VFW 614

The panel is filled up with traditional round instruments, all carefully rebuilt after the real ones, not using any default XP instruments. Pressurization is controlled manually. So you should not forget the settings! - Some of the special instruments mounted on the military version are also installed. Due to a total lack of respective documentation we were unable to make all of them alive.

The autopilot from the 1970s basically uses pitch and roll mode. In XP the nose-wheel tiller axis controls the roll angle, as soon as engaged, while the landing gear is retracted. It's really fun to fly this way! But also HDG, LAT NAV, ALT HOLD, GS and IAS modes are available, as well as Backcourse and Turbulence modes. Certainly ILS approaches are supported. The aircraft was not approved for autoland.

INS / FMS - The Luftwaffe VFW 614 has an Inertial Navigation System (INS) installed, which is very similar to the INS of the CIVA* plugin by Philipp Münzel ($10 only!). The original INS just supports up to 9 fix waypoints, with coordinates entered, without any NAV database. If you don't want to use CIVA, the INS panel can be "abused" as a very simple FMS. We made it compatible with the XP NAV database and allow an unlimited number of waypoints. So the AP can follow previousely saved flightplans with named waypoints. But certainly SID, STAR, Airways , etc. have never been in discussion for this kind of aircraft.

Click on image to get to the highly recommended CIVA plugin!

If anyone can provide us with authentic information of how the track calculator/indicator system worked, we will consider a respective upgrade. TACAN would not be of much use, I guess.

Documentation

The documentation which comes with this aircraft is overwhelming and is a treasure for itself! You'll get the original Flight Handbook and Flight Training Manual, plus four other authentic documents with system description and more. For this reason our own manual just provides basic Quick Start instructions, so you need not study the almost Thousand pages of the authentic manuals, before you can go for a first flight. But if you are keen to understand all the instruments and systems in detail, you'll have the same source of information at hand, which real VFW 614 pilots were using.

Cabin Interior

It's the first time ever that we modelled a complete passenger cabin, with cut out windows and animated doors. You may enter and leave the aircraft and move forward and backward in predefined ways, which don't let you go through walls, closed doors and seats. You can always pause the movement, look around or take a seat... All you have to do is assign a few custom commands to keys. We finally fell so much in love with the results, that we decided to continue on this route...