Late last week, Microsoft and Aeroplane Heaven released their Local Legend 10: Boeing 707-320C into the MSFS Marketplace. The launch has been met with some controversy with quite a bit of criticism aimed at the product. This was, however, an airplane that I was very excited to try out. I decided I wanted to try this one out for myself so here are some of my first impressions of the product. I expect I’ll be writing a review later on down the line but for now this is how I’m seeing this project.

Being clear on what we should expect

Local Legend 10 is, naturally, the tenth aircraft to appear in the series of aircraft that Microsoft and Asobo have offered. They have mostly contracted out to third party developers to fill out these aircraft and together with the Famous Flyers, have covered quite the gamut of aircraft.

We’ve had releases that have covered the Beechcraft Model 17 and 18, MU-2, Latecoere 631, Ju52, and most recently the Fw 200 just to name a handful. They’ve engaged groups like BlueMesh, iniBuilds, Carenado and others to offer these aircraft and the model has worked quite well. This isn’t the first time Aeroplane Heaven have done work for Microsoft in this series either with their DC-3 and C-47 as well as the WACO glider. They’ve also done one of my personal favourites – the Aero Ae-45 and 145.

With the announcement of the Boeing 707 as a Local Legend, I had hopes that the aircraft would manage to arrive with a decent array of systems, great visuals and sounds, but without the kind of depth that you might expect from a PMDG DC-6 or Just Flight’s F28. I was expecting more of a Fw 200 experience with depth that was adequate and a loving recreation of the iconic airliner to fly around in. It not in the same price bracket as some of those other examples and it shouldn’t necessarily have the same kind of depth. I tried to keep that in mind as I checked this aircraft out.

Initial impressions on the visuals

Aeroplane Heaven’s aircraft visuals have been somewhat inconsistent between aircraft types and over time. While the Ae-45 and Ae-145 were generally excellent, their DC-3 and C-47 were about average with some excellent parts and some less impressive looking pieces too. The 707 is perhaps the roughest that I’ve checked out.

The cockpit, which I initially didn’t think much of, is actually better than I initially thought. It’s generally well detailed and modeled. Not the best quality but its decent throughout most of it. But here’s where the inconsistency creeps in because some parts look great and other parts are not good at all.

Some parts look great such as some of the control knobs and toggle switches and they are right next to the trim wheel which has very obvious polygonal edges or the radar scope which looks terrible to my eye. Less polygons on some objects makes sense but in 2024 you’d expect big pieces like the trim wheel to get a slightly higher poly budget. Some of the back lit displays and warnings are also of questionable quality looking quite blobby and frankly unfinished. Like placeholders were used instead of the finished product.

The same sort of mixed experience translates to the outside of the airplane. Some parts of the model are good. The overall shape and silhouette feels right, the aircraft when viewed from a distance makes a good impression, there’s nice wear and tear visuals on some of the textures, there’s even some nice details on some of the aircraft skin. I also love the Boeing house livery and the Pan Am livery. I love too that Microsoft has managed to license Pan Am and intend to use it elsewhere because it really helps sell this product.

Unfortunately, when you look in other places and there’s pieces of the model that don’t seem to fit together. There are other places, like out on the wingtips, where it looks like there are overlapping textures of varying quality levels. I even spotted texture seams on the engine nacelles too. I’ve done a tiny bit of texture and model work decades ago and that’s the sort of mistake that I was making. I kind of expect a little more from a more experienced team. It looks ok until you look closer and then its just not great. Ooof!

I’d really like to see some smoke trails off the engines. It was known to be smokey at times and I’d love it if they leaned into that old school airliner vibe a bit more with a visual effect like that.

Also… the nosewheel just doesn’t turn right now. I expect that will be fixed quickly and in and of itself doesn’t seem like a big deal but it also seems emblematic of the issues that this product seems to have right now.

And there’s the sounds

The sounds in this product are a mixed bag too. First, on the upside we have a generally good soundscape in the cockpit. There are satisfying toggle switch sounds, the engine start-up sounds are actually pretty good and the cockpit ambience is actually fairly nice too. Flaps and gear make appropriate noises and there’s the iconic Boeing klaxon sound when the autopilot disengages or fails to engage because the pilot forgot the yaw damper.

So on the whole, its actually not too bad. But there are two issues that really stick out to me and hurt the overall experience because they are a big part of the experience.

The first is the in-cockpit engine sounds. Throttle up to maximum power and they seem to ramp up like any other airliner but then they fade into a bit of a muddy mess. I have no idea what a 707 sounds like in the cockpit but the whole effect is unsatisfying and it has the side effect of not communicating what the airplane and its engines are doing very well. Some folks have been critical of the iniBuilds A320neo V2 engine sounds too but I’ve not really had any complaints personally because that soundscape generally tells me what the engines are doing while here they seem to fade into the mix.

The exterior sounds are a mixed bag too. At certain throttle settings and camera positions it actually does sound alright. But at other settings the engines have a synthetic buzzsaw effect sound that makes it sound less like a turbojet powered airliner and almost more like a propeller plane. Ooof again. That particular effect needs to be refined to take on more of a turbojet whine.

Can you fly it like an airliner?

I’ve had a lot of negative things to say about the Aeroplane Heaven 707 but the systems are actually a bright spot. It’s reasonably complex for the product series that we’ve got here keeping in mind the price point and intended audience.

The airplane has a full suite of radios, an engineering station, VOR and DME navigation capabilities, an autopilot, you can do an ILS landing, and they’ve thrown in a GNS 530 GPS system too so you can fly a modern airliner route if you want.

The airliner is currently missing the 707’s INS system which is modeled in the cockpit but its currently inoperative. Doing an INS system is a bit of a complex task but apparently there are plans to issue an update with the system working. So having a GPS system in there as an option is a smart move in my mind and while the developers have attracted some negative comments about the GNS 530, I’m in full support of having it as a good alternative while we wait for other options. Just Flight put a GNS530 into their F28 too and I think that was a good move with that plane as well. A toggle to hide or show the GNS530 would probably satisfy folks who want to fly it with a little more authenticity.

All of that stuff seems to work which is no small feat given the complexity of airliner modeling so high marks on that. There aren’t a lot of extra frills here of course and that’s to be expected. So in that respect I think Aeroplane Heaven more or less managed to stick the landing on achieving the right level of complexity.

I also think the aircraft flies well. The handling seems about right, takeoff roll and landing roll feel good, ailerons and elevators respond well. It trims well and behaves slightly better with the yaw damper on than off. That part of this 707 experience is generally enjoyable!

Going on from here

At this point I really can’t recommend the Boeing 707 for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Not right at the moment anyways. There’s potential because a lot of the core pieces of this product have been done right with systems and complexity levels that slightly exceeded what I was thinking we might see. On that piece, I think the Aeorplane Heaven 707 has reasonably well executed this product and any bugs in systems that I or others may uncover over the next little while can be sorted out. The INS is a miss but that’s a complex undertaking for a Local Legend.

Some parts of the visuals and sounds need significant refinement and are currently a weak spot for this product. I think if the 707 sounded better and was more visually consistent it’d elevate quite a bit over where it is right now and I’d be overlooking any of its quirks. But they aren’t there and it all just feels like we got a preview build and not the finished product. Airliners are hard projects to tackle and while I feel that I have to be critical here on the weak spots, there’s good bones here too.

It also stands in such opposition to some of the other types like the Model 18 from Carenado or the Latécoère 63,1 which, while not having their full systems depth, were absolutely beautiful museum pieces. Whatever their weaknesses were, they felt like products deliberately intended to recreate and preserve the history of the aircraft. I’ve had a lot of fun with them as a result. This doesn’t hold that same level of satisfaction.

Work needs to be done on the visuals, on the sounds, and on some of the bugs that it has. Is it salvageable? I hope so! I want it to be! This is a rare miss in a field of generally enjoyable Local Legends and Famous Flyer products. We’ve heard already that feedback is coming in and I suspect that we’ll see possibly a series of updates aimed at the 707 before its done. When that day does come, I’ll be reviewing it more completely so until then consider this a state of this product and not anything close to my final word on it.

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