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Welcome on the XJ-200

Description

The XJ-200 (NATO reporting name: "Caesar") was a trijet airliner, developed in 1956. The aircraft could carry about 155 passengers in a 2 - 3 cabin layout. It only needed 2 pilots to operate, which was very rare on early jets.

Developed into:
XJ-200B
XJ-200F

History

After the failure of the XJ-137, the Hungarian government wanted an other jet to be created, that would prove the world the reliability of Hungarian engineering. Aeroflot and MALÉV quickly wanted to replace these small and incredibly unreliable jets, so the new plane had to be made soon. The first XJ-200 prototype (registered HA-ABA) took off from Budapest on August 24. 1958, and flight tests progressed quickly. In total 4 prototype aircraft were used in testing. One of the planes attended the Paris Air Show of 1959, where it impressed the western observers, the audience, and even some airlines. The first passenger service was operated by MALÉV on August 25. 1960. In 1975 the XJ-200B was introduced, which was a small conversion that included wingtips, and a larger fuel tank. In the same year the first XJ-200F took to the skies, which was also a converted aircraft.

Operations

In total from 1956 to 1976 794 XJ-200s were created across all variants, and they were operated by airlines such as MALÉV, LOT, Interflug, Aeroflot, Ballair and Air Koryo. The pilots who flew the plane remarked that it was very smooth to fly, and that it was very modern for it's time.

List of operators

Incidents and Accidents

The XJ-200 proved to be a very reliable aircraft, and it didn't have any serious accidents, but it still had a few minor incidents.

In June 4. 1963 MALÉV Flight 2849 from Budapest to Warsaw suffered an Engine Failure in the second engine. The aircraft landed safely in Warsaw, no injuries have been reported.

In April 18, 1965 MALÉV Flight 2913 from Berlin to Budapest was hijacked by a group of armed people, who instructed the pilots to start flying westbound to Frankfurt. Fortunately the plane had enough fuel to complete the flight to Frankfurt, and the aircraft landed safely. The hijackers have been arrested by the West German police upon landing.

In 1990 Aeroflot Flight 482 had to abort it's takeoff from Kiev due to the burst of one of the tires in the main left landing gear. Everyone survived the incident.

Upon landing at Snowstone, one of Ballair's XJ-200B aircraft overshot the runway. Everyone survived the incident, but the aircraft was written off.

Screenshots

Cockpit of HA-ABA after a test flight

The first XJ-200 in MALÉV livery, HA-LSD, taking off during the Le Bourget Air Show, 3 June 1961 (Credit: @RepublicOfCursedPlanes)

Cruising above Austria (credit: @RepublicOfCursedPlanes)

Feel free to send more screenshots of the plane, i might add them here :)

Controls

AG-1: Landing Lights
AG-2: Engines
AG-3: Reverse Thrust
AG-4: Navigation Light
AG-5 + Brake: Airbrakes
AG-7: Cabin Lights

Personal Notes:

I had lots of fun working on this aircraft! It is always great when I can get a fictional design up from the runway! The cockpit is rather simple, but in my opinion it still makes the experience somewhat better. Thanks for all the support on this project, I hope you like it :)

NOTE

Please avoid using the mirror tool on the whole aircraft. It will mess up the control surfaces, the Airbrakes, the landing gears, the lights and the cockpit layout. If you have to, please mirror each part individually.

If you make a livery, please make sure to change the registration, inside the cockpit too!

Please only use these colours for making liveries:

Special Thanks to

@KyonIndustries for helping me find a bug in the vertical stabilizer in early stages of development

@MrCOPTY and members of his discord server, especially @Pan and @RepublicOfCursedPlanes for giving me lots of support and suggestions.

Very special thanks to @RepublicOfCursedPlanes for providing some screenshots, and thumbnail for the MALÉV livery, and helping with the description too.

Other Liveries:

MALÉV

Czechoslovak Airlines by @CR929thenewSPplayer

I'm planning to make few more liveries, but I won't be able to do that for a few days, and I wanted to release the plane already. Sorry about it!

Happy flying!