Majestic Dash Q400 + Airline2Sim Tutorial Videos

Well well,

Although I never thought of myself flying the prop, being a massive jet-tubeliner junkie, I have to say, I have been massively surprised in the last couple of days.

Since I’ve been planing on getting into Austrian Airlines Virtual yet again, I decided it was time for something new. I received the Q400 and the Airline2Sim videos to start with my “training” of the Q400. I have always been somewhat impressed with the turboprops, but never really dove into them.

I can’t say much about the aircraft yet, as I am now up to the Video #3, which is just prior to take-off, but until now, I have to say, as a NGX junkie and since that aircraft is basically my bar of flight sim quality product, the Dash matches it quite nicely. It is just a mere point in cockpit quality below the NGX, but with somewhat better performance! It’s not magic, but I will say with certainty it is about 20-30% faster. Which is, in an FSX world, a lot.

Now, from the 3 courses I made until now (and I will give you an update when I continue further), I must say I am very impressed with the aircraft and the videos!

You can feel, from the moment you enter Q400 cockpit, that there is a basic difference to any other aircraft out there. Starting from the performance, going over the sounds, how it moves, how it reacts to commands. Wow. Because Q400 basically runs completely independant of FSX flight modelling, it’s allowed to use everything custom, at least that’s my understanding of it. All parts of the sim are outside, and that makes the whole Q400 a whole new experience! Mostly impressive for me are the sounds and how they are controlled. I know FS9 and FSX now for years, and the sound modelling was always the same. Same old boring “problems”. In Q400, I have a feeling it’s completely different – it’s like being “in-there”. Engine sounds respond correctly, they sound like I remember from the Dash flights around Austria… and I hope the aircraft flies like the one I flew recently.
One of the coolest things though, the sounds play externally. It’s like the P3D function of external sounds, but this is in FSX 🙂 Love it. Can calmly switch to another app if I want, without sim breaking off the sound.

Now, the videos…
Thank you Ben!! This is by far the best collection of videos I have come across in a long long time. Not only the fact that they are very detailed and give a lot of information, they are very clear and understandable. It’s always nicely shown what you have to do and where the button is. With a brief explanation of the function. And then there are detailed parts which explain the FMC or whatever else, but I am not yet that far… For me as an experienced 737 sim-pilot, I am able to follow the videos without a single problem. Pausing, setting, listening, pausing, setting… really really great. Beats the PDF reading any day.
And did I mention, Ben actually had a F/O with him in the videos, so he’s the one actually giving the tutorials. So, you are basically learning the Dash off the first hand experience of a real world Dash pilot. I don’t know what else to say, except that the videos are well worth the buy if you are interested into the Dash – and you should be!!

Anyway, while I continue with the videos, I suggest you check both, if you didn’t already:
Majestic Dash Q400
Airline2Sim Q400 Cadet Training Program

All in all, a must have!!

And here is the video of the next day’s landing:

First Landing Q400