Abacus Corporate Pilot

A Wonderful Collection of Corporate Aircraft, Even the Boss Will Like.

By FlightSim.Com Staff (17 November 2000)

Rockwell Turboprop Commander 1000 over the Lake Tahoe region of CA, using RealScene FS Terrain Replacement Scenery by Eddie Denney

NOTE: I took screen shots in a variety of quality levels. Please note actual product may look far better than in these screen shots. Some pictures are lower quality to save loading time. If your monitor is not running in 32-bit resolution, you will not see same quality.

INTRODUCTION

I had not heard of Corporate Pilot until late this summer. It kind of snuck up on me, and I received a pre-release copy about a week before the public had it. Recently, I posted a review of the BeechJet 400A included in the package. I felt it necessary to concentrate on that aircraft, since I have had experience with the real one. Now, I will summarize what I feel about the entire package, with less detail on each aircraft included. Andrew Herd is going to spend some time reviewing some others individually, so you can look forward to his reports coming up.

I spend a few hours flying each airplane included. My release copy included aircraft, and that's all. Each airplane comes with some new instrumentation and systems unique to each aircraft. My favorite is the new FMS system and from what I can see is realistic and fairly straight forward to operate. I can't comment much on it, as I have not used one in real life yet, and one of my weaknesses as a real pilot and simmer, is lack of FMS experience. There are no doubt others out there that could do a much better job of critiquing this piece of hardware than I. All I can say is it's more functional and very similar to the unit I have used in FLY!. In addition to the FMSes, you'll get some extra "pop-up" panels that include aircraft lighting, startup panels, and engine and fuel data. They are all unique to each aircraft and offer different things. From what I can tell, each is fairly realistic in that it is designed as the real aircraft counterpart. I felt the workload needed for each aircraft was high enough to really make me feel like I was in a real unique aircraft, and not just a "run of the mill" FS2000 compatible machine. These aircraft are really designed for FS2000 technology and will startup and shutdown as good as the default aircraft! You can use CTRL-E or the real startup procedures. They are really solid when it comes to reliability and individuality.

Just look at those visuals! I never liked this airplane, until now. What a machine! Everyone inside is very happy to be there!

Cessna 441 Turboprop Conquest, partially sunken into the muddy parking area at Truckee, CA.

Each aircraft was beautifully designed visually. Terry Hill did an outstanding job in recreating an exactness for accuracy that even I was pleased with. Smooth textures, details, animation of all parts is all present. Frame rates take a small hit when viewed from the outside, due to the aircraft detail level. Some aircraft are sunken into the ground, which is one of the most annoying bugs I found with the entire program. Outside lighting at night is really nice, but nothing fancy in terms of landing light flare on fuselages or body parts as some FS2000 aircraft have nowadays. Instead, you'll get a great view of the inside. Internal cabins are modeled and show up from the outside. You can view people through the windows; they are reading Abacus newspapers, working on laptops or looking out the window! This was a hoot, to see everyone from the Abacus team smiling out the window. At night, in some of the aircraft the people look too large in front of the scaled windows. Now, I won't make any jokes, but it seems as if all the Abacus folks have big heads. That's okay, they deserve it after releasing this product! Here is "mood lighting" visible from the outside, looking in. You can see the dome lights and side wall lights illuminating the interior. The effect is awesome.

Clean looking Conquest panel. Frame rate friendly, is A-OKAY with me, even it it's a tad "FS98ish" looking.

AAAAAA the BIG 10! My favorite corporate jet - just look at that sleek design, and those HUGE engines, ready to propel you to 640 mph! Just too bad it won't turn on the ground, but that's a fix that will be coming soon.

The panels are great. Easy on the eyes, small enough to be "pushed down" the screen the way I like to, to increase outside viewing perspective, and very frame rate friendly. I estimate them only 5% slower than default panels. The panels have a unique feature where the other pop-up panels are mouse activated. For instance, you can click (right click) on the word FMS and the FMS unit will appear. Right click again over it, and it will vanish! Kinda, FLY!-like. Tim Dickens designed it that way. The only funny thing is that since he devised this system, the panels cannot be moved or resized, and he had to make some compromises as to where they will go. He did his best in finding places that will be functional and not too unrealistic. However, I found the pop-up panels to be very functional and necessary, but they are not to be kept onscreen after your task is complete (like typing into the FMS or using the flaps on a console page). I really enjoyed having unique screens for each aircraft. It made some learning necessary. It added to the fun. All the panels have an FS98ish feel to them, because they are not the super-detailed photorealistic panels of the DreamFleet 2000 era. They allow you to see outside well, and again, are quite frame rate friendly. You'll notice in some screen shots I have panels pushed down and modified to remove center posts etc., that ruin frame rate. Please see my recent How-To?? on fixing your views in FS2000 for more realism and better performance. The main bugs for the panels are related to the FMS screens, that sometimes are not aligned right with the panel. Also, some of your "o-clock" views are at odd angles, tilted off the level. You can fix them easily enough in the config files, if you're familiar.

The BIG 10 waits for some servicing. She's a beauty!

Turning base at Truckee. Flaps, ailerons and slats all ready to go, animation is very nice.

The flight models are for the most part very good. The two bugs are that the Citation X will not turn on the ground (I guess if you get towed to the runway, you're okay), and the Conquest has a faulty VSI that makes it look like you're climbing at twice the rate you really are. Also, some aircraft are sunken into the ground. These are all bugs Tim Dickens of Abacus told me are known and will be fixed soon. I really enjoyed flying the BeechJet 400A, Starship, and Rockwell Twin Commander. All the right amount of power, lift, changes in airfoil, drag, braking, reversing, seemed to be in play. In brief, I found nothing really wrong, and was very very impressed by some of the flight qualities as I stayed around the pattern for some runway work, in all the jets. My flight tests had me in a variety of locals--Lake Tahoe, Aspen, Telluride, Eagle and Reno to name a few. Each one performed very well as expected in the thin air. Well, I know that's not much in a jet, but I can tell the difference. The only aircraft I question is the Conquest. It just goes too fast, and at one point I exceeded VMO while pegging out the airspeed indicator at 320 kts IAS! Gosh, a Citation won't even do that. The Starship will true out at a hefty 350+ TAS, but nothing like the Conquest should do that. Needless to say, I sheared the wings off that Conquest. It's a good thing I had a parachute. I think Abacus is insured for the some odd two million for that bird.

I really wish they had made a Cheyenne!

Roaring to a stop at Truckee, after a perfect landing.

Another side view shows how accurately built she is.

Starship panel at night, showing the coloring and cool background lighting that you control.

External view of the Starship. Note the glow of the cockpit panel.

Since I have recently been flying a Cheyenne, and do some charter flights hired by executives, I have an affinity for corporate style flying. Until now, there has never been a great replacement for the default Learjets we've had to fly from Microsoft. And we all know how overly-touchy those Lears are (at least the MS built ones). Now, you have a perfect replacement for that and a great complement of corporate aircraft to shuttle around wherever you want to go. Part of the fun of corporate flying is that it fits into a schedule better. Unlike flying airline service, this type of thing allows you to fly a turboprop or jet to anywhere. Whether it's 20 minutes of free time, or 12 hours, you can fly a lot easier from point to point in your flightsim life. I commend Abacus for giving us a great variety. The Citation X and Falcon 2000 will do global missions, crossing oceans in a single bound. With aircraft designed so beautifully, I do wish they would make a part two, or give us a G-V, Cheyenne, and maybe a Challenger and Hawker of some sort. Sorry guys, but you did it so good, we're going to want more.

Falcon 2000 with someone hard at work by a glowing laptop display! This is the detail you'll discover with many of the aircraft - little surprises that make it so real.

Falcon 2000 climbing rapidly up to FL410, somewhere on a moonlit night, high over the Rockies.

As you can see I'm very happy with Corporate Pilot. To be honest, it was better than I was expecting. A very complete and satisfying set of complex aircraft, well designed and wonderful to fly. It's an example of something that has that commercialware quality, that only a few freeware artists offer. But again, until now, no freeware authors have done corporate aircraft like this. Corporate Pilot's aircraft are going to remain on my FS2000 forever. No "deletion upon review" here folks!

What would have really made this an outstanding aircraft product, maybe "best of the year" or something, would have been the inclusion of individual sound sets for each aircraft, recorded from the real thing. Instead, you have mostly default sounds. I would have paid another $15 on the boxed price, for that. There are bugs, none really awful, that need to be addressed. It's looks very sloppy to have them so noticeable, in a released version. There is no excuse for sunken wheels or poor ground handling. I'm sorry, but there isn't. An upcoming patch is great, and we'll all be waiting for it. These details, were the only thing that made Corporate Pilot fall slightly short of outstanding. Nonetheless, I have to thank Abacus once again, for doing all of us a great service in producing this add-on. It was well overdue, and I hope all you flyers out there craving some transport for the wealthy and powerful, purchase Corporate Pilot. Just don't forget to keep 'em waxed, shiny and hangared for the Boss!

Corporate Pilot gets an 86 out of a possible 100 points. Just "a patch away" from a 96!

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Read Abacus Press Release

Read an updated review, covering the official patch.