Lesser-known FSX payware aircraft

storker

When I say "lesser known" I suppose I'm really saying that (a) I've only discovered them recently myself and (b) I've seen very little, if any, mention of them generally. Anyway, here are a couple that some "aircraft add-on sluts" might be interested in. I've pulled the purchase trigger on them myself recently.

1. Flight Replicas Super Cub: http://www.flight-replicas.com/SuperCub_basepage.htm. Standard tyres, tundras and floats. For Cub lovers when they're in a hurry.

2. Flight Replicas J-3 Cub:http://www.flight-replicas.com/J-3Cub.htm Nice looking. Very similar to the A2A Cub in appearance. Quality? I'd guess somewhere between the default Cub and the A2A version. Accusim spoils you for everything else, though.

3. SibWings Cessna Bird Dog. http://www.sibwings.com/birddog.php Lovely (and livelier) alternative to the Cub. Bags of personality and a VC with a really lived-in look.

4. SibWings Saab Safir. http://www.sibwings.com/safirx.php Another aircraft that exudes character from every rivet. Lovely VC. In performance, we're probably talking Cessna 172 / Piper Archer territory. Possibly not a great option for IFR, but the basic radio navigation tools are there.

All seem to be pretty frame-rate friendly.

Stork

drdeadlift

meh im an fs9 lad

Nforce

storker wrote: »

When I say "lesser known" I suppose I'm really saying that (a) I've only discovered them recently myself and (b) I've seen very little, if any, mention of them generally. Anyway, here are a couple that some "aircraft add-on sluts" might be interested in. I've pulled the purchase trigger on them myself recently.

1. Flight Replicas Super Cub: http://www.flight-replicas.com/SuperCub_basepage.htm. Standard tyres, tundras and floats. For Cub lovers when they're in a hurry.

2. Flight Replicas J-3 Cub:http://www.flight-replicas.com/J-3Cub.htm Nice looking. Very similar to the A2A Cub in appearance. Quality? I'd guess somewhere between the default Cub and the A2A version. Accusim spoils you for everything else, though.

3. SibWings Cessna Bird Dog. http://www.sibwings.com/birddog.php Lovely (and livelier) alternative to the Cub. Bags of personality and a VC with a really lived-in look.

4. SibWings Saab Safir. http://www.sibwings.com/safirx.php Another aircraft that exudes character from every rivet. Lovely VC. In performance, we're probably talking Cessna 172 / Piper Archer territory. Possibly not a great option for IFR, but the basic radio navigation tools are there.

All seem to be pretty frame-rate friendly.

Stork

I've got the Flight Replicas Super Cub and the Accusim'd A2A version too. Both are fantastic addons.....but as you say....accusim has us spoilt.

Firekitten

for a cub, id only ever go near the a2a cub. Its just... perfect. with accusim, its amazing. Doing sandbar landings in the tundra cub, in orbx British Columbia, is almost mystical.

Birddog wise, Carenado has one in the pipeline... I belive, a vietnam era livery will be included too
As with a2a... if its got a cessna badge, carenado will rock that casbah....
going for 'popular' brands? no, I'm just extremely picky over my quality. A lot of flight1 stuff isnt... its other developers, that flight one rush into releasing products, leading to lapses in quality from what Ive seen

An excelent one, if you want something bush, but original, is the Real Air 'American Champion Scout', it comes with the Citabria, Decathalon, etc, lovely VCs, flight dynamics, and the scout is a great little bushwacker.


Afraid the only bush plane for me, will always be my faithful Carenado Cessna 206G. She's my VA workhorse.

bandit197

drdeadlift wrote: »

meh im an fs9 lad

The title of the thread has a clue in it.

pclancy

The carenado 185 is also excellent and good fun for bush and beach strips

Firekitten

The carenado 185 is one of my top bush planes! I fly for VA in Canada, (Canadian Xpress) and based out of Campbell Island, British Columbia, I fly the 185 tundra, 206 float, and twin otter. The 185 with the ultimate 185 cfg and air update is awesomely accurate... the 206, and 185, with Orbx scenery, makes flying vfr a pleasure.

good job I don't have to fly the big metal birds for the company! flying desks are boring

storker

Nforce wrote: »

I've got the Flight Replicas Super Cub and the Accusim'd A2A version too. Both are fantastic addons.....but as you say....accusim has us spoilt.

The only problem with Accusim is that A2A don't do enough GA aircraft, although I hear that collaboration with other developers is in the pipeline.

Let's hope they start with Carenado.... :rolleyes:

Stork

storker

Firekitten wrote: »

The carenado 185 is one of my top bush planes! I fly for VA in Canada, (Canadian Xpress) and based out of Campbell Island, British Columbia, I fly the 185 tundra, 206 float, and twin otter. The 185 with the ultimate 185 cfg and air update is awesomely accurate... the 206, and 185, with Orbx scenery, makes flying vfr a pleasure.

good job I don't have to fly the big metal birds for the company! flying desks are boring

With you all the way. I have the Twin Otter also (love how you could nearly land it on a driveway), and do almost all my flying in the Washington State, British Colombia, Pacific Fjords regions, mainly because of the Orbx scenery and the fact that you can get US VFR charts online. I also have a preference for GA aircraft - I have far too many in fact.

I do my flying with the Virtual International Flying Club, nominally based in Vancouver and containing a fair few Canadians and Americans, but some Europeans also.

Canadian Express Virtual looks interesting. What made you decide on it?

Stork

Firekitten

storker wrote: »

The only problem with Accusim is that A2A don't do enough GA aircraft, although I hear that collaboration with other developers is in the pipeline.

Let's hope they start with Carenado.... :rolleyes:

Stork

Oh, they dont need to...
Check out Carenado's latest, the 337 (released today) its spec bloody tacular.

storker wrote: »

With you all the way. I have the Twin Otter also (love how you could nearly land it on a driveway), and do almost all my flying in the Washington State, British Colombia, Pacific Fjords regions, mainly because of the Orbx scenery and the fact that you can get US VFR charts online. I also have a preference for GA aircraft - I have far too many in fact.

I do my flying with the Virtual International Flying Club, nominally based in Vancouver and containing a fair few Canadians and Americans, but some Europeans also.

Canadian Express Virtual looks interesting. What made you decide on it?

Stork

It was a virtual airline that had bush operations... my specialty, and preference. Biggest thing I drive, is the J41 (PMDG) occasionally. Mostly rocking a 185 floater, or the twotter for cargo.

storker

drdeadlift wrote: »

meh im an fs9 lad

The Safir is also available for FS9, I think.

Stork

flyer2oo8

The Flight1 aircraft have the most highly detailed and realistic exterior and interior models around! They provide the best add-ons for fs aircraft if you ask me!

Firekitten

Flight1 are a distributor... they rebrand other companies (several) under thier name :P

I vote carenado for the most realistic, period.

Nforce

Firekitten wrote: »

I vote carenado for the most realistic, period.

Well I think that A2A and PMDG deserve the title for having the most realistic aircraft in fsx...but carenado have definitely come on in leaps and bounds with their last couple of addons.

Btw...the Virtavia Britten Norman Islander that's sold through Flight1 is highly recommended too. Perfect for recreating the regular Aer Arann flights.

storker

We haven't defined "realistic" yet.

I can't comment on PMDG, because I only have their B1900 and I haven't flown it yet (damn those impulse purchases!).

I once browsed the Avsim and Flightsim forums for opinions on the most realistic aircraft developers (in terms of FDE) and here's what I remember from that exercise:

A2A with Accusim is held to be the runaway leader.
RealAir next.
FSD got an honourable mention for best modelling of single engine flight in a twin (I think that was for their Navajo/Panther).
Carenado I think was seen as hit and miss, depending on the aircraft in question.
Some people seem to rate the Just Flight Flying School range of aircraft pretty highly, particularly their Cessna 152, although I find that one a bit twitchy and prefer the Carenado version. Where the Flying School offerings fall down, I think, is in VC quality.

Here's a list of aircraft recommended by real-world pilots* as culled from a selection of threads:

• A2A Piper Cub
• RealAir Scout
• Sibwings Cessna Bird Dog
• Digital Aviation Piper Cheyenne
• RealAir Aermacchi SF 260
• RealAir Turbine Duke
• Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander
• Carenado Piper Saratoga
• FSX Maule M-7 Orion :eek:
• Carenado Cessna 172N
• RealAir Cessna 172SP
• Flight1 Cessna 172R
• Milviz Cessna 310
• RealAir Beech Duke B60
• Flight1 Dornier Do-27
• Aerosoft Twin Otter

I'm not claiming that this is a satistically valid survey, of course; it's just what I noted at the time.

Stork

*At least, that's what they claimed to be.

Nforce

Funny that you should mention Milviz. The guys at Milviz are a force to be reckoned with. Colin,the man behind Milviz, has gone on record stating that he wants all of his addons to fly as real to life as FSX allows. The C310 was the first iteration of this policy,with the T38 Talon surpassing it. Their upcoming F-15 packages should raise the bar completely...with functioning weapons and systems as per the Dash 1 flight manual.


Another "realistic" aircraft that's worthy of a mention is the latest Aerosoft Katana.

Hansanter

Flight1 is not only a distributor but also develops their own 'in house' products. Notably the PC12, C182T, Mustang and very soon the Cessna Skycatcher, these four examples being created almost entirely (excepting the gauges etc.) here in Dublin. The Mustang was way ahead of it's time when released and is only now coming into it's own as PCs have become a bit faster since. There is no other similar type aircraft with such sophisticated code under the bonnet.

H/

Nforce

Here's a teaser of what A2A are bringing soon to FSX...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejsc1BwKDn4

storker

Nforce wrote: »

Funny that you should mention Milviz. The guys at Milviz are a force to be reckoned with. Colin,the man behind Milviz, has gone on record stating that he wants all of his addons to fly as real to life as FSX allows.

They have a Beechcraft Baron B55 in the pipeline, which I'd be interested in. I have a Carenado Baron B58, but I'm not crazy about the clarity of the GPS radios, the fact that it doesn't have NDB equipment (despite the pre-release screenshots having it) and the fact that when you stall it, it dives like a Stuka and doesn't want to pull out.

There is a fix available for the last of those issues, but it was provided by BStolle, not Carenado, who appear to have washed their hands of it.

Stork

Firekitten

You can sort the clarity by going into the panel.cfg, see the VC boxes? marked vc 1 and others etc...

pixel size= somenumber,somenumber, for carenado, probably 1024,1024.

Change it to 2048,2048, clears them up nicely, works with any aircraft, expecially useful for defaults. Nice crisp gagues

and Bstolle works for Carenado He did the fde for the 337, and is doin the next 3 too, also did the ultimate 185 fdes too

storker

Nforce wrote: »

Here's a teaser of what A2A are bringing soon to FSX...

Amazing. That bit where the gear doors start coming up by themselves as a side effect of the increased oil pressure...word fail me...

(But I do wish they'd step out of the time machine and do some current GA aircraft.)

Stork

storker

Firekitten wrote: »

You can sort the clarity by going into the panel.cfg, see the VC boxes? marked vc 1 and others etc...

pixel size= somenumber,somenumber, for carenado, probably 1024,1024.

Change it to 2048,2048, clears them up nicely, works with any aircraft, expecially useful for defaults. Nice crisp gagues

Thanks Firekitten, I'll try that and see how it looks. Failing that, the Just Flight Duchess has a GPS-style radio with a nice big Fisher-Price display that I could swap in.

and Bstolle works for Carenado He did the fde for the 337, and is doin the next 3 too, also did the ultimate 185 fdes too

I know, fair play to him for sneaking that fix out past the guards. I might end up buying more Carenado yet. Just not immediately on release. And only after getting a feel for what the gripes are and what's been done about them. The more official reviews aren't worth a damn when it comes to finding out that stuff, unfortunately.

I've looked at the 185 and been tempted, but I need another single engine prop like I need another nostril. I'm even well equipped with Bush planes for whenever I decide to go down that route. The 337 doesn't tempt me a all. Call me a stick-in-the-mud but that propellor arrangement wrecks my head.

Stork

Nforce

storker wrote: »

Amazing. That bit where the gear doors start coming up by themselves as a side effect of the increased oil pressure...word fail me...

(But I do wish they'd step out of the time machine and do some current GA aircraft.)

Stork

The market dictates the model choice unfortunately. I'm drooling at the prospect of having my favourite aircraft of all time being "Accusim'd" by A2A.....the F-4 Phantom.

Firekitten

mm the Carenado 185 is one of the nice ones... with the ultimate 185 fde, its pretty much perfect. (Carenado do have to mix 'accurate' with 'not too silly average chair pilot with a joystick cant handle it' Such is life...

185 is a must for any bushnut... its great