Aeroplane Heaven Tiger Moth Civilian Pack For FS2004 And FSX

By Andrew Herd (23 August 2007)

he generation of my family that fought in the RAF during the Second World War always often teased listeners with the news that they had trained in swept-wing aircraft - the joke being that it was true. Few listeners ever thought to question what the aircraft was, the answer being the Tiger Moth, which has the distinction of being the RAF's first plane to have a swept wing. How a humble biplane trainer came by this attractive feature is an interesting tale which says as much about how planes were designed back in the thirties as it does about aesthetics.

In 1931, the British Air Ministry called for designs for a new basic trainer, a key feature of the specification being that the occupant of the front seat should be able to abandon ship with ease, should things go wrong during a flight. De Havilland had a plane that was very nearly right in the form of the DH60T, a variant of the classic DH60 Moth that was in service with nearly every aero club in the country; the only fly in the ointment being that the front seat was boxed in by a maze of struts and wires, with the fuel tank directly overhead. The design team took a practical approach to the problem, which involved moving the fuel tank forwards, but by the time they had solved all the engineering details involved in shifting the tank, they had a major headache on their hands, in that the C of G was way out and there was no obvious way of sorting it given the relatively light airframe. After a good deal of head scratching, they hit on the pragmatic solution of sweeping the top wings back by a total of 11 inches measured at the interplane struts, the other significant alteration to the original airframe being the way the bottom wings were given slight dihedral to increase ground clearance during turns. Although few people thought it made for an attractive design at the time, the combination of the swept top wing, lower wing dihedral and the inverted Gypsy engine made the Tiger Moth one of the most distinctive designs of all time.

Although it was a simple airframe, a surprisingly large number of modifications were made to the Tiger, many examples of which are still flying today. When Britain was faced with invasion, large numbers of RAF trainer Tigers were fitted with bomb racks as a last ditch measure - fortunately they never saw action. At the end of the war, many airframes were converted into 'Queen Bee' target drones, so that the Army and Royal Navy could practice anti-aircraft fire. Then there was the Thruxton Jackaroo, fitted with an enclosed cockpit that ruined the lines of fuselage, but kept the occupants warm; and even a few Tiger Moth floatplanes, one of which I used to watch landing on the river Deben back in the seventies. Post-war there was such a surplus of Tigers that many were sold off at knock-down prices to private individuals, flying clubs and farmers - some of the latter were converted into crop sprayers - and inevitably, the plane saw service for wing walking, banner towing and all kinds of stunts.

The Tiger made an exceptionally good trainer largely because it wasn't that easy to fly, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, except that pilot training programs are ill-served by planes that make everyone look like a good pilot. The Tiger had few vices, other than a tendency to flatten its spin if it wasn't handled with care, but neither did it suffer fools gladly and the plane was very good at separating the sheep from the lambs. Unlike the trainers which preceded it, the Tiger had to be flown the entire time and couldn't be left to look after itself and it had narrow track landing gear, which meant it was unforgiving in a crosswind, a feature which stood pupils who graduated to Spitfires in good stead. The Tiger is fully aerobatic, but lacks an inverted fuel system, which means that only a short period of fully inverted flight is possible, the other challenge of aerobatics in a Tiger being that there is only one set of ailerons, which limit the rate of roll; but in the hands of a skilled pilot, some breathtaking displays are possible.

The Aeroplane Heaven Tiger Moth Civilan Pack is a 122 Mb download from the Pilot Shop. The version I reviewed could be installed under either FS2004 or FSX and I reviewed it on a 2.66 Ghz Core2Duo, running Windows Vista in 4 Gb of RAM and a 768 Mb GeForce 8800GTX. Installation went smoothly, although at the end of it, I could find no signs of any manuals, even after conducting a thorough search of the hard disk. A new Aeroplane Heaven program group contained a link to an uninstall routine and that was it, but then I guess there isn't much to know about the addon that can't be found out from within FSX itself.

Opening the select aircraft menu in FSX showed a single version of the Tiger installed, with three different liveries, each of which has four variants. The first variant has both front and rear virtual cockpits (VCs) and no 'virtual pilots' - I'll explain them later; the second has a single pilot and only a rear VC; the third has two pilots, a rear cockpit VC and a virtual pilot in the front seat; the fourth has two pilots, must be flown using the front cockpit VC and has a virtual pilot in the rear seat; the fifth has two pilots, can be flown from either cockpit and has no VC pilots; the sixth has a single pilot with rear controls and extended fuel tankage; and the seventh has two pilots, rear controls, a VC pilot in the front seat and extended tankage. All the planes are the normal wheeled variant, two of them with UK registrations and the third from New Zealand.

The visual model is very nice indeed and well up to the standards of Aeroplane Heaven's best, which is saying something. The looks of the Tiger are captured very well indeed and although the airframe isn't very complex, given its age, the bracing and the struts appear very real and the fine detail includes the pitot, oil breather pipe and even an original sprung airspeed indicator on the left hand forward interplane strut. Those struts were the bane of many fitter's lives, because the front and rear struts looked identical, but one was an eighth of an inch longer than the other and it was possible to inadvertently swap them around when the wings were off, which made getting the rigging right a little hard to do. Animations include the pilots' heads, which look from one side to the other, all the control surfaces, the sprung tailskid and opening cowling and luggage panels.

The liveries are very attractive, as you can see from the screenshots. One of the hazards of FS2004 and FSX dynamic shine is that it can be hard to get it right for planes which are painted in a single color and it was no surprise to find that the New Zealand registered aircraft looks almost as if it has a metal fuselage, thanks to this effect, but this is a minor complaint.

Turning to the cockpit, you do get a 2D panel, but I doubt many people will want to use it, as this is a real stick-and-rudder sim that begs to be flown with the VC using TrackIR. I have put in a screenshot of the 2D panel (right side, middle row), but just about the only reason I can think of using it is if your system is marginal for FSX and you will gain more frames by turning off the Autogen and keeping the VC. Another reason for not using the 2D panel is that in order to get all the gauges in, the viewpoint has been set somewhat low compared to a real pilot's eyepoint. The VC is of much the same standard as the default planes, one of the interesting things about the package being that as you fly the different planes, you become aware that they have slightly different instrument fits - for example, the blue liveried G-AJHS has a thirties style rev counter mounted as gauges often were pre-war, with the bezel twisted so that the cruising rpm was at 12 o'clock. Given that pilots of that era spent very little time with their eyes in the cockpit, because aircraft were flown by feel and the noise of the wind in the wires, a quick glance down was all that was needed to ensure that the throttle setting was correct. You get a basic com radio and a fabulous old lubber-line type compass, which is all you need to get airborne and start enjoying yourself.

Oh, those 'virtual pilots'. When you select a plane that has one of these in the cockpit, you are no longer alone, but will find the cockpit in front (or behind) has a remarkably life-like occupant, whose head turns in a realistic manner. Nornally, this type of enhancement is so badly done that it make me run a mile, but Aeroplane Heaven have got it just right and it does actually add to the experience. The sound set is another fine feature of this Tiger pack and all I can say is that anyone who has heard the distinctive sound of a Gypsy engine on full chat will recognize it immediately. Frame rates are broadly comparable to the default planes, which isn't surprising, because this is a very simple plane without any fancy glass gauges to hog the processor.

The flight model is a little 'easy' compared to the real thing, which isn't quite as easy to fly as the addon would have you believe, but it is in the ballpark and I had a lot of fun trying it out. General handling is fine, apart from the fact that the AH Tiger flies hands off a lot better than a real one does, the stall is docile and I couldn't make the plane spin; but apart from those considerations, it flew like a good 'un, aerobatics were fun, the engine splutters if you fly inverted for too long and it side-slips extremely well. And you will have to side-slip it, because there aren't any flaps. Doing a three-pointer is, once again, a little too easy compared to a real Tiger, but I am being seriously critical here and I really enjoyed flying the addon.

Verdict. Deserves an Armchair Aviator. Great fun, best biplane I have seen to date for FSX, one of the best biplane addons there is for FS2004. If you want to try something a little different and have mastered all the default planes, Aeroplane Heaven's Tiger is a really great place to start.