Douglas F4D Skyray for FSX/FS2004

Are you spending too much time on flight simulator? This airplane will help. I've never flown an airplane that used so much gas, and had such a small tank. Skyray, a delta winged single seat fighter designed in 1948 has excellent visibility, maneuverability, climb, and low speed handling characteristics. I like it. I do not like the engine. Throttle lag, combined with throttle creep make this airplane dangerous in the pattern. Constant attention to the fuel flow, airspeed indicator, and air brake are required to keep the bird below 200 indicated. Pattern speed of 140 and kiss speed of 130 are recommended. It's hard to do and the too small airspeed indicator does not help. I find myself on final at just under 200, rpm 80% at fuel potion number 4. Land with a combination of throttle chop and air brake, kiss at under 150. The stall speed is so low she is a sweet heart to land. However,the engine at low speed, and particularly the low speed change of speed and throttle required to make the airspeed in the pattern 'just right', is overly tedious and fiddly. Douglas Skyray's panel is very well laid-out, but you'll practice scanning left of the radar screen for the rpm and right of the screen for the fuel flow meter. The afterburner kicks off with the slightest decrease in throttle. She trims like a lady. Why no mach meter or dme? Fly this little bird. She's a challenge. Just be glad you're not paying the gas

One thing that always impressed me about aircraft like the Skyray is the fact that it looked so old-school yet carried such a ridiculous array of firepower on it.

Just looking at the bombs attached underneath it really resembles something from a cartoon for me, and definitely would not feel comfortable to fly this kind of aircraft in real-life! In a simulator whereby the stakes are much lower, though, I had no problem taking risks in this dynamic aircraft and all of its amazing firepower equipped to the bottom of it, giving me a whole new appreciation for bomber aircraft.

The four texture sets look brilliant and give you a real understanding of how cool this aircraft looks, making it easy for even those who are not believers to buy into the process.

The whole project, though, is something that really impressed with brilliant authentic panels and cockpits, animated and automated features and various other little additions that made it a lot of fun for someone like myself to fly around in.

What I loved the most though was the addition of features like checklists - it's a small addition but makes it easier to fly for most people, myself included. By doing it this way I found it ten times easier to buy and build up things in the way that I had always intended, making my life much easier in general as well as ensuring I would slowly but surely get better at flying around in this aircraft model.

I've wanted to fly one of these since I was in 4th grade, looking through an old book of US military aircraft from 1960 or so. I loved the Skyray for it's unorthodox looks--rounded off delta wings and all. This plane was a lot of fun to fly in FSX. While I wasn't able to go from release of brakes to 50000 feet in two minutes (in fact it has a hard time cruising much over 40000 feet) the Skyray is still a very enjoyable experience. Highly recommended if you are into Cold War iron.

Great plane which is working okay in FSX SP2. It even does fly well in P3Dv4, despite some throttle problem.

I recommend anyone to use the the free texture set by Pablo Diaz (F-4D Skyray VMF(AW) 115 -Silver Eagles- (weathered) ) which includes reworked VC textures for the Skyray. Overall I'm happy with the bird as well as the service here at SimShack. Because all of this I rate the aircraft with a 4.7

Gave it a 3/5 because it's a beautiful plane and a reasonable model of it.

But it is really a lower end entry level model that is lacking in many ways. Good fun for some cruising, but not a model to expect anything of.

VC could really have used a little more love, even at cheap.

I'm going to have to give this a try. My dad was killed flying this A/C in 1960