With this extended development period you get more than just an inserted 3d virtual cockpit by Julien Brezel who does all the excellent 3d work on these aircraft, it looks better and flies better as well, but a few original foibles do still come through as we shall see, but overall this DC-8 is very welcome to our screens. With that approach it is a more complete change unlike that like with the Boeing 707, which had still the original (planemaker) wings. This DC-8 has had a more longer gestation period compared to the other Mike Wilson aircraft that have had the redesign overhaul. In a side note is that the B707 is getting the same upgrade as the DC-8 with new engines and wings, details are here: Big 707 update in the works. I loved his reinterpretation of the Boeing 707 Update Review : Boeing-707-320-by-Mike-Wilson with a 3d cockpit, the version was not perfect by any means but it did show the way that these iconic aircraft can be brought forward from an older X-Plane version and become useful and be highly enjoyable again. We accept that no high-class or payware developer is going to develop these types of aircraft as the sales would not warrant the time of development, but the FlyJSim's excellent Boeing 727 Study Series does show there is a big market for these classic machines. reimagine them into something better and more useful. But lately Mike Wilson has not done as most developer's do in dropping away their old products, but is completely redesigning them for the current X-Plane simulation version or in Hollywood speak. For its time it was a leading design and of high quality, but that would not even bear witness today. The DC-8 is not new to X-Plane, as Mike Wilson created a version 10 years ago which was an early X-Plane9® version. 556 DC-8's variants were produced between 19 and twenty five are still flying regularly in a cargo configuration and that is 44 years after they rolled off the production line. The DC-8 was always in the shadow of the pioneering 707, but in time the DC-8 lasted longer, flew faster (a test Douglas DC-8 aircraft broke the sound barrier at Mach 1.012 (660 mph/1,062 km/h) while in a controlled dive through 41,000 feet (12,497 m) the first commercial aircraft to so), and was longer in range 3,750 nmi (6,940 km) (DC8) - 2,300 nmi (4,300 km) (707) with the final DC-8-50 version would deliver 5,855 nmi (10,843 km) in range at max weight and 6,550 nmi (12,130 km) in a ferry range which is very good even by today's standards. History will always record that the De Havilland Comet was the first real fast turbine powered global aircraft, but the aircraft didn't create the infrastructure of the mass transport of passengers on a global scale, those aircraft were the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8. The global air transport system we take for granted today was created by basically two very similar designs in the very late fifties. Aircraft Review : Douglas DC-8 by Wilson's Aircraft
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