PSS Concorde

The Concorde was a supersonic passenger airliner developed by A�rospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Although the Concorde was not the first supersonic passenger airliner, it was the more successful of the only two supersonic airliners to have ever operated commercially, the Russian Tupolev Tu-144 being the other. Despite the excellent safely record, the Concorde operations ceased 24 October 2003 due to low passenger numbers following the type's only crash (on 25 July 2000). Also, the slump in air travel following the September 11 attacks and rising maintenance costs made the retirement of the Concorde unavoidable.

The Phoenix Simulation Software Concorde is detailed aircraft add-on for FS2004. The exterior looks nice with many correct animations. The livery textures aren't that great, a little bit too basic. The panel however, is not that basic. Many systems are simulated, almost all knobs and buttons are clickable. There are many separate panels that allow you to fly this complicated aircraft like the real thing. The included panel configuration tool allows you to choose the startup mode: with engines on, engines off or cold and dark. With that same tool, you can set the control assignments and adjust the panel volume.

The virtual cockpit looks nice, although many low resolution textures are used. Only a few buttons are clickable in the vc, so it is not meant to fly the plane in vc mode. Let's keep in mind that it has been many years since this aircraft has been developed, which explains the lack on functionality in the vc. However, the bright side of old aircraft packages are the good performance on today's computers, which means this aircraft is very frame rate friendly. For even better performance, you can choose to fly the non-vc model.

Another nice thing about this aircraft are the realistic effects of engine smoke and condensation over the wings. The latter appears only at low air speeds, like on approach/landing and takeoff/climb. Old and complicated aircraft like the Concorde are not easy to fly and so is this FS2004 model. Fortunately, PSS provided various manuals along with a tutorial and flight files.


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