in its FMS! I decided by then it was time to give the product a closer look.

Here are some shots of the base 757-200 variant on the ground and in the air. It's really a very nice-looking plane:

Next, we will take a tour through the 2D and 3D panels of the interior. Let's start with the 3D virtual cockpit:

Here is the main 2D panel:



There also exist several 2D popup panels. Here is one for the overhead panel area:



Here is one for the center pedestal area. I think it looks a little cramped:



Here is the radio stack:



Here is the FMS:



And EFIS display control switches:

From here on, I'll break down the rest of this review into three parts -- call it the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good

• QualityWings has done a really nice job with the external model. The 757 series is framerate-friendly, and still manages to look very realistic.
• Purchase includes both FS9 and FSX versions of the product. This will no doubt make FS9 zealots happy.
• QualityWings has also created an impressive number of repaints. My favorite is the Delta Breast Cancer Awareness livery, which looks really nice on their 757.
• QualityWings' slogan is "Complexity...Simplified!" If you are looking for a plane you can jump into and take off without having to deal with all the startup procedures, then this is the plane for you.
• The Ultimate 757 Collection has full support for VNAV and LNAV modes in the autopilot. A reasonable subset of the FMC is simulated as of v1.1, including terminal procedures (SIDs/STARs) at airports.
• You can customize some features of the flight deck in the Ultimate 757 Collection. For example, you can enable or disable the speed tape on the EFIS displays. (The original 757 EFIS did not have the speed tape, but newer 757s do. Depending on the airline you are simulating, you may want to enable or disable this option.) In addition, QualityWings has created a variant of the 757 flight deck with the new Boeing retrofit, which utilizes LCD displays similar to the 737NG and 777. Very cool to be able to fly around in all the different varieties of the 757.
• QualityWings permits 4 activations of the 757 on a single license purchase. This is rather nice, as I was able to install the 757 on both my desktop (main rig for FS) and my laptop (for when I travel).
  
• Based on my prior FS experience with other 757/767 aircraft, I was able to complete a short flight from KDFW to KAUS without even reading the manual.

The Bad

• A lot of the 757 systems are not simulated in the Ultimate 757 Collection. I know, I know, the philosophy of the QualityWings team from the ground up is "complexity simplified." I get that. Keep this in mind if you are looking for a PMDG or Level-D type simulation of the 757 -- this product does not rise to that level of complexity. I respect the choices of the designers, but I do hope at some point they will consider adding more detail to the systems, at least on an optional basis. To be fair, the QualityWings 757 is not as basic as a default FS aircraft or even a CLS product, although it has less detail than even the Wilco 737. In particular, I noticed the following systems were missing from the QualityWings 757:
• INS alignment
• TCAS
• NAV radio autotune mode
• Engine startup from cold and dark
• Weather radar
There may be others as well.
• I also noticed a few minor bugs with the 757. For example, on random occasions, the rudder would not move left or right on the external model whenever I would twist my joystick. However, rudder control was still active, as the plane would still move in the desired direction. I consider this a minor glitch. I also had to restart FSX once before the 757 came up with engines started. There were no major CTD problems, fortunately, so I'm willing to overlook these small, yet mildly irritating issues.
• The Repaint Manager is broken. It fails to even properly start up on my system. I consider this a rather severe bug. There may be a workaround, but I haven't been able to find out about it yet. More on this in the Ugly section, below.
• One other thing I dislike about the Ultimate 757 Collection is that clicking the glass displays of the EFIS and EICAS to zoom them does not make them substantially larger when zoomed! The small numbers on the displays are practically unreadable in normal mode, and only barely readable in zoom mode. I would prefer that they blow up a little larger when zoomed. This screenshot illustrates what I am talking about:

The Ugly

• The QualityWings v1.1 installer is very buggy. QualityWings relies on the Virtuali Addon Manager to activate your license over the Internet. Unfortunately, the v1.1 version of the QualityWings Ultimate 757 Collection ships with an incomplete version of the Addon Manager. The net result, if you did not have the Addon Manager already installed via another product (a lot of add-on sceneries use it), is that it will crash FSX every time it starts up. Unacceptable!
• Even worse, QualityWings denies access to the support forums except to paid license holders. I understand the motivation for this -- it is intended to cut down on piracy of the product, by providing support to only paid members. That's not my issue. The issue I have is with the absolutely broken system they use for handling registrations of paid members. Basically, you fill in a web form which apparently sends an email to a forum administrator to activate your account. Well, it has been over five days now, and a forum administrator has STILL not activated my account for paid support! Unacceptable! Flight1 has no trouble with using an automated system to validate paid license holders for access to their support forums -- why can't QualityWings come up with something similar?
• All sales of the QualityWings products are final, unlike Flight1 and other vendors. Keep this in mind when purchasing from QualityWings.
• I had to do research on my own to figure out how to fix the problem with the Virtuali Addon Manager above. Fortunately, I discovered a brief mention in another forum about downloading and installing the standalone version of the Virtuali Addon Manager, and after I did that, the QualityWings 757 successfully activated and installed, and I had no more problems with FSX doing a CTD every time it would start up. Still, it really chaps my butt that I paid $50 for a product that didn't work out of the box, and I had no way to get support from QualityWings to fix the issue. At least I can fly around in it now, thanks to my own research.
• I am still very annoyed that the Repaint Manager is broken, and I have no way to figure out how to fix it until QualityWings gets around to activating my access to the paid member support forums.

Bottom line: I found the QualityWings Ultimate 757 Collection to have so much promise, but ultimately, I was a bit disappointed by the lack of features. But even more than that, I was VERY disappointed about the lack of access to the paid support forums after FIVE DAYS of owning the product. I want to like the QualityWings 757 -- I really do. I think there could be much to like about it. However, because of the issues as stated above, I cannot rate it any higher than the following:

Rating: ***