Real life B717 pilot here (essentially the same flight controls as the MDs) The heaviness of the controls is pretty much spot on. They're tab operated so at low speed the aircraft becomes very sloppy and heavy. The response time to inputs is quite long at slower IAS. Flying this felt very similar to the real thing. Definitely takes some getting used to!

Excellent review and I share many of your takes on the addon. Thank you for your contirbutions to the flight sim community.

Nice to see a Maddog in MSFS. I have such great memories of flying on MD-83s in the early 2000s with the now defunct Jetsgo, they were a Canadian low cost airline that operated a fleet of MD-83s and Fokker 100s. It's those little memories that make an aircraft. In my opinion.

Yes!! The review I've been waiting for.

You reviewed the lighting! Thank you! Wonderful review, as always!

Fantastic review with realistic comments and thoughts. Great job!

Great video and review as we have come to expect from ITBS. I can add a couple points that may shed some light on things. As far as flight control input, the aircraft is pretty heavy on the controls, particularly in pitch axis. This is primarily due to the fact that unlike a traditional aircraft where your yoke inputs directly control the elevators, on the DC-9 series of aircraft you are actually "flying" the elevator with the yoke as your inputs control the elevator trim tab, not the elevator directly. Combine this with fairly small ailerons on a very stiff wing and it will feel a bit sluggish. Addressing the lack of acceleration, the MD-82 was equipped with the -217 variant of the JT8D engine and the later MD-88 had the option for the -219 variant with increased thrust. Again a combination of engine thrust and many lift surfaces deployed on the wing at takeoff like the large slats and flaps induce a fair bit of drag. Once you get the Maddog cleaned up she accelerates nicely as seen in the video. Side note, I am a little surprised you didnt mention the unique dial-a-flap and elevator trim wheels. They are quite interesting systems, especially for those "spoiled" by the automation found in the Airbus and Boeing products we typically fly. Lastly, many folks like to complain that they cant hear the engines very well in the cockpit, and the P3D version even had an "audio upgrade" by another vendor to increase the engine noise in the cockpit. The cockpit of the MD-80 is generally very quiet as it is literally as far from the engines as it can get so wind and equipment noise will be much more noticeable in flight. Even on the ground, at max power, the engines are rather quiet in the cockpit. I did a couple years doing C checks on DC-9/MD-80's in the late 90's and did quite a few engine runs so do have first hand experience with this. I will agree that the external sounds are truly a disappointment and have been for the life of the Leonardo Maddog product. If anyone is on the fence about this product rest assured that Leonardo have a proven track record of long term support and improvement of the aircraft. While I have not been able to afford to pick this version up, I have had the P3D version for years and will agree that the external setup method that Leonardo uses is clunky at best and should be integrated into the EFB as much as possible. Hopefully we will see this happen as time goes on now that the product is released. One final note regarding the Simbrief flightplans, if you dont already have it there is a Simbrief Downloader app that you can install to automatically download your flightplans and put them in the correct folders which I highly recommend. For those that want to know everything they can about flying the Maddog, here is a link to the "Chucks Guide" for the Maddog. It is written for the P3D version so not everything applies yet but the systems and operations are covered very well and you can learn a lot about how to operate this aircraft in the proper manner. www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-p3d-leonardo-md-82-maddog/ Thanks again for the great, and honest review of this wonderful product. This reply was certainly longer than I thought it would be. 😂I hope it helps folks out.

Another great review by you, thanks again for the time and care and sense of immersion you bring to the sim. Just a heads up I heard from Milviz marketing: they are releasing the 310 tomorrow, can't wait for your review of that one! My impression of it in FSX: awful twitchy! Still enjoying the Edgley Optica I bought on your recommend, lots of fun with that one.

With the PMDG 737 and the JF Jet, I can't afford the Mad Dog anyway! Thanks for the review, for 90€ I would want a flawless product worthy of the huge price🤔

For me, the price of this add-on has passed the point of reasonable. The prices of add-ons are now getting unreasonable. I understand that developers need paying for their work, but there is a limit. Given that sales of MSFS2020 appear to be MUCH better than for P3D then the unit price for add-ons should be coming down, not going up. Much as I would like the MD82, I will not be purchasing due to the price. Jerry

Fantastic review. Very professional. Thank you.

Great review as usual! I've never seen an Alitalia MD-82 as clean as this one! I spent my youth every weekend at LHW plane spotting and these were always super grimy with the tails covered in soot from the thrust reversers! 😂

Thanks for the deep review of Leonardo Maddog. Great job and really appreciate it.

Thank you for your continued dedication. Very much welcomed. Barty

Really love your videos and reviews. I bought both the MD82 and the 146 this weekend, both are a great experience. I do agree with some of the textures looking a little last-gen on the MD82, but I love its systems modelling and I prefer slightly more dated visuals over the very limited FMS the 146 has. Apparently, the MD82 was a brick to fly also in real life, but you can adjust the roll rates using the Load Manager application (advanced tab/menu). Some people are reporting major issues with control deflection on some hardware combinations and that fixes it for them. A few real-world pilots of the MD82 are stating that it is, indeed, true to life due to it being driven by control tabs, but the adjustability is nice.

Thanks. Appreciate your feedback. Look forward to any tutorial flights you might do in the future.

Yesssss was going crazy waiting for this

Great review !! 🤩

Thank you for this review, it definitely helped my decision.

Another top review/showcase - my word if I was even 10% as cool in a cockpit as this I'd be happy - and loved the content. Super duper Maddog painting the sky with Leonardo🤪

I NEVER knew that the MD-82 had 'Dial-A-Flap'. Exceptionally brilliant review by ITBS!

Excellent review!

Great vid! Just some tips to fill in the gaps of your abbreviated checklist, Max motoring isn’t necessary, just wait for 20% N2 before putting the fuel in. You didn’t set the pressurization system on the overhead correctly, you need to cycle between standby and primary then click on the blue light to dim it. Otherwise your cabin won’t pressurize. Don’t use full tiller when taxiing or you’ll need a lot of thrust to push through the turn. External lights ought to be retracted as soon as possible after take off, don’t wait till 10,000 feet. Use the flood lights and wing/engine nacelle lights instead because they don’t cause drag. You didn’t set engine hydraulic pumps to low after switching off the transfer and auxiliary hydraulic pump. If you’re not using the anti-ice you ought to close the pneumatic crossfeed valves. This one is a bug but when it’s working, the auto brake can only be armed when flaps are set to a landing position, either 28 or 40 and landing gear is down. The same goes for the spoilers if the auto brake isn’t active as an option. To set altitude on the FCP in 100 foot increments, hold the tab key while scrolling the altitude selector.

Thanks for an honest review and I´m glad you´re bringing up the issues instead of pretending they´re not there. One thing I don´t agree with is the sounds being excellent in the cockpit. The airflow should be way louder for sure so sounds are very disappointing not only outside, though the rest of the cockpit sounds seem good. Personally I might buy the Maddog in the future but only if the visuals and sounds are brought up to today´s standards and I hope more people do the same thing as this will be a clear message to Leonardo and other devs.

Absolutely beautiful plane inside and out, the cockpit is an amazing combination of analog and digital, and you do a great job showing it off, especially with the head tracking. I want to like it so much, as I love this era of jets and have flown on these Mad Dogs (and their older DC-9 cousins) many times in real life, but like you said, the price (even without VAT) is a bit much when PMDG, JustFlight, and Fenix are reducing their prices for similar quality aircraft. I'll probably wait for JustFlight's Fokker 28 and/or PMDG's 737-800 (the version I've been in the most) for my next airliner.

Always liked the MD-82, stunning aircraft from yester-year. Review was on nose; it is extremely pricey which is a shame. Otherwise, looks like a beautiful module, the wing view on this aircraft during landing was great and the wing flex was on point at touch down. Great flight 👍🏻 would be interesting to see you do a video on what aircraft you have flown IRL and now 👌🏻

For some reason I was expecting the Maddog to cost around $40. This is just too expensive for me. Glad others like it!

excellente video, don"t forget that during cockpit prepartation the standby horizon needs to be pulled to reset it.

Absolutely brilliant intellectual review coming from a real life pilot. With the MSFS bar about to be raised by PMDG's 737 I feel given your points that this will not be a purchase for me. Thanks for all the incredible reviews you do.

Have to say the interior colour looks like a Russian military jet!! Great, detailed review that I was waiting for. Thank you. For me, it was between this and PMDG's release - think i'll just go PMDG. I do like this however and may succumb in the future but given I have just bought the BAE146 and will buy PMDG I better hold back the spending or my better half may string me up!!!! lol :-) Thanks again ITBS.

Interesting video! I just purchased the PMDG DC-6A/B and I appreciated the level of detail, their use of the tablet, and so forth - so I was looking for something like that for the MD-80 for MSFS. (I bought the Rotate MD-80 for X-Plane, BTW). However the price was a bit off-putting at nearly $100 USD when I looked at it, so I wanted to know what I was buying *_before_* I bought it - and someone suggested this video. Based on what I've seen with the PMDG DC-6, and other planes like this elsewhere, I agree that the price is a bit steep. Another point that was not mentioned in the review was that, in the case of the PMDG product, (which was about half the price of this when I bought it), is that PMDG provides a whole series of KZfaq videos that walk the user through the entire process of managing, flying, landing, as well as use of their "automagic flight crew" features - all of which features are available *_from the tablet_*. Not to mention that you can set the plane to start at any one of three different stages in the startup sequence. With PMDG providing such an excellent aircraft experience, as well as before-purchase videos and training, your experience with the Leonardo MD-80 is, (IMHO) very disappointing. Especially since I have a lot of history with that aircraft - especially building and maintaining the avionics and FQGS, (the cockpit view of the fuel "CDU" tugged at my heartstrings), I was looking forward to adding a detailed MD-80 series aircraft to my hanger. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening since I feel the price is just too high for what you get, and they should really take a good, hard, look at the competition and their pricing models when they release an aircraft - especially one that is as poorly integrated into the sim as this appears to be. (Having to use an external application to do basic aircraft configuration is essentially a deal-breaker for me - I've never encountered that in any simulator I've ever flown before and seems to be a real kludge.) Sorry Leonardo - no sale today.

Looks like a great aircraft, but damn.. way to expensive for my tastes at this stage (over $110 AUD). Might grab it in the future but between the 146 and the 737 I think I'll be full up on learning new planes for quite a whilte.

Thanks - My fav airliner classics for now: Wing42 - B247D, and PMDG DC6. -- Maybe not a study level, but CRJ is a fun challenge with a nice workload through flight, and supports SID and STAR With PMDG 737 coming (this weekend?) , unfortunately MD-82 is a no buy for me right now. Came 6 months too late. But I hope Leonardo will be supported by other simmers.

this excellent your precision work in cokpict md82. and moreover I admire your tranquility takeoff and landing congratulations, I imagine you are real pilot =). good job your video

I bet it is. That think is a study level.

Hmmm. I am a fan of the MD family of aircraft (the MD-11 being a favourite, despite the fact it is notoriously difficult to land, but I digress) and I do like this. It's just a bit cost-prohibitive. And if I'm being harsh, it doesn't look that great either. It looks like a direct port from P3D. Fascinating plane though, and I have a soft spot for the MD's, as I say. I think because they are flawed in their design, it's like they have some character and soul. Lovely video as always, sir.

Excellent plane. Bought it today and it is really Study Level, as it is called nowadays. Super fun 90s plane with digital and analog instruments. Sound could be a little better but will find a soundpack somewhere. Yes, the price tag is a bit steep. But I love study level planes and money isn't an issue, so why not.

I bought it and have mixed feelings. The external applications are suboptimal. Systems are excellent and I had no issues so far. The textures are average and really not good in certain areas in the cockpit. External sounds are simply bad period. 75 euros + vat is too much compared to the 146, which is very good imo and much cheaper. And we all know the PMDG 737 will be released soon.

Another great video, thank you. I’d like to ask you a question if I may, in that are you using an IR head tracking type device? If so, what are you using for MSFS and if not, what would you recommend? Thank you.

Agree with everything you said. This is the 3rd review I've seen with serious simmers like you and you all had to struggle with the cockpit click spots! Other companies fixed this problem on msfs a long time ago. In my book, it should be the base of a "study level" aircraft for a simulator which uses to fly... a mouse!!!

Very nice review indeed. I think you forgot to ARM the altitude after selecting FL290. That might be the reason for VNAV acting a little weird and not holding the speed. Thanks for sharing with the community.

I use render scale to 160 in full hd to have a good cabin experience…i hope Leonardo team will improve the cabin texture… i found system complete and efficient

I upgraded the MD82 software today, and bought the expansion pack, so now I have MD83 and MD88 as well 🙂 25 Euros, not a bad price for two more aircrafts in the same series 😅

Nice review. My only comment would be that nearly no one gets 90 FPS with any aircraft in MSFS, much less a study level aircraft.

the downsides can be corrected if they want to. FT sim will probably release a sound pack which was excellent for the rotate in xp11. Textures can be upgraded im sure, even by 3rd parties. This is a great release.

airliners are like buses, they all come at once lol !! I will probably buy them all lets be honest about it. I just got the 146 on Friday, next will be the 737 and then when I'm a bit richer MD. Thanks for the review, from what I'm getting from a lot of your reviews is that maybe it's the sim that is letting the aircraft flight modelling down

It's funny to me how many people have been complaining about FS 2020's "style over substance" and that it's all just eye-candy, and they're happy to stick with P3D and X-Plane. Now we have a truly Study Level addon that falls down a bit on the looks and everyone's STILL complaining! SMH... I'm just the opposite - if the aircraft works correctly, I can live with "merely" decent graphics (it looks WAAAAAY better than it does in P3D) and a higher price (I'll wait for it to go on sale), esp given the simulator's stunning graphics. Great review, as always, and much appreciated!

Great review. I feel like this should be 40% off to make it really worth it.

Great aircraft, too expensive for me. And I’m more casual with my aircraft experience, but the details to this aircraft is fantastic

They are proud of this jet!!!

I love this plane - used to fly one in fs2004 but ninety quid? I'll have to wait for a sale in a couple of years I think.

Great review and demo thank you for for your effort. If you are in US and don't pay VAT. at 79USD it is worth the purchase without too much of a stretch. Sounds and texturing notwithstanding. First aircraft to actually do what it is supposed to do without going bonkers following VNAV and LNAV. I would ding them 5-10 bucks for sounds and external management app though. Neither of those are really up to the par. Especially if you are coming from Xplane sandbox and used to self contained environment. But overall it's a solid airplane as far as flying and learning.

How do you get the blue cockpit textures and also the flash cards in between the two FMC?

Another terrific fair review, price seems a bit steep certainly potential wallet melt down, certainly a dilemma as what to go for 146/ MD .Thanks again great flight. Cheers for now Charlie

Re texturing: I keep getting told that it was built from the ground up for MSFS, but the texturing seems ported right over from P3D.

Thx for a great and much appreciated review! A little bit of topic: what chatter are we hearing, during the cockpit preparations? Add-on or included in the Maddog? I used to fly Falcon Business Jets: F2000 F900 EX and while simming I apparently miss the usual radio chatter..👍

Always an honest review, yes price is steep but it is iconic. Am interested how Pmdg stands up quality vs price. I already have my favourite old school jet in the Bae146 and am curious do I prefer the MD or 737. This is where the MD developers may loose a few sales.

How do you get the cockpit to blue? Is it based on liveries? I've downloaded the USAir, American and Delta liveries from their site and they are all brown? I think the blue looks more satisfying for learning this aircraft!

Great video .. the question is, how did you get the green cockpit? I have the same airplane and all liveries (no green cockpit), and also I got the Alitalia (grey cockpit color)

A nice aeroplane to be sure but for E90 (NZ$146.00) it should be next to perfect. I don't know what PDMG's upcoming 737 will cost but I suspect it will be a lot less and the quality will be as good if not better. I certainly can't afford that sort of money. I mean it costs double for me - If I spend NZ$146.00 on an aircraft, I have to give my wife $I46.00 for something she wants too!!

There’s a free mod on the mod site that makes pushbacks much better in my opinion… might be worth looking into if you want better pushbacks.

Me every time I watch your videos: "I'm definitely gonna try that in game." Me in game: "Ah LEEEEROOOOOOY ah JEEEEEEEEEEENKINS!"

Those green screen FMS units are like something from 1980's computing, can't imagine learning how to add all the data. Interesting to watch though.

The textures look total drek - no other word for them - we're back in FSX here? Mind you the FMC looks very functional.

The missing ILS is a Navigraph glitch. It is the same in X-Plane.

how come an addon is more expensive than the platform itself sometimes i wonder.

What do you use as the background ATC audio track, sounds great.

just bought this and after 15 minutes i am still waiting to load in the game lol it usally takes 2 minutes with my rig. Bought the one from just flight yesterday and that plane works like a charm! really love what just flight did there just hope maddog x won't dissapoint ( edit i give up this plane for today, can't load it in to any airport atm i might have clicked something wrong in their app ima try again tomorrow)

I'm still on the fence about this airplane. I was excited about its release and planning to purchase it, but now I'm wondering. The grainy textures probably wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me. But the sound is a bigger concern. I've been spoiled by the top-notch FlyByWire A32NX sounds, which add a lot to the experience of flying for me. The biggest concern I took away from your review was the difficulty you had adjusting the heading, speed, and altitude knobs. You mentioned the click-spots were difficult to hit reliably, but it also looked like the acceleration effect when spinning the knobs was exaggerated, making it difficult to set a specific value without overshooting it multiple times. The combination of tiny click-spots with excessive knob acceleration could be REALLY annoying and turn me off from flying. Is it bad enough to be a deal breaker? I don't want to spend $80 to find out.

Great review as always. One question - what was going on with the number readout on the IAS? I get there was a glitch with it jumping, but the readout made no sense to me 😐

on one hand that price is insane... on the other hand it is sort of making me interested in the plane. i dont even play fs2020 that much and i really do not spend the time learning the systems, but when i do fly i find myself getting lost for hours... msfs2020 in VR can be an absolutely amazing experience, even therapeutic, im exited for what the next couple decades got to offer! although the price is insane i would rather pay for the quality than get ripped of on a 30 euro plane that has a disappointing flight model. the pmdg dc6 was the first plane i purchased and i love it, i do not mind the price! i have since bought a couple 30 euro planes and just felt ripped off! im not sure on this one thought, if the price was a little lower id jump on it, had it been a dc3 i would have payed the 90 euros, but im not really in to jets... but i am interested!

Hi ITBS, great video thanks, what is the ATC I am hearing in the background?

I hear a different ATC, and comm. where did you get this add-on?

Thank you for your excellent review. I was very disappointed with the standard of the modelling and texturing. It's been an expensive Bank Holiday what with the BA146 and this. Just the 737 to go and my bank account can begin to recover.

I just listened your review and heard you saying "my framerate dropped from 90 to 60 fps". How the heck do you get 90 fps? Have you set graphics quality to mid range?

Still dont have this one in my hanger. We have so many aircraft to choose from today. I havent even flown all of the planes I have purchased, much less study them. Ive spent month learning a handful of high fidelity aircraft and systems. Have noticed that the more I learn the easier the next plane is though. Will likely get this one at some point, but it is pricey

It felt a bit heavy to me too, but like most of us have never flown one in real life, so it's hard to know.

Not my kind of plane, but I still enjoy the reviews. Would really like to watch a DCS review if you did it, just as far as procedures and flight go.

Question, I keep hearing you say 90 Euro's but the price on Simmarket is 75 Euro's. Is there a price difference between what I see and what you see? I can also change anything I want (with the external application) on the fly without resetting the flight.. I do agree however that the default liveries are low resolution and probably ported over, some of the textures can be better done but yeah, minor nitpicks.

I don't mind paying 90 Euros for an addon but everything has to be almost perfect (including textures and sound). I'd probably have got this, if the PMDG and Justflight 146, weren't coming so close to it's release. I'll check in maybe during a sale in the future at some point.

Excellent review, very thorough. Will be purchasing this one. One of the benefits of being single with no children lol

The weirdest thing for me on this video was the Portuguese ATC while you're flying over Italy hahaha

Definitely a wait for sale for me.

I believe you need to be either in flaps 28 or 40 to be able to arm the auto breaks.

Great review - i noticed at the very beginning of the video your colours where over saturated - too bright. Did you upgrade your drivers recently?? As for the price NZ$132 - will take a rain check on this sadly - waaayy to expensive. I did have this aircraft both in FSX and P3D and really enjoyed flying it - was looking forward to this - but at that price Nope!! Love the McDonald Douglas approach to automation and this aircraft offered a 3rd variety to the Airbus and Boeing Autopilots

Is one of the few expensive aircraft add-ons that I'm willing to invest in. I would not be buying everyone at those prices, maybe only this one and the PMDG B737-700 or -800 (one of the two)

I'm starting to enjoy this aircraft more and more, challenge to learn ! Your tutorial has been great help ! How do you set hundreds of feet for altitude ? I can get on thousands :(

Is there any aircraft in the world that you don't run circles around its checklist?

Wanted this to be good, sad it dont justify my money. I will keep my money until pmdg releases and keep on flying flybywire a32nx :D

Hey guys, is anyone else having issues with the in-game default ATC stuttering when flying the Mad Dog in MSFS2020?

How do you pan around so smooth like that? I can do it while in VR but in 2D (using my mouse or hat switch on my yoke) I don't see the smoothness you're getting.

An aircraft that seems to have been drowned out by the likes of the Fenix / pmdg etc .. are they still updating this ?

Wow this aircraft is slow to climb and accelerate. Be prepared to work twice as fast on the 737-700 when it comes, especially with the 24k thrust rating :) nice to see this Icon being represented in the new sim. I’ll wait for a discount but I’m sure this will find a place in my hangar one day.

Hope someone does a 747 100/200 like this.

Great review, thank you again for your time and dedication. The price tag is a little high for my taste being a pensioner I need to be a little frugal in my purchases. That said, great job overall for the Leonardo MD-82 "Maddog" could live with the minor texture issues externally she still looks good if you squint a bit lol.

I am still struggling in getting a decent experience with this plane, lots to learn for me..but i guess the plane has some potential. my biggest problem right now is that the inside cockpit sounds, including the stick shaker and callouts, are far too silent. i need to use headphones to understand anything. at my normal speaker volume, my PC fans are louder than the airport sounds but i have not found a way to modify this.. any idea? :)

He did like flow in air

I agree that no aircraft these days shouldn’t be overly relying on external applications. I was disappointed when I bought it and the first thing I saw was the app. Apps can be nice for configuring one time settings but having to remember to open it on every flight totally kills the mood. Even for installing the liveries you need to go to the forums to download and then use the external app to install …sigh. At least PMDG let’s you download and install the liveries right there in the app with just 1 click, and you don’t need the app running for anything in the sim.

a MD82 will be flown to the ground with throttles, dont cut it and pull or you always float

Haven't been able to fly it yet because the damn thing won't do pounds even though it's configured to.