Aerosim DHC-8-Q400

The Bombardier de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Q400 is a twin-engined, short to medium range, turboprop airliner. The DHC-8 was introduced by de Havilland Canada in 1984, but since Bombardier acquired the company from Boeing in 1992, they are produced by Bombardier Aerospace. The Q400 is the latest and longest member of the successful Dash 8 family, with the "Q" standing for "quiet". After the installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system, Bombardier renamed the Dash 8 models as the Q Series turboprops (Q200, Q300 and Q400). The 70-78 seats Q400 made its first flight on January 31, 1998. The Q400 is powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A turboprop engines.

Aerosim is a Japanese developer of various MS Flight Simulator products. Many classic aircraft are available in special packages. However, not all their products are classic aircraft, their DHC-8 Q400 is part of the Prop-Liners Collections package. Besides the DHC-8 Q400, the package also contains the DHC-6 Twin Otter and the Saab 340B.

Like their other products, Aerosim's Prop-Liners Collections package can be considered 'light' payware, because their aircraft doesn't have advanced systems programming. Their DHC-8 Q400 is a frame rate friendly model that looks very good actually. Only three liveries are included: FlyBe, Scandinavian Commuter and Tyrolean. The panel and the virtual cockpit is simple. All the basic functions are present, but expect nothing more. The textures in the virtual cockpit are low resolution and look a bit blurry, especially on high resolution monitors. Also, only a few handles and switches are clickable.

Here we complain a lot about the limited effect of the rudder of many aircraft, but this one is a bit too effective. It doesn't seem realistic to turn the aircraft 90 degrees with just one yaw to the left or right. So, be gentle with using the rudder...The engine sound inside the aircraft is nice, but the exterior sound is not that good. Also, it's like the recorded engine sound is repeating itself every few seconds with a awful skip. It's not that bad as with the Twin Otter, but still, it might be better to use one of the default sounds or download a sound package for this aircraft.

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