DM Flight Sim DH106 Comet

The De Havilland Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner which flew for the first time on 27 July 1949. De Havilland's innovative spirit to build the first commercial jet aircraft came with a high price: two crashes which were caused by metal fatigue stopped the success of the Comet. The Comet was temporarily withdrawn and redesigned with strengthened fuselages and oval windows. Larger and further improved types followed over the years. The last Comet variant was the Comet 4C, grown by 6.6 meter compared to the Comet 1. A total of 114 Comets were build, thirteen of them were lost in fatal accidents. A British government owned Comet flew for the last time in 1997. Only one Comet is still in running condition today and is stored Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome, where she regularly conducts fast taxi runs.

DM Flight Sim is developer of freeware classic British jet airliners. Their De Havilland Comet is a nice model with panel, virtual cockpit and custom sounds. All usual animations are present and seem to be accurate. There are 5 different models available. The exterior is looking good although the liveries are not very detailed and look a bit blurry due to the low resolution (512x512) textures. The panel looks realistic, the majority of the buttons and knobs are clickable. One of the sub-panels is a dynamic checklist for takeoff, climb and approach.

The flight dynamics are not bad, the control inputs are a bit slow, just like it should be on an old aircraft. Engine smoke appears automatically when the engines are at full power. The virtual cockpit looks nice, not bad for freeware. Knobs and buttons in the vc are 2d textures and also clickable. Interesting feature is the small icons panel which allows you to choose various views, zoom in and out and load the cold/dark configuration which allows you to start up the aircraft yourself. The included panel manual comes in handy in that case.


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