Zeppelin NTModelThe cockpit of the Zeppelin NT requires getting used to, as a prominent MFD is devoted to the management of the gas bag pressure, something that is not done in usual airplane operations. As fas as the instruments go, the cockpit is fairly detailed and all the gauges are done in impressive detail, but surfaces are usually textured in monochromatic colors and the instrument panel contrasts somewhat with the overall low detail of the cabin interior.
Gauges and levers are all functional, and adjustment of the individual thrust levers from the 3d cockpit is sometimes also required, as the airship can be controlled by vectored thrust. As a backup for the user unfamiliar with reading the gas management details from the MFD, the alphanumerical values of several parameters are printed on-screen.
The exterior model is in general well done, but again would benefit of some more realistic texturing.
A nice feature is the mooring mast (integrated into a truck) that can be placed when approaching the desired destination.
Flight characteristicsProbably like most others, I've never flown an airship, so I don't know how accurate the FDM is - but it sure is very interesting! In fact, this is clearly the strong point of the Zeppelin NT.
One instructive experience is to observe the helium pressure when ascending or descending - it reflects the changed pressure immediately, and one needs to compensate by inflating or deflating the ballonets. While it is possible to simply always inflate the ballonets with maximum rate and let the safety valve take care of the rest, the more rewarding experience is to do pressure management manually - which is quite enough to keep one busy. Manual pressure management is also required to trim the aircraft properly in flight.
While the airship in cruise configuration is surprisingly fast, the real interesting part is slow precision flying using the vectored thrust. Without aerodynamical lift or engines providing additional lift, the airship would sink down, so by swiveling the engines to just the right degree, it can be brought to a stop in mid-air, and from there approach speed can be controlled with a precision of less than 1 kt while sinkrate can be controlled to at least 10 ft/min. Naturally, this requires to take the wind into account very carefully, and flying in gusty winds ceases to be fun pretty rapidly.
Maneuvering the Zeppelin is actually a bit easier than flying a helicopter, as there is no torque to compensate, and yet it is possible to land on every spot a helicopter can reach (provided there's space for the gas bag).
My personal wishlistI'd like to see some effort in texturing the model better. Just replacing monochromatic colors by anything that looks like real materials or putting some more detail on the gas bag would make a real lot of difference.
Things to experienceThe fact that the engines can be vectored, but that thrust at all three engines can be reversed by changing propeller blade pitch also allows for some rather brutal maneuvering which neither airplanes nor helicopters can do in quite the same way - when being high in the air, try vectoring all engines down but reverse pitch so that the thrust is down - this makes for some very quick descent, the airship is literally pushed down to the ground (I have no idea if that's according to the book - I suspect it isn't...).