FlightSim.Com Review: Abacus Private Pilot
REVIEWS

Abacus Private Pilot

By Andrew Herd and Curt May (Update: 31 August 2000)

I hope since my last review you all have improved your flying skills to the point of making the ultimate "greaser" landings. And for those still attempting to reach higher speeds and altitudes, keep trying, you will get there. I had just landed at the field after another successful test flight of our 21st century version of the XB-70 Valkyrie when I got a request about checking out some new add-on software for flightsim. I said "sure, why not" and after a snafu or two with the snail mail and a couple of missed communications by those in between it arrived at my doorstep in a good sized box (for software it was good sized). I felt like a kid at Christmas (who doesn't when you get a new toy) and ripped open the box to get to the new software. The new software is called Private Pilot by the folks over at Abacus.

     
AeroStar 700

I was impressed with the package and immediately opened the box to get at the paper work of the program. The paper work included with the software is very good. You get the manual for the program which is very well written and contains a section on Flight School which will help you learn about flight and flying and does contain very important and good information about all phases of flying and what it takes to get your real private ticket. It also contains the information on the included aircraft and the checklist for each, which I found to be fairly good (we all love to do paperwork, right!). The program was put together by a few people we all know and have come through the years to respect. Jim Rhoads was in charge of coordination and the scenery, Terry Hill (The Dragon and his Tail B-24 Liberator fame) did the aircraft work and judging by the screen shots he didn't spare the rivets or the time. The panels were done by Chris Arrington and Scott Nix with the gauges done by Chuck "Gauge Master" Dome and Tim Dickens and the documentation done by Brian Howard. I don't think I missed anybody.

     
Beechcraft Baron 58

Well, after I read everything I thought to myself "mmm, it doesn't say it is for FS2000 only" so I tried to get it to load into FS98 and it did, to its own little file. So I said to myself "Self, you might have to manually install the scenery and the aircraft to get them to work". This is because I still haven't forked out the $3,000.00 to by a "super computer" that will give me the same killer frame rates in FS2000 as I get in FS98. So I went about trying to make everything happy together and succeeded in a total system crash that resulted in a total hard drive reformat and a reinstall of FS and the tons of add-ons that I had including some of our customers at Phoenix Flight Service dropped off aircraft that were in for repairs (not to panic as I was able to restore them). Now I thought to myself "now what?" because I had agreed that I would get the review to him as soon as I could. Well, I went back to the drawing board and was trying to figure out where I made the mistake that caused the crash when I got a message from Andrew Herd. I read the message in which he tells me he was wondering if there was anyway he could help out with the review since it is a big add-on with an awful lot of planes to try out. And the information kept coming and the screen shots kept coming and the info on frame rates get coming and my mailbox was at the bursting point (the folks at Hotmail wrote and told me so) and so I wrote him a letter and asked if he would like to join us at Phoenix Flight Services as an instructor and FS2000 product reviewer and he wrote back and said "yes he would". So I would like to welcome aboard Andrew Herd as our FS2000 Product Reviewer and FS2000 Instructor at Phoenix Flight Services. He will be right along side of Chris "Snoopy" Tarrana and his focus is on FS2000 add-ons and instructions.

     
Cessna 152

So anyway here is what Andrew has to say about Private Pilot with my hand in it every now and then for additional information and the screen shots are all his work also. Please enjoy the article and if you can, let him know you liked the article and if you have questions.

Abacus is well known in the flight simulator industry, and previous releases from this company have included Co-Pilot, FS Design Studio and Airport and Scenery Designer, names which should be familiar to many readers. Private Pilot is something of a new departure for Abacus, as it includes thirteen light which will run on FS2000 or FS98.

     
Cessna 172

The first thing you need to do after installing this package is to go to the Abacus web site (www.abacuspub.com) and download the update, which is just over one megabyte. This eliminates a whole series of glitches and will improve your enjoyment of the product a great deal.

All the planes have been designed by Terry Hill and the full line-up is:

     
Cessna 310

The package is a real lucky dip; apart from the planes and panels, you get the Jim Rhoads designed Island Airpark, a field located in the middle of Lake Michigan, just a short flight from Meigs. This airfield has been specially designed to complement Private Pilot and it includes a 50 foot obstacle and ground for practicing soft field landings.

All the aircraft come with their own individual checklist cards and there is a guide to basic aircraft maneuvers and acronyms; a Chicago area sectional map; FAA Pilot Knowledge test sampler; a computerized E6B Calculator to determine weight and balance, density altitudes and pressure patterns and a computerized pilot tool to calculate wind correction angle. It also comes with a collection from Dauntless Software including a Morse Code Tutor and SimPlates (U.S. and World editions) and an offer from Gleim Publications in the way of an actual Private Pilot Training Kit (your cost of $119.95 + $5 shipping = $124.95 total for everything listed) which includes The Pilot Hand Book, The Private Pilot FAA Written Exam Book, The Private Pilot Practical Test Prep Book, The FAR/AIM, The Private Pilot Syllabus and Logbook, Gleim's FAA Test Prep Software, A Flight Computer, A Navigational Plotter and a heavy duty flight bag (the only thing not included is an airplane, an instructor and local sectional chart and an Airport/Facility Directory). Even if you exclude the extras, the aircraft work out at three dollars and seven cents each, which is about as cheap as it is possible to get without actually giving them away, and yet these are some of the most attractive aircraft and panels I have ever seen for Flight Simulator.

     
Diamond Katana

So what about the planes? This is going to be a fairly critical review, as this package sets the standard for FS2000 light aircraft collections. So before you read on, I had better put things in perspective; the aircraft models are among the best I have seen and the panels are in the same league as products costing several times as much. So right at the start I should say that if you buy Private Pilot, you will get value for your money. This is a package that definitely grows on you and despite having mixed feelings about it to begin with, all the aircraft have stayed on my hard disk. After many weeks of use I have discovered that I tend to fly them more than any others I have, which is saying something, given my critical nature. For the purposes of this review I tested Private Pilot by flying every single aircraft between Stansted airport in southern England and Ostend in Belgium, which is the sort of trip one might expect the pilots of these aircraft to choose. The flight plan was very simple, including a VOR turn at 5000 over Kent, the final section of the flight being flown as pure VFR. The scenery I used was John Young's excellent EGSSJY3.ZIP and Jerry Joseph's Ostend scenery EBOS2KV1.ZIP

     
Glassair III

The panels are adequate but not sophisticated, with additional views limited to engine instruments, throttle quadrants and radios. You won't find any of the sophistication of DreamFleet 182RG's lower panel and zoomable instruments here, but what you will see is a varied selection of extremely pleasing layouts built around a standard set of instruments, as indeed are the originals. The majority of the switches are fully functional, though with no attached sound, and all the instruments are readable at night, as long as you don't mind them being illuminated with the default Microsoft orange.

Abacus has squeezed everything onto a single panel in most cases, and this has led to some compromises. In my view, placing the throttle quadrants on some of the panels was a step too far - they would have been better left on separate panels as in the default King Air. One inevitable comparison that needs to be made is with the Phoenix light aircraft, which while costing more, have separate throttle and switch sections, much more realistic radio functions, and fully working external lighting. I guess Abacus couldn't fit the extra features in at the price they brought Private Pilot home at, but I'm looking forward to seeing radios which function realistically in the future, now that several companies have shown it can be done.

On the other hand, Abacus has put in some extremely nice touches into their panels which make them more fun to fly than their rivals. The 172SP panel is, in my opinion, the most visually pleasing panel ever seen in Flight Simulator, a real gem of panel design, and the only thing that stops me making this my default aircraft is the knowledge that FS2000 isn't ready for that kind of thing yet. I have already aliased it to another 172 I like to fly. The AeroStar is another case in point - take a look at the lower right edge of the main panel and see where the engineer has chipped the paint with his screwdriver.

     
Mooney Ovation

All the aircraft have transparent windows, and there is a generally high standard of animation of moving parts, including the Bonanza's moving V-tail, which is a small triumph of programming. The aircraft themselves are so well done that owners of Private Pilot will spend a great deal of time flying in spot plane view, admiring themselves. If you switch to an external view you will see that gear retraction is very clean on all the planes. Nav lights work at night, but taxi lights and strobes do not, which is a shame, as it makes the aircraft hard to find in the dark. Perhaps this might be addressed in a later service release?

The sound set is adequate rather than exciting, with rather short samples leading to repetitive noise on some models. The Cessna 152 is best catered for from this point of view and sounds just right to my ears, while the 150 floatplane has a terrible old cranky engine that is just shouting for a service, but some of the other sets, particularly on the twins, are a bit monotonous. In an ideal world, this could do with improvement, but I would remind readers to look at the price of the package.

     
Pilatus PC-12

The flight models are very good in general, but this disguises a fair bit of variation. The Cessna 152, again, is a pleasure to fly. It would make a great plane to learn the basics on Flight Simulator, as nothing happens very fast with it and it is extremely forgiving. After the second patch is applied there are very few bugs and glitches worth mentioning. For some reason the Cessna 310 DME1 only goes down by integers (e.g. 43.0 to 42.0 without going through 43.9, 43.8 etc.). This panel also suffers from a bug where the main panel instruments are lost when selecting the engine instruments from the menu, but fortunately the missing gauges return when the offending item is unchecked. On a couple of the panels the ADF indicator sticks if the ADF radio is set to the 0.1 khz setting - but this is only likely to be a problem for European readers who have to cope with the handful of NDBs we have which demand .5 khz tuning.

     
Piper Malibu

In the final analysis, Private Pilot is a very competent package of simple panels that should please everyone except the absolutely dedicated realist. A plus point is that Abacus seems to have a policy of continuous development until they eliminate all the bugs, which gives me a great deal of confidence in the package. The aircraft in the collection are undeniably good value for money, especially if you compare PP aircraft with their rivals and ever with the Premier Series that Abacus are selling as singletons on-line. I have the Comanche and the Navajo from the Premier series and they have so much in common with the PP planes that they could easily sit in the same package - but they sell for $12 each, nearly four times the amount a similar twin in Private Pilot costs. The aircraft will definitely stay on my hard disk and there is no doubt that the majority of users of Flight Simulator will find this package a real delight - in fact after using it for some time, I would go so far as to say I think that it is a 'must have'. On that basis it deserves to sell many thousands of copies. The following will give you some idea as to frame rates that can be expected with this add-on.

     
Piper Saratoga II

Frame Rates -- Microsoft King Air vs Abacus Baron 58
These frame rates were calculated in six standard situations
  733 System 300 System
  King Air Baron 58 King Air Baron 58
LHR ground 23 23 15 14
LHR ground spot plane 23 23 11 11.5
LHR approach 32 30 17 16.6
LHR approach spot plane 30 33 14 14.5
LHR 15000 55 48 42 40
LHR 15000 spot plane 37 41 17 17.5
Both machines running Windows 98 second edition, FS2000 Professional Edition, update 2b applied.

Specs:
733: Intel Pentium 733 MHz, 256 meg RAM, Creative GeForce 2 GTS with 32 meg RAM

300: Intel Pentium 300 MHz, 128 meg RAM, Voodoo 3000 16 Mb RAM.


Overall, this would be a good purchase for FS2000 pilots that want great general aviation aircraft to learn to fly in that handle well and fly good. With that we will leave you to make up your own mind and for us, we will return to the air. I would like to thank Andrew for coming to my rescue and joining our hangar. And to Abacus, for continuing to bring out some of the finest add-ons for Flight Simulator, in any version.

Andrew Herd
andrew.herd@btinternet.com

Curt "The Mutt" May
muttly55@hotmail.com

[ Back | Main Menu | Logout | Help ]
Copyright © 2000 by FlightSim.Com. All Rights Reserved.