PAOB Fokker 50

The Fokker 50 is a twin-engined, short to medium range, turboprop airliner. Design of the Fokker 50 started in 1983 as a refinement of the highly successful Fokker F27 Friendship. The prototype first flew on December 28 1985. The Fokker 50 was based on the stretched F27-500 airframe, but with more fuel efficient Pratt & Whitney Canada PW124 engines, an electronic flight and engine-management system, smaller windows in the fuselage and a two-wheel nose gear. The Fokker 50 can carry up to 58 passengers over a distance of 1,110 nm (2,055 km).

Precisionaerobus (PAOB) is developer of payware aircraft for FS2004 and FSX. However, their Fokker 50 is for FS2004 only. The package includes the F50 model with 5 liveries (KLM, VLM, SonAir, MASwing and VLM-Aanvalluh), 2d panel, virtual cockpit and sounds. The exterior is quite detailed and so are the liveries. Many (but not all) cockpit systems are simulated, like air conditioning, anti-ice, APU, electrical, fuel, hydraulics, etc. You can access those systems via the 2d panel or in the virtual cockpit. The panel looks realistic, many buttons ands knobs are clickable. The vc isn't bad either, although the lack of photorealistic textures makes it look a bit cartoonish. A passenger cabin is also modeled in the vc. Unfortunately, the wings are not modeled in the vc which means no wingview.

All moving parts are animated correctly, including the landing gear. The passenger door can be opened with the default keystroke SHIFT + 1. Interesting detail: there are no pilots inside the cockpit...not on the ground and not in flight. There is no checklist included in the kneeboard, instead you have to press SHIFT + 5 to open a special checklist popup. The flight dynamics are quite good, the aircraft handles as expected from an aircraft of this size. However, the rudder yaw effect is not sufficient, which makes a crosswind landing uncontrollable. There is no manual included, you have to download it from the PAOB website. See the product locations for the link. This manual is in PDF format and contains 80 pages.





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