Aerosoft Beaver X

By Andrew Herd (13 July 2007)

nce in a while, a plane comes along that redefines the genre - examples in the civilian sphere include the DC3, the Piper Cub, the Boeing 707 and the de Havilland Tiger Moth. Sometimes, these planes are 'right' just because they are right; by some happy chance all the team's sums add up and the design hits the sweet spot. More often, it takes a few iterations to create a great design out of a near miss, the DC3 being a good example of this. Douglas knew they had something good in the DC1, nearly got it right with the DC2 and hit gold at the third attempt. de Havilland's DHC2 Beaver, on the other hand, was a winner from the start - de Havilland's secret being that they talked to a lot of bush pilots before they set pen to paper. It seems such an obvious way of going about things, but it is surprising how many projects get to a late stage before anyone thinks of talking to the end user; which probably explains why most aircraft seats are so uncomfortable.

de Havilland had identified a need for a rugged plane that could operate in the Canadian North on wheels, skis, or floats and which had an adaptable enough interior and airframe that it could tackle more or less any job that was thrown at it. The end result was the Beaver, a plane which could haul half a ton 455 miles across a frozen waste and land on just about any surface you cared to mention. The first flight was made in 1947 and after rolling 1700 out the door, they stopped making them in 1967, but demand never really slacked off and nowadays a hull in decent condition can fetch ten times the amount the first owner paid for it. Not content with 'zero timing' aircraft, organisations like Kenmore Air actually upgrade them and numerous modifications are available, but when it boils down to it, one of the reasons why the Beaver is a classic is that no-one has ever come up with a convincing replacement for it - apart from another Beaver.

Flight Simulator X comes with a Beaver of its very own, so you might be forgiven for wondering why we are reviewing an addon for the same aircraft, but the default plane only comes as a float version, which led to a howl of outrage from bush simmers who had been hoping to see a wheeled variant. The answer, by the way, is that you are supposed to use the Maule.

Oh yeah?

Aerosoft's DHC2 was very popular among FS2004 bush pilots, not least because a good quality commercial Beaver addon was long overdue. Until it turned up, simmers had been making do with Fred Banting's Beaver, which although a fantastic piece of freeware in its time, was getting a little long in the tooth by the time FS2004 rolled up.

Well, now we have an upgrade for FSX. This is not a complex addon, so base system requirements are given as a 2 Ghz Pentium or equivalent, with a gig of RAM, which will just about run FSX as long as you aren't fussy; on the other hand, the developer's preferred spec, which I would regard as being more realistic for having fun flying around the FSX universe, is for a Core2Duo system with 2 gigs of RAM. Apart from that, you need at least a 256 Mb DirectX 9 compatible video card and 350 Mb of hard disk space. The new version of the Beaver is not compatible with FS2004 and users of older versions of Windows should note that it will only run on Windows 2000 or above.

Installation went without a hitch and when it finished I found a new program group on the Start menu with links to manuals in English, French, German and Spanish; the Aerosoft home page and various support documents. The documentation is well written and includes the welcome news that the installation includes a small addon scenery based on the seaplane base at Pier 39, San Francisco. The developer has been remarkably honest about this, pointing out that they could have made a better choice, given that San Francisco bay was just about the worst location they could have chosen for a pocket scenery and so the result isn't perfect, but they plan an update as soon as the tools become available. The other point Aerosoft make is that there isn't such a thing as an 'authentic' Beaver panel, so the developers have made a representative one.

The package is tremendous value for money in that there are no less than five different variants, including Beavers on two different types of wheel, skis, a floatplane and an amphibian, so there it is hard to think of a type of terrain that can't be tackled if you have this product installed. Depending on which version of the product you buy (the CD was about to be updated at the time of writing), you get up to 48 different liveries, with eight different interiors and nine different pilots. For some reason, there are only three liveries for Beavers on skis, compared to 29 for the float plane and the amphibian put together, which wouldn't matter so much if the ski liveries didn't happen to be the least interesting of the bunch, but perhaps in the next version, eh? The manual includes instructions on how to change the cockpit and pilot, so with a little bit of effort, it is possible to build your own custom plane. Apart from the strange lack of ski schemes, the developer has clearly put a great deal of effort into choosing the widest possible selection of liveries, so wherever in the world you fly, there should be a Beaver to suit and on top of that, I can imagine that the package will be a target for repaint artists for a long time to come. And yeah, you do get a Kenmore Air livery.

Looking at the visual model, there are plenty of animations, including removable engine cowlings ( / key), movable water rudder, opening cockpit and passenger/cargo doors, ski extension and when you press ctrl period to put the parking brake on, tie down ropes and a pitot cover appear. As you can see in the screenshot, the detail on the engine is something else and the plane looks very convincing tied down with the doors open in maintenance mode, although there doesn't seem to be any way of getting the pilot to leave the cockpit. In some of the models, clicking on the door handles opens the door, all the control surfaces move and the gear flexes - and as if that wasn't enough, the crop duster opens its valves and the fire fighter drops its water when you use the smoke command (I). The limitations of the graphics in FSX mean that the crop spray and water can only be seen from certain angles, but the crop sprayer is certainly fun to play around with and as a bonus, it has an animated dispersal fan. There is only one crop spray livery and I am sure that repainters are busy even now trying to rectify the deficiency, because the model is the best crop sprayer I have seen in Flight Simulator - over all the years I have been reviewing.

A sophisticated new feature of all the models is an audio checklist system, which operates if you click on any of the words written on the card posted just under the suction gauge on the left hand side of the panel - and you also get flexing gear, which adds a whole new layer of satisfaction to flying the plane in with a full load. The liveries are generally good, although the dynamic shine exhibited far too much contrast on some - this may be a video card driver issue, but given that I haven't seen it with other addon planes, I assume everyone will notice it.

Turning to the cockpit, there isn't a 2D panel mode, so if you aren't a fan of the Virtual Cockpit, this isn't the plane for you, although it would take hardly any effort to alias over Microsoft's default panel so you could fly with that. As it is, the VC is well up to the standard of the default planes, although it isn't as good as the best VCs out there - my prize for which still goes to RealAir's Spitfire for FS2004. Other than that, there isn't much to say about the panel, given that the Beaver is a simple airplane and although you do see them with glass instruments, that degree of sophistication isn't really compatible with the type of work that the hulls is generally asked to do. The developers have listened to user requests and an ADF is included in the new version, on top of which there is an option to include a rather fine clock, although doing so will require a certain amount of hacking - you can find the details in the manual.

I did the testing on a 3.2 Ghz Pentium D with 4 Gb of RAM and a 512 Mb Radeon X1900XTX under Windows XP, using FSX SP1, which, as usual, reminded me that I need a new PC if I am to load FSX in anything approaching a normal lifespan. Frame rates with the Beaver loaded are good and most of the models seem to give similar performance to the simpler default planes, which is what one would expect.

The engine sounds are excellent, including a satisfyingly noisy and rattly start up, followed by a classy warmed up rumble, so do follow Aerosoft's advice and turn your system volume up. Apart from that, the plane flies just like a Beaver should, which is to say that it isn't a fighter and you can't get away with doing aerobatics in it, but it can take off and land on a dime and having all those variants means that you can go anywhere, any time. Beginners will appreciate the flight model because it is so stable it will fly straight and level for long periods hands-off, while people who know what they are doing will find they can squeeze the Beaver into the sort of places that planes didn't oughter go - but that is the way the real plane flies, although it isn't quite as fool proof as this FSX version might lead you to expect.

Verdict? Nice piece of kit, compulsory purchase for FS bush pilots. Go get.