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was weary that purchasing this one would be a mistake. I was a so
so fan of the original, and when viewing all the screen shots and
promotional material I thought this would just be another pretty,
graphical, frame rate hog style simulation that I wouldn't be able to
enjoy flying due to my aging P133. And I thought because it's just
the San Fransisco bay area that I would be bored and restless flying
in the same area all the time. I even snickered at the panel pictures
because they didn't look like the realistic panels I had been used to
in Flight Sim 98. So I thought it would be a toy.
Well, I can report the same level of excitement I had when I first
got FS5 many years ago! I just could not believe my eyes. I was most
shocked as I sat on the ramp in my "172 Trainer" as it is called and
saw that I would get a frame rate of nearly 13 in 640x480 graphics
mode. So I immediately knew I could fly this thing smoothly.
Everything looked great outside. The graphics were crisp in 3D, detailed and realistically "dull" like in real life. So I taxiied. It was smooth...smoother than FS98. The plane tilted in turns. The views loaded fast. And the sounds...the engine had started with a typical coughing and wheezing so familiar to a real 172 pilot.
As I briskly taxiied to the runway I watched buildings and taxi signs move smoothly past my side windows. It was a great feeling. I was going to get this tin can airborne! But, the urge to get in the air overcame my promise to taxi politely to the runway. So I gunned the engine to max and ripped, bounced and blasted across the runway, over the grass and up a hill on the other side. Yes!! I was going "driving" up the hill at 50 kts... 60 kts... Up the hill. I was climbing up a grassy hill like a Jeep. Uuugh Oooh. Scrape, bang and I fell on my behind. The wheels broke off. The plane nosed down. I flipped on my back to see an upside down world where I saw my wing bounce and skid off the hillside in front of me! It was over. What a great crash!
This is my first "story". I have at least 15 more to tell. Don't worry. I will get to the heart of this review, and save the hangar flying for anyone who calls me!
What you get is a very well modeled "Trainer 172", Piper Arrow, Beech 58 Twin Bonanza, Beaver Seaplane and P-51 Mustang. The 172 is a Cessna, however Looking Glass was not allowed to call it that for some legal reason or something, but that's what it is. The Cessna flies as realistically as any MSFS Cessna and quite closely models the performance of a real Cessna 172. I find its performance a little lacking, and thus reminds me of a slightly aged rental 172 that I have flown. I have flown many real aircraft that don't perform as the book says, and here's an example.
Cruise performance is only about 100 kts on this one, about 5 or so knots slower than a real life, well tuned one. And that's at full 2500 rpm. If you reduce to 2300 rpm, only 85 - 90 kts is what you will get. It's a little sluggish in the climb at full fuel weight like a real one would be, but its overall climb performance is pretty accurate.
Everything else about the 172 is well done. The instrument panel is basic, and is not a representation of a real panel. However it is functional and contains extras like Nav radios and simple VOR and ILS GS units. All needles and gauges move smoother than in FS98. As in all the Flight Unlimited II planes you must use the E key for engine starting. There are no mag switches for some reason. You can and must use Carb Heat when out of the green arc in RPM, as you can get carb icing just like as in the real life plane! So on landing, at less than 2000 rpm, you can use your mouse to "pull" out the carb heat toward you to prevent this from happening.
Having also flown Piper Arrows, I was also pleased to see this one
flew like many I have flown. It was too a little under powered but
not unrealistically so. I could get it cruising at almost 140 kts at
2500 rpm just like in a real one. When you raise and lower the flaps,
you'll hear the "click" as the flaps are manually controlled in the
Piper as a handbrake style handle is used. The internal and views
looking out are also very well done. The stubby "Hershey Bar" wing
out the side views and the rear views out the back make you feel
you're in the real thing.
The Beech Baron 58 brings to the home PC the best multi-engine flight model I have tried to date. The sounds are great and you will hear each engine starting separately if you choose to do so. If you start the right engine first, you will hear the windup and sputtering of the engine out your right window louder than if you change your view to straight ahead or left! Stereo is present in Flight Unlimited II!
In cruise flight you must manually (via the mouse) adjust your props
to stay in synch. If you don't you will really hear the offbeat
humming of two engines not exactly at the same RPM. This is so real,
I can not tell you! Cruising at a manifold pressure of about 25
inches and an rpm of about 2400 I got around 147 kts. I don't really
know what the real one moves along at, but it seemed kinda slow. I
could only get around 155 kts at full power settings. Now, this is
indicated speed of course, so true airspeed may be 15 kts higher.
It felt right and takeoffs and landings are well done. The engine out procedures were just like I had done in real multi-engine training and the plane swung and yawed realistically. If you cut an engine right after takeoff you may be going down to meet terra firma.
Depending on your load, don't always expect to climb or hold altitude! The Baron has an accurate airspeed indicator with the real "blue line" on it. This is where below this line, keeping yaw control will not be possible if you loose an engine. This may be an invitation for some spin training however. The reactions on the prop controls have realistic responses as the rpms change. The entire feel of multi-engine flight has been modeled far better than any desktop sim I have tried so far. The unfortunante thing is that the IFR panel is just as basic as the 172's, so it's not equiped like any real Doctor's B58 would be. I am still able to fly ILS approaches, but in a basic way. There is no autopilot either. I didn't find this too problematic as all the airports are so close, I had not a great need for hands off flying. It kept me pleasantly busy. I do hope all the planes in the future will get autopilots.
I briefly tried flying the Beaver Seaplane. I don't know how to fly a floatplane and it showed! You can retract the little wheels on departure and make your floats ready for operation on water. This excited me. I aimed for the bay and set her down! I could hear a faint squashing of water under the floats! Then at rest, I bobbed up and down like a boat. Most impressive. This is however where I ended my seaplane flight, as I was unable to depart. There is a technique to getting airborne on water, and whilst I attempted, I failed at doing so.
I have not tried the P-51 yet. I wish it were a Citation or Lear.
My first landing in the Arrow was too hard and upon landing my view tilted suddenly left. I heard a pop and then looked from the external view. I had collapsed my left gear! I could still taxi, but only in left turns!! If you land hard enough you can break all landing gear and go sliding down the runway with cool scraping sounds. If you should taxi sloppily late at night, and knock your wing into another plane or building, it will not stay attached. If you should hit nosedown you may break blades of your prop, but it will keep turning if the engine was not damaged! I let another plane taxi through me and my rear end got chopped off. I could see my rear two seats, tail and elevator sitting on the taxiway behind me! The temptation to fly overcame me... so I blasted down the taxiway to see what would happen. I got to flying speed...but with no elevator.. I had become a car! Eventually I just smashed into a building and sent my parts bouncing and skidding all over the place!
The view from the cockpit will show you upside down in your seat if you should end up on your top! Remarkably you may even be able to "crank" your engine by pressing the starter. It seems there is no limit to the fun you can have when "destructive tendencies" get the best of you. I have saved the best for last. If you go down in water, you will sink to the bottom! Yes, you will be submerged. Your altimeter will unwind to a frightening depth (depending on where you went in) and you will hear "blub, blub, blub" as you mingle with the fish. Fish? Yes! You will hear the calls of whales and dolphins at the same time! The fun just never ends!
The airports are detailed nicely, with good control towers, hangars, buildings and taxi signs. All appears to be in real world placement. The taxi signs are very clear to read, as they are all 15 feet high! I don't know why they are so huge. Don't forget when taxiing near them as they are as solid as a building and real good at removing pieces of aircraft!
All terrain is accurately placed and the mountains are stunning. You
can fly in the valleys. You can even land on flat spots if you're
skilled enough. Anyone who has flown Flight Unlimited knows the
mountains speak for themselves. The sunsets are stunning and in
800x600 graphics mode, the "twilight" time option will knock you to
the floor. In 3D mode however, the night time taxi lights are big and
blurry and look as if they are about 6 feet tall. The effect is
weird. If you want normal looking runway lighting, you can turn off
the 3D effects. By the way, frame rates are the same in 3D and non-3D
mode. As in FS98 however, daytime terrain looks much better in 3D.
If you sit in your plane when it's raining, you'll hear the ting,
ting, ting of them hitting the aluminum roof and wings. You will see
beautiful prismatic clear droplets running down and splatting on your
windows. When in motion, they wash "up" the windshield. If you look
out the back, they will wash "down" the window. And on the sides, you
guessed it, they move sideways. If you thought that was good, you'll
only give up one or two frames per second for the rain! At night, you
can have a hard time seeing through the droplets on the window as
they reflect the taxi lights in wierd ways. The whole effect is
basically worth the price of the whole program just for the rain!
Cloud transitions are smooth. You can select scattered - overcast skies. In scattered modes, you will actually get puffy clouds. But don't get too excited, as only solid overcasts produce the "foggy" effect around you. You can also have cirrus clouds present up high. These also are stunningly real. You can also change visibilities easily; 1 mile to 30 miles is the range. So complete IFR can be done. Flying in the soup with the rain streaking by your windows really gives you that feeling of weather flying. And the sudden, blinding flashes of lightning will remind you even more so!
Wind and turbulence has also been modeled. You will get realistic thermals during the day and night depending on where you are. You will also get mountain related surprises.
Speaking of surprises, one of the other great features is the modeling of wake turbulence and jet blast! Yes, another flightsim first. I won't say what happened to me the other day. I will leave that for you to discover. All I will say is go to SFO at "rush hour" and boldly taxi up to and follow an airliner onto the active runway. I hope you don't wear a wig.
You must pay attention or risk being yelled at by the contollers. If you're at a small non-controlled field like Half Moon Bay, you can optionally speak to the Unicom operator to check weather and runway in use. Also, you can announce your postions to the other participating planes just like in the real world. I could go on and on about the ATC. It works great. There is one problem however. The major bug is IFR vectors to approaches does not work well. You may be vectored up too high or led astray. It is mentioned in the readme file that this feature is defective and that a patch will be released to remedy this problem. So, you can rely on ATC for traffic patterns and clearances and traffic avoidance - but that's all. You can have up to 15 different voices to hear. This may use up to 27 meg more on your hard drive, but the option to install less exists when you want it to.
The colored, icon-filled map is a gem. You can get all airport,
landmark and locational data whenever you want. You can make flight
plans by moving icons on the map to build segmented flights for you
to follow. The options include settings for graphics, sounds,
realism, reliability, voice or text ATC and amount of aircraft flying
at any one time. The useage of these makes you need not grab the
manual. Screen resolutions can be done on the "fly" with the ALT-M
key.The only downfall is that my Virtual Pilot Pro can not be programmed to do any more than the standard yoke and throttle control. You can not pan views with the hat switches. Most view and operating options come from the keyboard. The dumbest feature are the breaks which can only be done by pushing the B key. If that weren't bad enough, when you do that you get a big fat window that pops up in front of your windscreen blocking the view of the runway! And it says "To release brakes, hit B" or something like that. Not only can you not see, this silly window robs you of about 5 fps. They might as well have put up a window when your going down the runway that say's "Pull back NOW". I know no sim is ever near perfect, but this intrusion into our flying window must have been programmed by someone lacking sleep. It took 5 points away from my mental 95% grade I was going to give this sim until now! Oh well.
The external views are nice. You can not only see yourself (planes are cartooney from the outside and not very realistic looking), but you can jump to other airplane's cockpit views and the control tower views. This adds to the already overall fun of the sim.
The future is even brighter if addon aircraft and sceneries progress as planned. It is not a game, but a serious sim as I would call it. It is really suited for student pilots wanting to learn about ATC and communications. It is the best interactive ATC program I've seen. You can really learn about aircraft spotting and avoidance and the "rules of the sky". It teaches weather to some extent.
The flight models are just about as good as the ones in FS98 if not
better in some ways. They are a little too sensitive on pitch during
landing flareout - so some time practicing is necessary to avoid
broken parts. Just keep it at less than 500 fpm touchdown rate and
you'll be fine. You can certainly do some nice VFR "pilotage" with a
real aeronautical chart in hand. Again, I must say the scenery is
unmatched by any other civilian flight sim to date. This program's
minimum install works very well at around 200 megs. The CDRom will
run while flying, but remarkably didn't stop my flight nor slow down
the frame rate while scenery loads. Thank you Looking Glass for
making CD scenery load so well.
This is really a flightsim I will use for a long time. It ranks as my 2nd favorite sim of all time next to the granddaddy FS98. I never expected this to happen. For anyone not expecting Flight Unlimited II to be so good, you will be just as pleasantly surprised as I was. Perhaps I was in disbelief that anything could rival Microsoft's great flight models and high frame rates. I am so glad to tell the flightsim community it has happened in Flight Unlimited II. It may not have all the gizmos, aircraft systems and airports other sims offer, but for what it does do, it does with quality and style. Best of all, it flys real and is really fun to fly!