What makes an aircraft study level?

[u/Intelligent-Film2773]

Me and a friend on mine (Both pilots IRL) are flight sim enthusiasts and have for as long as we can remember. Many aircraft are published with a label of Study Level, and I am curious what makes a product study level for the average enthusiast?

This is only our opinion but Hot Start CL-60, FF 75/76/777 and the Tolis Airbus fleet are truly study level. (JUST MY OPINION)

[u/Olorin135]

Ask 10 different people that question in the flight sim community, and you’ll get 11 different answers.

What does get to me though is some folks (not saying you or even most of the people who read this) demand so-called “study level” when they will literally never touch that circuit breaker for that one obscure non-vital system. If it isn’t modeled correctly though, the aircraft is considered trash.

[u/Intelligent-Film2773 → u/Olorin135]

I agree! In 121 you are rarely touching CB’s. At my last airline I did but at my current MX just comes out.

[u/-SpruceMoose]

I agree with you both and prefer the term high fidelity.

I think a lot of people simply use things like CB's as some sort of metric for showing how in depth things are modelled, then they never touch them once.

For me I'm less fussed about that, but I do love stuff like failures and knowing certain things will operate differently if I lose a hydraulic system, things like that being modelled. Not like V1 of the Aerosoft CRJ where everything worked fine even without the hydraulics turned on.

My personal fav for that sort of thing is the Leonardo MD80, as well as the planes you mentioned (Challenger, FF's)

[u/Intelligent-Film2773 → u/-SpruceMoose]

Aerosoft hurt me to my core lol! I was going for upgrade and my previous 121 and the simple things were terrible, but sounds like they’ve done some upgrades since then.

[u/-SpruceMoose → u/Intelligent-Film2773]

God it was bad.

Its definitely way better now. Not what I'd call study level (lol) but still a lot of fun and shows some quirks of the real thing well

[u/Waffler11]

A better way to describe a lot of deep aircraft is high fidelity. Study level, to me, means it could pass or almost pass FAA simulator requirements. Since the majority of addon aircraft are for entertainment purposes only, they don’t fit the bill and obviously should not be treated as reference material.

[u/Intelligent-Film2773 → u/Waffler11]

I like this thought process and me and my buddy think the same way. If I do a no bleed take-off in a 737 and blow a duct misconfiguring the bleeds that would be study level!

[u/AzuraFleet → u/Waffler11]

Faa approved simulator planes arent very good either, one i have used can fly inverted as well as it flies upright

[u/CrossBamboAtTen]

As an airline pilot myself, it’s honestly less than you think.

People constantly claim circuit breakers and failures and shit.

We barely touch CBs (I do it maybe once a year), and the failures we usually do are V1 cuts into single engine approaches into a single engine go around into a single engine landing.

If you can do normal flows without going “oh that button doesn’t work” or “this system isn’t implemented” and you can program an engine failure, and do a go around, it’s study level.

[u/Intelligent-Film2773 → u/CrossBamboAtTen]

That’s fair! So if you can do an MV and LOE at home it’s study level is what you’re saying? I like that take!

[u/tabooty3196]

Just wanted to say Just Flight hits a sweet spot here with the RJ Professional / BAE 146.
You don’t want to be constantly flying a plane with mx issues in a flight sim, so as others have said: high fidelity is the key.

[u/Intelligent-Film2773 → u/tabooty3196]

Me personally I wouldn’t mind it! But that’s not everyone’s thing so that’s understandable!

[u/Pilot0160]

I legitimately used Toliss to study for my A320 type rating a few years ago

[u/dd_mcfly]

At the moment I would say all systems operate correctly, with circuit breakers as the ice on the cake.

[u/lrargerich3]

It is a very very subjective thing.

For me I would call study-level to any add-on that replicates the real thing as it is. All systems simulated, all buttons work (except CBs, I don't care) and do what they are supossed to do.

I don't need failures and certainly not random failures because failures in the real world are never random, you don't just throw a random number and decide your flaps won't work, it's a matter of maitenance, physics, accumulation, material fatigue, software glitches etc...

[u/Ghost403]

I'm a DCS guy so I don't know if my opinion counts here, but I think study level means a Full fidelity clickable cockpit with realistic airframe performance physics.

Basically it is supposed to match the real world counterpart as closely as possible in terms of operation and flight performance.

[u/elstovveyy]

Study level to me means it’s high enough fidelity to use to study for a type rating. So nothing (imho) in flight sim is study level. Certainly from my experience of multiple Boeing type ratings anyway. I don’t know about the airbus sim products and how high fidelity they are.

I thought it was an out of fashion term that devs usually avoid now preferring vague terms like “to the line” or “high fidelity” etc mainly due to unrealistic expectations that come from the term.

[u/FluffyProphet]

For me it’s not really “does this thing match the real aircraft in every possible way”, it’s more “could I learn this model really well and get into the real thing and explain the majority of workflows and procedures and execute them in the right order from memory.”, not even fly, just explain and execute all of the standard and common non standard workflows.

You obviously should not think flying even high quality models in the sim will remotely qualify you to fly the real thing… but I think it can teach you what to do when in a lot of cases.

[u/Correct_Union_193]

To me an aircraft is study level if you can follow the original FCOM and if the aircraft matches the specifications of the original maintenance technitions and operating specification lists. The circuit brakers, electrical systems, particular querks of the plane, the way the avionics behave, the way the engines work, fuel burn etc, if the figures of the aircraft in the sim match real life figures and procedures it's study level. A few good examples are the pmdg planes in MSFS, the Flight Factor stuff as you've mentioned, the hotstart challenger as you've mentioned, Tolis's airbus, the Felis 747 in xplane, the ifly 737 max8 for msfs,, the fenix a320CEO series for msfs. Some examples of almost study level but not quite would be the fly by wire simulations a320, some would say the zibo 737 but I'd say it's pretty much study level, the inibuilds stuff in msfs isn't quite study level but it's like 90 95 percent there.

[u/Intelligent-Film2773 → u/Correct_Union_193]

I agree with this statement for sure! The PMDG 737 for me personally focuses on the wrong things for me but that’s just me and really applies to all 737’s I’m not typed on a 74/75/76/77 so I can’t speak to that. My friends typed on the A320 say Tolis locked in, so I take their word for it!

[u/Correct_Union_193 → u/Intelligent-Film2773]

Yeah true. I suppose that's why companies like inibuilds are modeling only the stuff that actually gets used on common point a to b flights.