RealAir Sf260

By Andrew Herd (27 September 2002)

he Sf260 was the brainchild of the Italian designer Stelio Frati, a Milanese who had about as varied a career as aviation can provide. A teacher of aircraft design, Frati was also a capable aerodynamicist and had a reputation for designing sleek and efficient aircraft; the most famous of which was the 1955 Falco, a two seater light aircraft with a predominantly wooden construction. About 90 Falcos were produced commercially, but the design remains popular among homebuilders and half a century after its debut is still held up as an example of how controls should be balanced. By the end of his career, Frati's output totally about 20 designs, all of which are characterised by beautifully clean lines and light, responsive controls; the Sf260 probably representing the peak of his achievement.

The Falco demonstrated Frati's talents to the full by achieving a top speed of 210 knots on only 160 hp, which was outstanding for its day. But he didn't rest there and the Sf260 was the result. This design was an evolution from the Falco and Frati settled on a Lycoming 260 hp engine with constant speed adjustable prop, upping the fuel capacity by adding tip tanks. By European standards the result was very popular indeed and 850 hulls were built, many of which found their way into private hands because of its exceptional handling qualities. The aircraft's crisp controls make it a great aerobatic machine, but it is also airways equipped and its flexibility means that Sf260's have found their way into air forces as trainers and even as fighters.

In the US, at least one "air combat" school has been set up to teach PPLs to fly dog fight routines using this remarkable little plane. But the Sf260 has other virtues besides grace and pace. The sliding bubble canopy, inherited from the Falco, gives pilot a fantastic view and strips on the control surfaces warn of an approaching stall with vigorous buffet. There is marked washout and airflow deflectors built into the aileron path (present on the RealAir model - look on the forward inner portion of the tip tanks) confer reasonable aileron authority right into the stall.

The Sf260 is available as a payware download from the RealAir web site at a cost of $25. This gets you a 13 Mb package which includes five liveries and some excellent documentation - and it makes a great introduction to what I can only hope will be a series of Flight Simulator add-ons from an outstanding development team. If at times this sounds like a very critical review, it is only because I think we are looking at an exceptional product here and it is one of a handful of FS packages I can think of that deserves to be judged in a class of its own.

Now, i f you have read enough reviews on FlightSim.Com, you will be aware that there are about as many ways to design aircraft for Flight Simulator as there are developers. Just as long as you forget the occasional flying toilet, most designers seem agreed on the fact that visual models should look as nearly identical to the real plane as it is possible, but after that, everything else is up for grabs.

One of these divisions is between "techno" planes and "flyer's" planes. Techno planes tend to be characterised by obsessional attention to detail, but are often spoiled by flight models that have little in common with the real thing, apart from the fact that they are numerically correct. This kind of plane will climb at exactly the right rate, achieve exactly the right speeds at given power settings and so on, but often doesn't feel right (though now and again they do, and make exceptional packages).

The reason why techno planes don't have accurate flight models is that they get bolted on last thing, the team's priority being to produce something that is statistically correct, rather something that feels right. The classic example of a techno plane is a Fokker F50 which is out there somewhere - I ain't gonna name it, but this mother is a visual treat but is completely unflyable and no-one involved seems to have noticed.

Flyer's planes, on the other hand, are designed by teams that take the opposite view. These guys dream to fly and they produce packages that deliver variably on the eye candy but make you think, "Wow! I'm gonna do aerobatics!" If you get very lucky, you get both sorts of people involved in a sim and the end result is rather special - but as you can imagine, there ain't too many of these products around, the simmer and flyer mindsets being seeming antipathetic. As you may have guessed, I prefer the flyer's end of the market, chiefly because I prefer visual flight, and as it happens FS2002 is particularly strong in this area. On the other hand, techno packages often make particularly good IFR packages, and when one of the teams in question does a modern airliner - where the flight model isn't so important - the results can be spectacular, so it is a good thing we have both types of developer, I guess.

The RealAir Sf260 is a flyer's package without a shadow of a doubt. It has an excellent visual model, a competent 2D panel that is designed to be used rather than admired, and a flight model that gives about as good an impression as a sim can of what it feels like to be at the controls of a high powered aerobatic single. A real Sf260 can roll 120 degrees a second and pull up to 6 Gs, as long as the pilot can take it - and you will. Roughly thirty seconds after I first loaded the 260, I changed into VC mode and did a barrel roll right off the end of the runway. This one is fun all the way and it makes a neat pair with the only other Flight Simulator GA single that I really enjoy flying, which is FSD's Super Cub.

I guess we have seen the end of commercial releases developed with the FSDS tool now, so the Sf260 is a Gmax design. This means that you get reflections with everything and a visual model that is not for faint-hearted computers, but the team has clearly gone to great lengths to maximise fluidity in the sim and unless your PC is struggling to run FS2002, you shouldn't have any problems and the package didn't faze a 1.7 Ghz PIV at all. The documentation covers frame rate issues in some detail and there are some good suggestions in there, but my best advice about getting smooth running in FS2002 is to find the target frame rate slider, lock it to 18 and max out all the other sliders. That way, FS will concentrate on showing you the plane and panel and keeping flight parameters realistic. On a slow machine, there may not be any AutoGen to see when you land, but at least you won't have time to drink a cup of coffee in between frames.

You get five liveries with the Sf260, one for the Redhawks, one for Air Combat USA and three different Belgian Air Force schemes. All the paint jobs are extremely well done and I loved the Belgian ones to death - for once this is one package which doesn't make you long for more variety. The visual model is extremely neat, everything moves, the canopy slides, wheels roll, gear compresses and there ain't no gaps. I liked the way most of the liveries had oil stains and signs of ageing - this is how real planes look! I often wonder what the reaction of a flight simmer who had never seen a GA single would be if he or she was suddenly introduced to a typical one, because while FS developers would lead you to believe that most planes sparkle in the sun, the average Cessna is likely to get washed down twice a year and repainted once a decade, if that. So be prepared for some dirt and oil stains. I was happy with the interior, but then again I don't spend huge amounts of time peering through the canopy of FS planes and if that is your favored activity, I suggest this one is not for you. This sim demands you should be inside, looking out.

When you switch into 2D panel mode, you will be in for a shock, because the first thing you will see is the view on the left (maybe not exactly, unless your default flight starts with you inverted 12000 feet above the Alps, but you know what I mean). This is the IFR panel. It is a fine thing, perfectly suited for anyone foolish enough to use this sim for IFR flight, but you can't see out. It simulates the sort of view a pilot with eyes in his navel might have and I confess I didn't use it much; while there probably are circumstances in which you might want to fly the Sf260 IFR, but at the moment, I can't think of any. However, there is a good reason why the IFR panel loads as the default, because it allows FS2002 to initialise all the sim's custom gauges in one go, making loading of subsequent panels pretty much instantaneous. So learn to love it.

The view above right shows the VFR 2D panel, which I would describe as "FS2002 default plus" - it definitely isn't in the photorealistic panel camp, but on the other hand the graphics are very pleasing and crisp. The RealAir team put much of their previous effort into the late lamented Fly! and to my eyes some of the style of that sim has carried over into their FS panels; whether you regard it as a good or a bad thing depends on your feelings about Fly! I guess. While I think of it, a slight issue with the sim is a momentary "greying out" of the view when you swap to a different 2D view for the first time, for example to look out towards the wingtip. I am not sure exactly how else to describe this, but it is a little distracting, though it only lasts a second or so at most.

What you see in the panels is strictly what you get and the Sf260 doesn't pack a custom autopilot or a fancy GPS, but that sort of thing only counts as a distraction when you are sliding backwards after misjudging a hammerhead. 2D sub-panels are limited to a fuel tank selector/trim indicator, and the default GPS and radio stack, which includes the default autopilot. The virtual cockpit (VC) on the other hand, is right up there with the best of them and gives an excellent impression of what it is like to fly a plane with a bubble canopy, thanks to the restrained use of reflective textures.

As usual, there is a difference in eyepoint between the VFR 2D panel and the VC forward view; which, while it isn't big enough to be disturbing, did cause me some problems adjusting pitch on approach if I swapped between the two views once I was established. As I hinted above, once you have used the VC, you are unlikely to want to fly the Sf260 using the 2D panel - the more so because the VC sports an optional sidebar which lets you adjust all the things you normally can't touch in this mode. I have shown this in the screen shot opposite and here is my other minor gripe with the package; the sidebar doesn't close when you swap out the VC. Yeah, I know, it is only a small thing, but it would be nice if it did. Incidentally, the screen shot here understates the brightness of the VC, because of the position of the plane relative to the sun, but take it from me that in most attitudes it is extremely clear and sharp and an absolute pleasure to use. While I am on the subject, the overwing views are something else.

The sound set sounds just like I am sure an IO-260 does, though I confess I haven't gone out and listened to one specially. The flight model, on the other hand, is a peach, and the best reason I can think of for buying this sim. This is rapidly becoming one of my pet obsessions, but I am pleased to say that the Sf260 is free of the classic design error in FS flight models, which is to say that when you bank the sim to any significant extent, it doesn't spend its entire time trying to roll wings level. Instead, you have to pull the stick back to stay in the turn, failing which the nose will slide earthwards and you end up in a class of a spiral dive. This is not only what the aerodynamics textbooks say happens, it is what real airplanes do; why it is accepted that most FS aircraft should not is anyone's guess. What it means is that the Sf260 feels much more like a real plane than most FS add-ons ever will.

Fly!'s flight dynamics were the thing that kept RealAir away from FS for so long, but having tried the Sf260, I can only wonder why they didn't make the move earlier. The big strength of Fly! (unless you really enjoyed downloading patches) was the way the planes handled, which was definitely superior to Flight Simulator - the reason Fly! fell by the wayside being that nothing else about it was as good as the Microsoft sim. But RealAir have definitely got the hang of how to make Flight Simulator sing and the Sf260 is a good example of what can be done by a team that is prepared to devote some time and attention to the problem.

The most consistently impressive thing about the sim is that it isn't too easy to fly. By this I do not mean that the Sf260 is hard to control in straight and level flight, far from it, you can trim it to fly hands off, just like the real thing. But flying a perfect loop is another question - enter the manoeuvre at the wrong speed and you will run out of airspeed before you go over the top. Get it right and there is nothing more satisfying; so read the manual! This plane has a thin laminar flow wing and while she is a lady under normal circumstances, when lift breaks down, things go pear shaped very quickly; for example, the stall is very sharp, without any real warning of what is going to happen, hence the control surface strips on the real thing.

RealAir make a big thing about the fact that it is possible to make the Sf260 spin, and so you can. Whether it is actually the first FS plane that can be made to spin properly, I have no idea, given that every time I claim something is a first in Flight Simulator, it usually turns out to have been done several times before. But you can spin the Sf260 if you use the correct method, though keeping it in the rotation at low altitude involves holding left rudder, without which the plane tends to revert to a dive. I don't know enough about the Sf260 to be able to say whether this behavior is correct or not, though the majority of aircraft need no persuasion to stay in a spin once they have begun. What I can say is that I haven't personally come across another FS plane that can be made to spin so well, rudder or no, and one of Flight Simulator's many peculiarities means that if you slew the Sf260 above 10,000 feet it can be quite tricky to get it out again, which adds to the fun. The reason spins can be such a problem is that represent a stable aerodynamic state - so once an aircraft is in one, it generally stays so unless either the pilot takes action or the ground intervenes. RealAir say that they had advice from a real Sf260 pilot when they built the sim, so there you go.

Not only will the Sf260 spin, it will also sideslip very convincingly, once you have the controls set up as the manual suggests. After I took the screen shot here, I spotted Teesside airport below me, but we were too high and far too close to make a normal join. So this being a simulation, I thought, "Well, I wonder..." and I sideslipped the plane all the way in from about 4000 feet, dropping the gear and flaps and kicking it straight at the last moment. I would no more do that in a real plane than I would piss in the fuel tanks, but it surely was fun to do it in a simulator.

I guess I don't need to tell you that I liked this package a lot and it has the rare distinction of having become my default plane. Overall I think it is the unquestioningly the most enjoyable GA single I have seen in a long while. RealAir have equipped the Sf260 with smoke, so you can admire your loops from afar and it makes a great package for teaching yourself aerobatics; there is even a section in the manual devoted to explaining how to do basic manoeuvres. I didn't find any significant bugs and it is just difficult enough to fly to be interesting, without being beyond the capabilities of a beginner. While I wouldn't back any claims that "If you can fly the sim, you could fly a real Sf260", I think it is an oustanding package that really does give a feel of what it is like to fly one of these remarkable little planes. Go get.

The scenery in the review is Don Alexander's freeware Teesside (EGNV). I learned to fly at Cleveland Flying School, which lies just on the far side of the control tower in the screen shot taken over the wingtip.

Visit RealAir Simulations web site