Review: Jet or Turboprop? Part III

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I found the ERJ to be much more fun to fly on a single-engine approach than the ATR simply because it is easy to get caught behind the power curve on the ERJ at high drag settings. On my first approach I selected full flaps a bit too early and even with maximum power I was unable to recover enough speed to prevent a crash. As in real life, I’d keep flaps at the approach setting until landing was absolutely guaranteed.

Regarding cockpit layout, I have to say I’m a big fan of the modern glass cockpit of the ERJ. The guys at feelThere did a great job of cramming all of that information into those three big CRTs. The benefit is that most of the information you will need to reference during flight will be right there in front of you at all times. Of course, having all of that information at one time might lead some to feel that the panel is cluttered, but I actually like the wealth of information. The autopilot control panel is nicely positioned and very intuitive to use.

The ATR uses the more tradition “instrument T” layout and relegates all of the other non-essential information and controls to other panels. While this is more representative of what I fly in real life (King Air 200 & Citation V) I find myself longing for the information overload of the ERJ. Flight1 did an outstanding job of capturing the essence of the real cockpit however by implementing numerous pop-up panels and multiple views that encompass the entire panel area that it out of the direct forward line of sight. I don’t know that any FS2004 add-on I’ve flown has such a complete and thorough treatment of the multiple 2D cockpit views. A bonus feature that would have been nice to see in the ERJ is a fully functioning First Officer panel and I’m always a big fan of landing views since 2D panels suffer the disadvantage of the pilot not being able to peer over the top of them while landing.

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