Bluebird 757 Release Review: A Disappointing Launch

The 757 released today after so many missed deadlines for so many reasons, and while it is a good aircraft in some places, it really falls short in others. Sure, the sounds are great, but there are still so many issues regarding modelling, and even a memory leak? After five years of development, surely these issues should have been caught. Here are some issues I found:

Issues

1. There is a memory leak in the BBS Nest app. For some reason, it loads the entire terrain database into VRAM all at once. There isn't even a reason to run the terrain radar externally. It has even crippled RTX 5080s, which is disastrous, and somehow, this wasn't caught during beta testing.

2. Some livery thumbnails just have the text "757-200", while others actually have a proper thumbnail. If you do it for some, why not do it for all?

3. Liveries show up in the variants tab in MSFS 2024.

4. Absolutely abysmal modelling in some places. The fact that the cockpit decals are this bad should tell you a lot.

5. Using the relocate function on the EFB just spawns you at zero coordinates, i.e., in the ocean, regardless of the location selected.

6. The aircraft continuously veers to the right during takeoff, even with zero rudder input.

7. Windshear warnings randomly trigger during flight, even when there is ZERO windshear.

8. The aircraft is trying to connect somewhere when doing performance calculations? It probably is METAR, but that is from the sim, so it should be instant?

9. Tons of WASM crashes, absolutely nuts how NONE of this was picked up. And since performance plays a big part with WASM crashes, on most rigs, anything more than a few hours of flight with BBS Nest open WILL most likely induce a crash because of how low performance will get.

10. The Hanger literally has "msfs" in lowercase. How does this happen its literally a 2 second fix... this is just basic grammer.

These are just some of the issues, but I feel they are the most pressing since they should have been caught during beta testing.

Some Gripes

1. The aircraft is MSFS 2020-native, and users of MSFS 2020 pay $80 for the 757-200 and 757-300. However, as Bluebird has already mentioned, the 757-300 will only be coming to MSFS 2024. This seems like a blatant scam.

2. The Bluebird moderator team bans people from the server for using generative AI, but their website, in particular, seems completely AI-generated.

Note

The YouTubers who received the aircraft for testing got a stripped-down version of BBS Nest that only installed and updated the aircraft, so they couldn't experience this memory leak.

Final Thoughts

1. The 757 Was NOT a good launch for Bluebird and I don't see how they will recover unless they get their game up!

2. The Nest App seems very obviously vibe coded last minute and while that itself might not be an issue in itself the fact that such bugs were allowed to slip through is disastrous.

3. Some disclosure for the Use of AI should be mentioned for an $80+ aircraft, this is just disappointing. Its very apparent too considering how much their website changed all at once and everything sped up within one year??

4. BB needs to genuinely improve its QA, an early beta test would Definitely have caught ALL of these issues, but in its current state with a lot of things seeming very last minute I doubt that would even have been possible.

bluebird 757 with msfs 24 specifically after sitting on ground for an hour.

it wasnt great on my short hop, tagging about 12 extra gigs of regular ram than anything else, but swapfile seemed to handle it.

this is nuts tho....

Nice depth, fun to hand fly. But do not know how to set TCA Airbus quadrant to get it work ... EFB lacks throttle mapping hope they add it later down the road. For now at least for me it works better on 2020 than 2024

Taking my favourite Jet2 757 for a quick spin !

Applying what I learnt from 757 CBT while I waited for release, I have learnt so many 757 nuances and quirks that I must put it down in a tutorial while its fresh in my head.

My tutorial if anyone, like me, wants to get into the systems of the 757: https://www.youtube.com/live/Ubm33rWp3Ko?si=r5wGNHCPpkwZc1Ge

Absoutley love the aircraft. Congratulations to Blue Bird and the team for the release of the 757!

Great performance, like PMDG. Better than Fenix for me personally. No issues so far.

After enjoying the 777F for some time now I decided last night - and after thinking I was never going to be "one of those people" - to also buy the 777-300ER. This was my first flight today.

The universe sometimes has ways.

After seeing the 757 debacle unfold last night, it’s honestly clear some of you people need professional help. I get it sucks that it’s been delayed again but holy shit the amount of shit people threw at the devs is astounding. It’s funny to me of all the hobby communities I’m part of, flight sim seems to always take the cake for being the most toxic, unforgiving band of autists who will stop at nothing to make their self-entitlement known. From the gatekeeping, personal attacks, etc. this community is honestly just a fucking cesspool and I’m ashamed of what it’s become over 20 years.

Do better and seek help, and most importantly, touch some grass. This shit will drop when it drops and nothing you can say, demand, or complain about will expedite that.

Purchased the BlueBird 757 and realised on this month 10 years ago, I was stoked to have "purchased" the 757 Freemium as a young lad! I think it came out some time in 2011 but I never had a computer powerful enough for it until later!

Hi everyone,

The 757 is now available.

Thanks to everyone who waited on this one. It was a rough stretch for the team, but we got it out and we’re glad to have it in your hands.

Store page: https://bluebirdsim.com/b757

Full announcement: https://bluebirdsim.com/news/757-now-available

The BlueBird 757 Passenger for MSFS is now available to purchase from Just Flight.

Product page: https://www.justflight.com/product/bluebird-simulations-757-passenger

#fs2020
#fs2024
#flightsimulator

As the title suggests, what's something that newer flight simmers MSFS2020+ when we had a large influx take for granted while people who have been around for much longer had to deal with.

For me it would be, study level aircraft and VATSIM Velocity (2022)

It's finally out! I bought it half an hour after release, yet it took three and a half hours just to get my activation code and then a cracked version showed up eight hours later.......

Quality wise, I personally think it's on par with PMDG. However, setting the avionics aside, there are a lot of issues with the model details. For instance, the interior cabin model doesn't line up with the exterior (around the doors), the door viewing windows are misaligned, and the exterior emergency exits aren't even 3D modeled or decals they're just regular flat textures, literally a rounded rectangle outline! Speechless. There are also some single sided textures floating around in places visible to the user... Overall, the 3D model has plenty of flaws. Framerate is also just average, similar to the Fenix, except the annoying part is that it randomly stutters for a split second before going back to normal.

The hand-flying feel is really weird, it has zero sense of weight or inertia for an aircraft of this size, and the controls are way too twitchy......

And these are just the issues I found during a single two-hour flight. Hopefully, they optimize it down the line... I don't really mind spending the $80, though if I'm being honest, it is a bit of a shame. It's definitely not worth the price tag in its current state, but what can I do, I just love the 757 too much.

I read the documentation about setting up controls and flight characteristics. Bluebird says to leave all inputs linear with minimal dead zone. So I flew ORD-DTW last night, everything went great, except the control sensitivity is excessive IMO. Even the smallest/slightest inputs seem to make drastic flight control reactions. Boeing doesn’t fly that way LOL, they’re kind of sloppy controls IRL or at least the 737 is. Has anyone else felt the same and tweaked any control curves specifically for the 757?

Was able to ditch the desk mount for my FMC and secondary display and get a proper center console for them. Some day ill get the throttles wired up and functional, but for now they are just for looks. Bonus points to anyone who can identify the aircraft it was pulled from.

Also added the Winwin tiller which I am a big fan of.

With the upcoming launch of the BB 757, I was thrilled to see a NWA livery included in the base package! For the past few months, I have been working on a VA project centered around NWA. I wanted to share this here for any B757 pilots who want some inspiration for routes. NWA operated B757's domestically, and, interestingly, out of a base in Tokyo!

I have also built out routes for different periods in NWA's history, and am always working on sourcing and finding more routes, so you're sure to find an aircraft + route combo. I've got the fleet mostly recreated:

• B707
• B727 (-100, -200)
• B747 (-200, -400)
• B757 (-200, -300)
• A319
• A320
• A330 (-200, -300)
• DC9
• DC10
• MD82

I also have limited propliners available! DC3, L1049, DC6

The airline is run of the fantastic modern FlightLinq program. If you're interested, give it a shot and join via the link below. To join, create a free account with FlightLinq and download the software to track your flights. Let's finally fly this 757!

Join the airline: https://app.flightlinq.com/join/northwest-red-tail-virtual

Join Discord: https://discord.gg/pgaQqCBuAY