The whole reason this flight happened is because Drzewiecki Design had a sale and I picked up two airports that I had been looking at for a while. One was Gdansk in Poland and the other was Tallin in Estonia. With interesting terminal designs and strategic locations for a lot of interesting European air operations, I felt compelled to get both. A non-real world Lot flight between them in the FSS AG E-Jets E175 felt like the best way to do it. Here’s how it went!

Departing Tallin

Drzewiecki Design have done some really nice airports for Microsoft Flight Simulator and one that I’ve always wanted to get was Tallin. This airport features not only the airport but also some local landmarks near the airport and in the city of Tallin itself. You can see these clearly on departure which I soaked in as my LOT airlines E175 climbed out of the airport. Beautiful, dramatic, and a great way to get this flight started.

The cruise

Climbing up to my cruise altitude of 32,000 feet, the E175 takes a bit longer to get there than some of the more powerful airliners but it does it with a lot of competence. FSS have had some trouble getting the autopilot to be reliable with this airplane but their efforts appear to be paying off as the 175 did the climb without complaint and without a disconnect.

The route took me across some scenic terrain crossing the Gulf of Riga, across Latvia, Lithuania, and the Kaliningrad enclave. I’m actually not sure if flights are currently avoiding that airspace right now but that was no issue in the sim. Another geographical feature along here is the Curonian Spit, a curved sand-dune spit separating the Baltic Sea from the Curonian lagoon.

Landing at Gdansk

With the Baltic Sea now behind us we were in Polish airspace and descending through 8,000 feet in anticipation of our arrival at Gdansk – another Drzewiecki Design scenery that I was interested in seeing. With the low sun and the golden light bathing everything, I was treated to a scenic arrival at the port city.

My landing wasn’t perfect and I had forgotten how to get the ILS to activate on the E175 so I eyeballed it. I was mostly on the glideslope most of the way in but was a little low (as you can see) on final. Nonetheless I made a smooth landing and taxiied off the runway feeling pretty pleased with myself.

The scenery here did not disappoint as animated people walked around inside the airport as the jetway descended down to connect with my airplane. A great way to end what was a very enjoyable flight. Great weather, beautiful scenery, and an immersive airliner experience through and through.

Some thoughts on the latest state of the E175

Flight Sim Studios AG took the somewhat controversial move of selling their E170 and E175 before the aircraft was complete. The team promised regular updates and constant improvements to their products and despite skepticism from the community it appears that FSS AG has followed through with their promise of regular updates. Every so often I check back in on how the airplane is doing and I’m pleased to see updates coming through all of the time.

While some airliner features are a bit more academic to me right now, other ones like sounds, performance and basic functionality are key elements that I look for. FSS have been improving the E170/175 quite a bit over the last several months. Flying the 170 and 175, the airplane has improved in some notable ways that get my attention.

One of the most noticeable is in performance. This E-Jet is now quite a bit smoother on the frame rates than before. While I’ve not done any benchmark testing, I can report that it feels smoother and more inline with many of the other airliners I’ve flown recently. That affects everything from your flying down to the animations and overall enjoymen. Even just turning the control knob on the engine start was a bit of a pain before whereas now it feels better. The animation needs to be smoother still but its definitely getting there!

The sounds are also far better than before with both in-cockpit and exterior sound sets giving me a much more convincing roar than in earlier iterations. FSS are still tweaking the sounds and there’s still some weird issues such as the APU and GPU being far too loud. Still, real progress is certainly being made!

The aircraft pack remains in an early access state and FSS are working away steadily on the product. It also looks like they are readying both their code base and their art for the release of the E190 and E195. All four of these aircraft in two separate packs will continue to press forward under their current plan.

This recent flight has me excited about flying it again after a bit of a hiatus. I know I’ll be back with another journal before long!