FSX - The Aircraft Part One

By Andrew Herd (12 October 2006)

n the third article in this series on FSX, I am going to take a look at the planes, all twenty one of them, if you buy the de Luxe version - at one time we were lucky to get a couple of new planes with each new version of the sim, now it is routine to see half a dozen come and go. So there are quite a few changes compared to the FS2004 hangar and with the 'Century of Flight' theme have gone the Curtiss Jenny, the Wright Flyer, the Vickers Vimy, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Trimotor, the Vega and the Comet. I guess that few readers will miss them, given the amount of air time the historic planes got from the average simmer, once the novelty had worn off, but as you will already know if you have read the preceding articles in this series, there have also been casualties among the modern planes and the Cessna 182 and the Boeing 777 are gone, along with the amphibious version of the Cessna Grand Caravan, which will raise a few eyebrows. On the positive side of the equation, FSX keeps the Cub and the DC3 and in the de Luxe version, the 172, the Baron and the Mooney Bravo have been spruced up with glass panel versions.

As always seems to be the case with new versions of Flight Simulator, the team didn't have quite enough time to get around to everything and as usual, some of the planes got a better deal than others. The good news is that most of them have had some kind of facelift, but the Bravo and the King Air ended up at the bottom of the order of priority and beyond some cosmetic tweaks - and the G1000 fit in the Bravo - their panels and visual models look much as they did in FS2004. The same can be said of the DC3 and the Cub, but this pair started from a higher baseline than the modern planes and so fit into FSX far better.

The headline news is that the days of 2D panel use in Flight Simulator appear to be numbered, largely because the virtual cockpits in most of the planes (if you exclude the King Air and the Bravo) are so good looking and in most respects so much more usable than the traditional 2D units. Where it could once be taken for granted that a decent 2D panel would always eclipse its 3D counterpart, this is no longer the case and combined with the increased quality of the scenery, using the 2D panel, with its fixed views and poor forward vision, becomes considerably less attractive. FSX is not a sim which encourages you to put up with single fixed forward view of its world - you will want to look around.

Star of the show has to be the Beaver - yeah, I know it won't fly at Mach 0.74 at FL350 but c'mon guys, take a look at that plane up there. Does it not make you want to explore some? Now take a close look at the panel, and remind yourself that you are staring at a virtual cockpit (VC) and not at a 2D panel. The DHC2 has the finest VC ever to make it into any version of Flight Simulator and this panel has clearly had a great deal of time lavished on it by a real enthusiast - just get an eyeful of the how solid and real everything looks, right down to the control column, an area which is normally lucky to get more than scant attention.

The plane itself comes in three different liveries: the one shown above right; a white/yellow Kenmore air scheme; and an all white paint. The most immediately interesting thing about the aircraft, beyond the fact that it is so good, is that we only get a floatplane version, denying us the fun of tooling around in a wheeled DHC2 - if any other company than Microsoft was behind FSX, my suspicions about a forthcoming addon featuring a wheeled/ski version would have been immediately aroused, but as it is, I suspect that we are going to have to wait for a third-party developer to fill the gap, although if the team who gave us the default Beaver did a wheeled addon, I promise I'll be at the front of the queue. Let's just hope that they don't wait too long, because this is going to be an immensely popular airplane and we are going to see a ton of repaints.

I mentioned in one of the earlier pieces in this series that some tweaking of floatplane behavior seems to have taken place and it appears that the Beaver and the Goose both simulate the displacement/hump/planing phases of takeoff better than they did in FS2004, but this might just be my imagination at work again. Anyway, the DHC2 not only has the most realistic VC of all the FSX planes, it also has one of the best visual models and the 2D panel ain't bad either. All in all, the plane is just about perfect and whoever had charge of developing it deserves a pat on the back - as does whoever came up with the new view that lets you look along the side of the fuselage as if you were riding sat on top of the float. Neat for landings.

Just to show that you can't have it all, here, in the two shots above, is the analog Mooney Bravo panel, the VC version on the left and the 2D version on the right. I can hear everyone's brains clicking and whirring as their eyes swivel up and down between the DHC2 and the Bravo VCs - yep, I also find it hard to imagine that these two ended up in the same version of Flight Simulator, but one thing is for certain, a good deal less time seems to have been spent on the Mooney panel than the Beaver, although you have to concede that the Bravo's 2D panel isn't at all bad. The problem is that once you have seen what can be done with VCs in FSX, you won't remember to use the Mooney 2D panel, but if you accidentally load the VC after using one of the other planes, it will bring you down to earth with a bump.

Compared to the DHC2, the Mooney visual model is also far less pleasing and it looks to have been a straight port over from FS2004 (if not FS2002), other than getting the G1000 glass shoehorned into one version of it. I'll confess I would be more disappointed if the Bravo had ever been one of my favorites, but somehow it has never seemed to get the development attention it should in Flight Simulator, which is kind of strange, because the real Bravo is a highly glamorous airplane.

By the way, all this talk of 2D panels and virtual cockpits (VCs) will totally fox newcomers. By way of explanation, Flight Simulator has, for the last few versions, offered the user two different types of cockpit. The so-called 2D panel is the older of the two, allowing only eight fixed views (forward, half left, left, half left rear, etc.), but less processor demand; and until FS2004 came along, the only way to alter instrument settings short of using hotkeys. The VC has grown from a purely passive cockpit, which gave you total freedom to look around, but no chance of changing anything; through a functional, if processor intensive alternate cockpit in FS2004; to the glories of what you see in FSX. I can't imagine that the 2D panel will be around in the next version of Flight Simulator. If there is a next version.

Next in line - well, alright, not next, what could be next in line to a Mooney? We have the ultralight, which models the GTE two seat hull produced by Air Creation, an French company. There is a tantalising reference to safaris on the Air Creation website, though the link isn't active and this may explain why we end up flying a Zebra-striped ultralight in the 'find the baby elephant' mission - which, by the way, I do not advise attempting unless you have a low threshold for being pleased by endless vistas of Autogen trees and not much else, because that is what happens for around 45 minutes, at the end of which time, assuming you have not lost the will to live in the interim, your invisible six foot tall park ranger friend in the back seat announces that you have found the baby elephant. The ultralight features a determined looking pilot in a bone dome and comes in three other liveries besides the zebra suit - as a way of seeing the sights in FSX there is little to beat it, but I suspect it will remain a minority pursuit, as most simmers will find it too slow for touring.

Which leads me to another interesting observation. During the beta, there was much talk of FSX opening the door a little wider to third party developers and there is a deal of evidence that this has happened, with the provision of technologies like Simconnect, which gives a hotline to the guts of the sim as far as data is concerned; but one of the things that strikes me about the contents of the hangar is that most of the planes, including the ultralight, have a 'white' version. This will sure make it easier for repainters - thank you, Microsoft.

The big news as far as the GA planes are concerned is the inclusion of a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit as an alternative fit in the Cessna 172, the Bravo and the Beech Baron - the shots above show it in the 172 panel. The G1000 is a state-of-the-art glass cockpit for GA planes and replaces a multitude of analog gauges with two large panels, the Primary Flight Display (PFD) on the left and the Multi Function Display (MFD) on the right. This is one place where the new 'mouse look' feature of FSX comes in handy, as using the G1000 in the VC can be tricky if your main input device is a joystick with a hat control - to engage mouse look, you press the spacebar and then move the mouse cursor, which changes to a cross, to alter the point of view (POV). The other way of engaging and disengaging mouse look is to press shift-o, but either method allows you to move the POV quickly back and forth using the mouse wheel - as a usability feature this is a peach and Microsoft are to be congratulated for coming up with it, as altering the POV has never been easy in FS and most folk have resorted to clunky assignments on control yokes and such like.

The GPS1000 is a powerful device compared to the FS2004 GPS and simulates a large subset of the functions of the original, which can transforms the somewhat agricultural cockpit of the standard 172 into something resembling a small airliner - and with much the same navigational capability. In real life, the complete G1000 setup consists of a stack of boxes costing the same as some complete light aircraft do. The prime instruments consist of a ten inch LCD PFD and a ten or fifteen inch LCD MFD, running at 1024 x 768, with integrated nav and com radios controlled by a center panel (you can see it wedged in there between the PFD and MFD), a Mode S transponder with traffic information service, a solid state heading reference system (no more resetting the DI), optional weather radar and optional terrain awareness and warning system.

The FSX G1000 does more than I had time to explore in the course of the review, one of the complications being that there isn't a manual for it as such, just some basic notes in the learning center that could be longer and better organised - after that you are on your own, beyond a laconic comment that the manual for the real G1000 can be downloaded from the Garmin website. FWIW, the best current page on the site is here. Given that it took me a little while to get my head around how the G1000 worked in the sim, I suspect that newbies are going to struggle with these new gauges, especially when they are trying to use them to control the aircraft via the autopilot. Fortunately, if you create an FSX flight plan and then load a G1000 equipped plane, the Garmin automatically loads the plan, but to get it to work, you must hit the CDI button until the CDI display on the PFD goes magenta and annunciates 'GPS' and engage the autopilot nav mode, and alt if you want it. The autopilot can be engaged before the G1000 is switched to GPS mode, allowing you to control the aircraft via the heading knob until you get everything set up. Direct-tos are probably as much as many simmers will ever use on this gauge, but it is capable of far more and if you take a look at the MFD, in the shot above, the range button gets you on first name terms with scary amounts of controlled airspace.

The developers clearly appreciated that users were going to have trouble with the G1000, hence mouse look, but there are still some issues with it. Apart from the fact that we deserve a better manual, some of the click spots are frustratingly small and close together - doing gotos being complicated by the cursor button getting hidden behind the handle of the yoke in the VC - and the 2D panel G1000 only shows you the PFD and a slice of the left hand side of the PFD. Getting to see the rest of the PFD involves accessing it as a popup, which is smaller than it could be, because otherwise it would completely overlay the MFD - see the 2D panel shot on the right two rows above. There are a few tricks worth knowing about the G1000, the best of which is that once you have selected the first character of a goto code, you can type the rest on the keyboard. Have fun, there is lots to learn here and if you look above, guess what? One of the 172s has a UK registration, a first for a default FS plane, as far as I know.

Next we have the Grand Caravan, in four liveries: Kenmore Air, Global Freightways, red and white and white all over - and as I observed earlier, only in a wheeled version, which will cause gnashing of teeth among bush simmers for sure. Unlike the Mooney, the Caravan looks as if it has been rebuilt from the ground up, which is interesting, because it isn't that old by comparison to some of the planes. As you can see, the visual model has had a lot of work done on it and we get an excellent VC and a very good 2D panel, which I haven't had space to show here, but is a huge improvement on the original.

The retention and upgrade of the Caravan when other planes that are usually considered more mainstream have been left to languish underlines the shift that has taken place in Flight Simulator from the days of FS98/FS2000, when its general direction was towards becoming an IFR sim that majored in big jets and planes that found their way about from VOR to VOR, to FSX, which has a definite emphasis towards going lower and slower. The deletion of the 777 will send shock waves through the community, but it also creates some opportunities for third party developers and I imagine that developers like Wilco and PMDG are sharpening their pencils right now and sketching out what might be done to fill the gap. Equally, I can see that GA teams, like DreamFleet, Flight1, Carenado and FSD will be rubbing their hands at the lack of modern twins and of any Pipers at all.

The Goose. What can I say, except I want one? The Beaver only just squeaks in ahead of this one, in my opinion - like the DHC2, the Goose is a plane with character, which came from a time when it was possible to blend functionality with style and get away with it, a world less gray than the one we live in now, a place that promised more adventure. The Goose promises a great deal, from the moment you sit in front of that fabulous spectacle yoke and feel those throttles hanging from the roof. Everything in this plane looks like it has been built to take you into tough places and get you back out again, which is a tribute to the sim, because that is what a real Goose is like - just be glad you don't have to pay for the fuel to run it!

Even allowing for the fact that it comes from my favorite period of aviation history, the Goose is a hugely useful addition to the FS hangar, because it is the first time the sim has been able to boast a real amphibian, as opposed to a floatplane with wheels, which only just scrapes in under the bar as far as I am concerned (-: The Goose has so much character that it almost begs to be taken places and yet it will still set some challenges, because it is large enough that it won't be easy to get it in and out of smaller lakes. We are going to have fun with this beast, I promise you. The Goose comes in seven schemes including all white.

The next plane is the third and last of the new bush team and makes a great choice for FSX, not least because it comes in both a wheeled and a ski version. As you've guessed, this is none other than the Maule, an aircraft which won't win any awards in the beauty stakes, but has built a good reputation for reliability and for giving long service. FS2004 users already have access to an award-winning freeware Maule which has proven incredibly popular, so this wonderful little sim should go down a storm with FSX users, particularly newcomers who haven't got their heads around downloading freeware and such stuff yet.

The Maule comes complete with no less than eight schemes and a great 2D panel and VC. As you will know if you read the previous article in this series, I have played around with it a good deal and although it lacks the sophistication of the G1000 equipped planes and hasn't got the dinged-up charm of the DHC2, it is a great sim - so good in fact that it is better than most of payware stuff we get sent for review. Allowing for blips like the Mooney, FSX is going to be a tough act to follow.

I did some soaring (gliding in the UK) while I was writing the earlier pieces in this series, largely because it gave me time to think, but also because the animations on the DG808S sailplane are so darned good. In case you missed the previous article, you can either start the sailplane in the air using the 'free flight' option and then use the slew keys to gain height if you need it; or you can start on the ground, hit ctrl-shift-y and hitch a ride behind the tow plane. The tow sequence works so well that loading the DG808 in the air is a shame and I recommend a ground start in spot plane view with your eye point positioned behind the glider so you can see the whole thing. As long as you have the advanced animations box checked, as the tow plane gathers speed, the DG808s' wings will start to flex as they begin to bear the aerodynamic load - then, as the sailplane leaves the ground, switch to cockpit view and start paying attention, because if you don't, you can bust the tow. With the aircraft realism options set to easy, tows aren't too hard to handle, but with all the sliders pulled across to the right, if you allow the slightest yaw to develop, you will find it hard to make corrections, as it is all too easy to reinforce the yawing, rather than kill it. Whatever you do, don't forget to raise the gear, as otherwise your glide angle will take you back to earth pretty quick; after that, listen to the variometer and try and find those thermals. The manual gives good advice on the subject and thermals can be expected anywhere in the FSX world provided that conditions favor them. Very neat and bound to bring FS soaring the popularity it has always deserved.

The last of the GA planes that I propose to examine in any detail is the Extra, which has had a complete makeover and is a far better sim for it. The old Extra sim was everything the real aircraft was not - dull and boring, not particularly challenging to fly and visually unrewarding. The new Extra might as well be a different plane; it has a spiffy new VC that looks almost completely real, a brand new visual model that completely outclasses the original, and a flight model that (with the difficulty settings turned up) at last makes it possible to understand why this little plane is such a favorite on the aerobatic circuit. With the advanced options enabled, it will flick with ease and it can be spun as long as you hold the stick right back and some pro-spin aileron. The addition of the head lag option for the pilot really enhances the feeling of flying this little plane, as the world spins around you until the instruments are a blur and you just want it all to turn the right way up again.

In general, the flight models seem to be better than they were in FS2004, although I haven't flown all the planes long enough to be really sure. The new planes are first class and even the 172 seems to have had its act cleaned up a bit, while some of the more annoying features still remain. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the GA planes have been made slightly more stable than they should be in order to help users out, but then again, the lack of control forces in the sim makes it tricky to assess them against real aircraft that require much more physical effort to fly. Some of the planes still exhibit a tendency to keep on side-slipping long after a real aircraft would have stopped, but overall, the flight models are plenty good enough and although I am sure we will pick plenty of holes in them over the next couple of years, Microsoft have done a good job. It even seems that they have fixed the old turbo-jet model, because for the first time ever, I was able to restart one of the King Air's engines in flight, only a few seconds after pulling the fuel cutoff.

Oh yeah, the King Air. Not good. In fact it looks exactly as it did in FS2004, which means that the VC looks terrible compared to say the Extra. It flies OK, but it shows its age badly and I wonder if it and the Mooney will survive into the next version of the sim. The Cub hasn't had much attention either, beyond growing some new liveries, but it looks as if there wasn't any time to attend to the interior, which is yellow in whichever version you select - but you can always pretend you had a cheap respray. That being said, the Cub was such a style icon in FS2004 it can still hold its head up in FSX; it just doesn't look quite as spiffy as it once did.

In the next piece I will take a look at the jets and the choppers.

Review: FSX Preview
Review: FSX Scenery
Review: FSX General Aviation Aircraft
Review: FSX Jets And Choppers
Review: FSX Missions, ATC And The Rest