Just Flight have started to move their Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 aircraft over to 2024 and at the same time they have been taking the opportunity to further refine several high profile products into version 2 releases. The latest in their fleet to get the treatment is the F28 Professional. With new features and a new sim to fly it in, this seemed like a good time to do a re-review of Just Flight’s F28 with a look over of the features and take a close look at the latest version of the aircraft. It’s also an opportunity to see how well it has made the transition to 2024. This is going to be a long one so get your tea, coffee, or snack of choice ready and let’s review the Just Flight F28!

A bit of history

First flown on May 9, 1967, just a month after Boeing first flew their classic 737, Fokker Aircraft were jubilant about their new twin engine turbofan airliner. Intended to be able to fly into 85% of the destinations served by their turboprop powered F27 airliner, the short range regional jet was able to carry 65 passengers in the early models and 85 in the later models with a range of 900 nautical miles or 1,668 kilometres.

The type saw sales success and 241 were produced between 1967 and 1987. Fokker F28s found plenty of customers all the way from Europe to the Americas and Asia and, later, in Africa too as the aircraft aged out of some fleets and found second and third lives.

After four major production versions, the company experimented with further refinements of the design. Ultimately, they performed a more significant upgrade to the airplane and developed the more modern F70 and F100 airliners following the conclusion of the F28’s production run.

Not many F28s are still in service these days, however, a few still do fly around the world. Four are still on register with the Argentina Air Force, for example, who appear to use the aircraft in a mix of VIP transport and scheduled flights between Buenos Aires and other destinations around the country. Other operators in Asia and Africa held onto the type for a long time but they appear to all have been withdrawn in 2025.

Visuals

Just Flight typically create visually impressive aircraft and the F28 has helped maintain that reputation from day one. There aren’t any significant changes to the visuals with the new version, however, it has made the transition over to 2024 beautifully.

On the exterior, you have strong details from every angle. You can get up close and personal to the aircraft and it generally looks great. There are a few places on the model where there are a few details that are simplified or have a slightly blurrier appearance, however, you have to get right up next to it to even try and see that. Thus, it’s not quite at the level of some of the latest projects I’ve reviewed but its still extremely good and the overall quality is maintained throughout.

Go inside the airplane and it looks really impressive there too. The F28’s cockpit is not a beautiful cockpit aesthetically but it is a highly functional one. There are some changes visually with new sun visors and a bunch of new equipment in the cockpit. Everything has a reasonable level of grime and appropriate levels of wear and tear without affecting the readability of any of the instruments.

In the back, the cabin is nicely detailed and appointed. No in-seat entertainment systems to be found in this classic airliner! Many of the crew control panels work. With controllable lights and even the ability to turn on and off some background music. Now, it doesn’t have the coffee machine you can find in Just Flight’s 146 Professional or RJ Professional but everything else is good!

Lighting is a particularly strong with the F28. Red and white floodlights in the cockpit are beautifully rendered and the backlights on the instruments are so satisfying the look at. It’s one of the best implementations I’ve seen.

One improvement from before are the incandescent landing and taxi lights which take a brief moment to go from on to full intensity rather than the LED-like instant on that they had before. The halo around them is a little less intense than on the earlier models too which I think is more realistic looking. At launch, the F28 V2 had quite a bright strobe light that has now been toned down to a satisfying level following the first patch.

The F28 also comes with a few dozen liveries covering mostly retro schemes from around the world. There are lots of options covering operators across most of the world. The version 2 upgrade brings in five new liveries adding to the overall collection.

Sounds

Just Flight are also known for being really good at sounds and the F28 does not disappoint! The exterior noises are quite strong especially with the low-bypass Rolls Royce engine sounds that have the whine that you typically associate with those older style engines. Their throttle up sound is extremely satisfying!

On the inside of the cockpit we have a lot to like as well. The cabin ambience is excellent with wind noises, fan noises, and other avionics background noises interspersed with interactive noises from the various buttons and switches. Everything has its own sound.

The voice over work on the co-pilot/announcer is decent too with call-outs during takeoff, landing, and other phases of flight coming in just the right amount to be useful. There’s also cabin crew announcements that you can hear in the cockpit that help add to the immersion. It’s a simple thing really but its so well executed here that I have to call it out.

Flying the jet

Just Flight have really worked on the F28 and it remains one of the most direct and easy to fly airliners I’ve experienced. To be clear, it does feel a bit heavy on the controls and its not an overly responsive airplane, however, it does exactly what you tell it to for better or worse and that kind of direct control is quite satisfying.

I’ve never really noticed any overly difficult traits about flying the F28. My reading of pilots notes suggest that its generally a pleasant airplane to fly. It does get floppy if you stall it and that can cause you to lose precious altitude if you aren’t on top of it but really its not a difficult plane to fly.

Ground handling is also quite good. It’s not too twitchy but it is responsive enough that you can backtrack on a smaller airport’s runway and easily power it around on one wheel without trouble.

The aircraft does, like nearly every MSFS airplane, have a bit too much ground effect in my estimation. It can float a bit on landing if you haven’t flown it in just right. The F28 is also an airplane that doesn’t have thrust reversers so you need to make sure you use that butterfly airbrake located in the tailcone and get both your landing speed right and your braking technique done right too. Brakes can overheat and fade if you overdo it.

Variants and modifications

The Fokker F28 had four major variants with the Mk 1000 through 4000. The Mk 1000 and 3000 were shorter variants with seating for 65 while the Mk 2000 and 4000 were longer versions with seating for 85. The Mk 3000 and 4000 had a slightly redesigned wing with a longer span. All are represented in a single purchase thankfully!

The F28 saw many modifications over the years and Just Flight have represented many of them. For example, a “hush kit” to help quiet down the Rolls Royce Spey engines is an option. There is a slight adjustment in volume with it fitted, though its still a loud jet! Just Flight have also added a new configuration with HF radio wire modification. It doesn’t do anything beyond a visual modification but it helps represent the different ways that the jet was setup.

Systems and updates

Flying a classic airliner means that you have classic airliner concerns. To fly it successfully, you need to deal with manual systems, high fuel consumption, and, depending on the configuration, a purely VOR-to-VOR style of navigation!

Fortunately, Just Flight have given us three options for navigation so you’re not locked into just the traditional style. There is traditional radio navigation as well as an optional GNS430 or a UNS-1 FMC. The later two hail from the GPS era and were both fitted to many F28s in the real world.

The F28 V1 previously sported a GNS530 in place of the weather radar, however, this was a bit of a tradeoff that not everyone liked. That option is gone now in-favour of a couple of new options. The GNS430 is one with the smaller size fitting in nicely into the cockpit. Its quite a familiar system for GA flyers and its been upgraded to the latest Working Title framework too so its full featured and will accept a flight plan from the MSFS 2024 EFB system.

Another option adds the UNS-1 flight management computer. This gives the F28 something approaching parity with modern GPS flown airliners. The UNS-1 has been developed for both the 146 Professional V2 and F28 V2 and is a faithful recreation according to some of the pilot comments that I’ve seen. Its not a modern FMC and the usability is a bit challenging, but realistically so, and it does pretty much everything it needs to. Flight plans, departures and approaches, routes, holds, and performance monitoring. Its realistically not as capable as modern FMCs but you can absolutely follow a modern flight plan which gives the F28 V2 more flexibility and should entice a few more folks flying realistic modern routing on Vatsim, SayIntentions, and other ATC services.

One complaint I have is that the UNS-1 doesn’t import SimBrief flight plans into it. A bit of a miss in an otherwise comprehensive experience. You can absolutely create a SimBrief flight plan, you can import it into the tablet and read the full OFP from there, but that’s as far as it goes and you’ll need to do the input manually.

The autopilot programming is absolutely solid and I’ve had no problems with the autopilot doing anything except what it was supposed to do. That said, it is quirky in operation so you need to do a little learning to understand how the heading, roll, pitch, glide, IAS and beam modes all work together. There’s also a new altitude selector, optionally fitted, that replaces a more primitive selector. This new option has VS controls and the ability to climb or descend to an altitude and hold there. The original is advisory only so a bit more challenging to use.

The F28 is a surprisingly automated airplane considering its vintage and has automated cabin pressure system and partially automated anti-icing system. The lift dumpers (those are spoilers in Fokker parlance) also deploy automatically on touchdown provided they are armed.

The F28 Professional does not have any failure or maintenance modeling. I don’t think its an absolutely necessary feature but it is worth mentioning. You will still get cautions and warnings from things like engine overheat but with no lasting effects.

Let’s talk EFB

Just Flight have upgraded the EFB with some additional features in V2. Most of those are new options on the options screen but on the whole its a good tablet to work with.

It has an aircraft overview screen that lets you select options, use the pushback tug, do boarding and fueling procedures (in instant through to realistic time periods), and so forth.

Other apps let you look at the SimBrief OFP, look at Navigraph, bring up a map, calculate vertical navigation profiles, get weather, and write your own notes.

My only real complaint with it is on the aircraft profile screen while inputting fuel into the tanks. The interface is a little sluggish and it flashes to indicate that you’re making changes not yet committed. However, the flashing thing is the number that you’re putting in so its all a little disconcerting at first.

Bugs and issues

At time of writing, the Fokker F28 in MSFS 2024 specifically has a few issues. The version in the screenshots is either the V2.0 release or the 2.1 patch that came out more recently.

Right now, Just Flight have tried to solve some issues with pilots in the cockpit and seem to have partially succeeded, however, most of the time my cockpit is empty with no copilot displayed from the inside and no pilots displayed when viewed from the outside. However, I have now seen a pilot (just the pilot) show up with no change to settings. Something odd is going on there.

Another issue I ran into is that the weather radar also doesn’t appear to work correctly. You can power it up, warm it up appropriately and switch it to WX mode but no returns are displayed. Sometimes it will give a ground return when on the ground but weather systems don’t seem to be a thing for the moment. Admittedly, I might also be using it wrong but it doesn’t seem to be working correctly in my experience.

The EFB’s map view, not a critical function, also doesn’t work with a brief flash of the intended map display and then it goes black. I suspect this is a 2024 related glitch as it works in 2020.

There is one possible visual glitch that I haven’t mentioned yet. The door seems to have a different material value at night or dusk conditions. It may well be that the door’s material is legitimately different and thus has a different reflectivity but it does stand out and I do wonder if its just a glitch rather than an intentional choice.

I have found the pushback tug, controlled via the aircraft’s EFB, to be useful but it is also buggy. It mostly works and it’s never ruined a flight but it does sometimes disconnect or jump around a bit trying to connect to the airplane. One time the tug didn’t connect but my airplane got a pushback anyways.

Just Flight have also chosen not to feature the MSFS 2024 walkaround mode for the time being. You can absolutely walk around the aircraft but things like chocks, pitot covers and the like are not currently implemented. I wasn’t all that disappointed by it personally but again its worth a note.

Fast and fun?

Regular readers know that I love it when an airliner product offers the range of experiences from cold and dark by the book procedures and more fun oriented “lets just fly it now” get up and go flying. Does the F28 accomplish this well? Yes it does! It’s one of the quickest to get into the air of any of the airliners that I’ve reviewed.

It hasn’t changed from last time I reviewed it but its worth mentioning that Just Flight have incorporated a couple of different panel states from cold and dark all the way to engines hot and ready to go. You can jump in, hit a button, and about a minute later the jet is ready to fly. This lets the player decide what kind of experience they want and I think its a necessary feature for complex aircraft. It’s here with the F28 Professional and it works great.

In 2024 the GNS430 supports loading the flight plan from the MSFS Flight Planner website and from the MSFS EFB (not to be confused with the jet’s own EFB). You can very quickly setup a realistic flight plan, tap a button to send it to avionics, import and go. The UNS-1 sadly does not do that so its a bit more hands on.

The “IT” factor

Any time the F28 comes up, I get excited. Why, I’ve often asked myself? The best answer I can come up with is that it has that “IT” factor. This is where you take all of the usual attributes, graphics, sounds, systems, experience and mix it together with some less definable quantities like charm and nostalgia and out comes a flight sim product that somehow exceeds the some of its parts.

This airplane combines a lot of different factors. The classic nature is well leaned into by Just Flight adding plenty of dirt and scratches around the airplane. You can feel like it has had a lengthy career and that the airframe has seen a lot of use. It also flies like an older airplane with more stick and rudder flying, despite a great autopilot, and a very enjoyable direct feel.

For the more casual user the F28, with its shorter field performance and good handling, together with something familiar like the GNS430 in the cockpit blends its use a bit more. You can fly it around a bit more like a GA airplane if you’re not all that bothered by all that complex stuff. But you still get airliner performance. Now, thanks to the V2 update, you get all the way to the other end of the spectrum too with a semi-modern FMC that can do all of the modern navigation things you need it to do. Or you can go back and experience full nostalgia with a VOR-to-VOR experience.

You get to do all of that with an airliner that is small, fun to hand fly, looks spectacular, has tons of cool liveries, smoky and noisy engines, and has just enough dirt and grime to feel like this aircraft has been lovingly seen more than its share of flights.

It’s a terrific experience. But its not a Boeing or an Airbus so its not going to do it for some folks. That’s ok too! But I’m a believer in fun flight sim experiences, wherever you can find them, and this is so much fun. Whenever I come back to the F28, I ask myself why I waited so long to come back.

Final thoughts

The F28 Professional V2 from Just Flight is one of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s best airliners. Beautifully detailed, great systems work, classic airliner charm, and consistent quality that consistently covers the entire experience from the start to end of your flight.

Just Flight’s V2 upgrade isn’t just a compatibility upgrade for 2024 but a wholesale workover of the aircraft addressing some of its weaker points and making it an all around more appealing experience for a wider variety of flight sim fan. It covers the get up and go casual flyer, the VOR-to-VOR classic navigator and the modern GPS driven SIDs and STARs flight plan flyer all in the same airframe with the flick of a checkbox on the upgraded tablet. That and many of the other system tweaks make for a great aircraft that’s a little more approachable for a wider audience than before and they managed to do it with equipment that you’d find on all of the various F28s out there.

Performance with the aircraft is great and is one of the best performing airliners I’ve flown. Frame rates have been steady and solid any time I was in the F28.

This product isn’t perfect with a few bugs to be found in the weather radar, the display of the pilots, and a few quirks in the EFB. But none of these are significant showstopping bugs and I suspect that some of the issues are 2024 as a platform related. Just Flight will no doubt fix them as soon as they are able.

Just Flight have a slightly uphill battle to fight versus the Boeing vs Airbus duopoly that exists not just in the real world but also in the simulated one. If you visit your local airport, you aren’t likely to see an F28 so it doesn’t have that modern day appeal and that’ll be the end of it for some folks. I, on the other hand, think a classic like this one is very enjoyable with just the right mix of old style complexity and charm with simple and direct operation.

One other consideration to make with the F28 is that Just Flight are also bringing out the F28’s younger sibling. The F70 and F100 are currently in development and these next generation follow-ups share many of the earlier F28’s design sensibility together with more modern avionics and systems that some folks will find to be more familiar in operations. These still fly with airlines in different parts of the world and are a bit more contemporary so that may make it more popular with some folks. Even so, if you’re even modestly interested I implore you to have a serious think about the F28 Professional as its easily one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had in this simulator.

You can purchase the Just Flight F28 Professional for both MSFS 2020 and 2024 on the Just Flight website or via the Marketplace for Xbox users. The standard price is $69.99 USD.

Screenshots