Introduction

Greetings folks, I trust you are all well, enjoying summer, and exploring the planet in MSFS. Today I want to take a first look at a new aircraft for MSFS, and once again I stress that what you read is but my opinion, my personal perspective, my KerrSpective.

The aircraft is the Ryan ST-A Special, and it comes from A1R Design Bureau. For many people, both the aircraft and the designer may be unfamiliar, so it’s worth giving some context here.

Let’s start off with A1R Design Bureau. The Ryan is their first product for MSFS, but it is not their first product for the overall Microsoft ecosystem. Taking a look in the FlightSim.Com Store you will see there are earlier products for FSX and P3D. These include the Yak-12A, Yak-55, CP-80 Racer, and the A-15 glider.

Although I have never tried any of their previous products, I must say that they’ve made an incredible first impression on me with their new Ryan. I picked it up about four hours ago, and after flying three flights, putting it through its paces with numerous test regimes, I am suitably impressed. So before going into the sim, let’s talk about the real Ryan company.

In 1922, T. Claude Ryan opened up Ryan Airlines on the west coast of the USA. Initially he converted war surplus aircraft into passenger transports, and then he designed his first original aircraft with the Ryan M-1. It was a braced high-wing monoplane, making its maiden flight in early 1926. During an era in which biplanes still abounded, Ryan was already showing himself to be a design pioneer. The M-2 and B.1 followed as variations on his original theme, but his name came to fame with the Ryan NYP, better known as “Spirit of St. Louis,†the aircraft Charles Lindbergh used when he flew across the Atlantic.

After selling his original company, Ryan re-entered aircraft design in the early 1930’s, and the result was the Ryan S-T (Sport Trainer) of which five examples were built. As the design evolved, it became the Ryan S-T-A of which 71 were built. Then the A-T-A came out (11 examples), and this was followed by the S-T-M, a fighter aircraft that was exported mostly to South America. In 1939 the US military evaluated the Ryan, and this led to the YPT-16, and the numerous PT-20 and PT-22 models that followed. During this product evolution the ST-A Special surfaced, complete with a 150HP supercharged engine. The company continued to operate, designing numerous research aircraft, until being acquired by Teledyne in the late 1960’s.

And that brings us to MSFS, and A1R’s “artistic rendition†of the aforementioned ST-A Special.

I picked this aircraft up from the FlightSim.Com Store, and it was delivered as a zip file. After decompressing it, a single .exe was revealed. I ran it, and after accepting the EULA and pointing to my community folder, the installation continued, and in no time the aircraft was ready for flight.

Before the first flight however, I checked out the three PDF documents. To be honest, they are somewhat sparse (my first criticism of the product). There’s a single page copyright/EULA, a single page flight performance sheet (airspeed limitations mostly), and a six-page mini-manual to provide “Normal procedures.†The last of these really needs a significant revision, as even adding some cockpit diagrams would help. In fact it was so sparse that I didn’t even read it before my first flight, and that was a mistake.

First Impressions

Knowing that I was going to write this review, I had a pen and paper beside me as I first viewed, and then flew the Ryan in MSFS. Everything that follows is based on my cryptic, hastily-written scrawl.

The first thing to notice is that the Ryan comes in three color schemes. There’s a drop-dead gorgeous glossy metal example, then a US Army one, and a sporty red and silver job. The all-silver one is the pick of the bunch for me as it looks fantastic from every angle. That’s not saying the other two fall down in any immediate way, just personal preference I guess.

The next point worth mentioning is the ubiquitous “CG out of limit†message in the weight and balance section of the menu. This message appears all-too-often, even in some of the default Asobo aircraft, and it is annoying. Sometimes you have to manually change settings just to get an aircraft to fly correctly. In the case of the Ryan I left it where it was for my test flights.

I decided to launch the sim at CYBR, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. In real life the airfield is about 90-minutes drive from my home, and there’s a good aircraft museum there too. It is also an area of mostly prairie, so there’s little to have an impact on MSFS performance. So I dropped the Ryan into one of the parking spots there, and started to check it out.

And WOW. That really was my first impression and expression. “WOW.â€

The real Ryan would still look good today, and the A1R Design Bureau version certainly captures the timeless lines that must have seemed so futuristic “back in the day.†The model is beautifully-detailed, and the texture quality (admittedly I do not use 4K), to my eyes is superb. Just look at the following screenshots. This thing begs to be flown!

Well, after delightfully taking in the exterior (using the drone camera to view it in detail), it was time to jump into the cockpit. Once again the visual quality of the model stands out. I love the fact that the window frame is almost perfectly curved, and the texture of that leather along the top of the panel is excellent. No complaints from me in that respect.

Trying To Get Her Started

So, after having a darn good look, I decided to go flying. And what was my approach? Well, sometimes I do go through a full start-up, but many times I just use the CTRL+E key. Let’s face it, a lot of new simmers will do just that, so I did it too, on the first try. Yes, it started, and I made a note that the engine sounded a bit “tinny†but it was still fine. I shut her off and decided to go through a typical startup.

I was happy as each switch, lever, and pedal had a sound associated to it. Nice. I switched on batteries, alternators, moved the mixture to full, turned on the fuel pump, and put the mags to both and…. silence.

Hmm… That was not right. I tried it again and once more, there was only the sound of the tinnitus in my ears! Ye Gods, I have been flying flight sim for 35 years, and this thing is going to beat me? I was a man on a mission at this point.

And then I thought… Oh Shoot (or words of a similar nature), I better check that mini-manual. A quick glance and it said I had indeed missed some very important checklist items, including “Click on propeller with left mouse button†and, “If engine is cold, turn propeller over three or four revolutions with ignition switch OFF.â€

I made a mental note to read the document properly later, and then I hit CTRL+E again for convenience. I also made a note that this mini-manual was sorely in need of a diagram or two (0ver and above the rather neat screenshot at the beginning of it).

Taking To The Air

My first flight was with no weather added. I wanted nice calm conditions. Having said that, I must admit that I am not 100% happy with the calibration and settings of my controls. Truth is, I need some new hardware (I am keeping an eye on that new control set-up coming for the XBOX and also PCs). The point is this, even before taking off I knew that “some†flight characteristics might be the fault of my controls, and so I did make allowances for that.

Taxiing to the runway I noticed how easy it was to steer with rudder only. I did try my toe brakes, but there seemed to be no differential braking. It might be that way on the real aircraft too. Lining up on the westbound runway, I held the stick back fully and eased the power up gently and smoothly. There wasn’t too much of a “rudder dance†(I think Asobo did something to fix that in the last update as ALL taildraggers are easier to take off now), and with only a slight letting off of the back pressure, the Ryan was airborne. I trimmed for an 80MPH climb, and started to take in the view.

The visibility is really nice in the air, although I did move the pilot position back a little to get a better view of the instruments. It got even nicer when I used my “pretend track-IR†phone app to look around. I wiggled the controls and was more than happy at the predictable and stable responses.

I also decided to look back at the aircraft from the outside views. Oh did it look good. AND, the sound was more than acceptable too. It was less tinny than it seemed at idle, although not as raucous as the DC Designs Stearman. I continued to climb, hopping in and out of the cockpit as you can only do in a sim!

After a while I decided to perform some tests. Trimming it off for level flight, I did a customary look around, and then pulled back the power with the intent of stalling the aircraft. There was a hint of a wobble at around 45MPH, and then the wing dropped sharply, almost violently. Even without rudder input it was trying to go into a spin, or at least a spiral dive. The speed with which this happened caught me off guard, so I tried it again, with the same results, but I was ready for it the second time, and recovered from the stall quickly.

Time for spinning. While many countries do not include spin training in their private pilot programs, when I took training in the 90’s Canada did, so I did a LOT of spins in Cessnas. So, this time when the wing broke on the Ryan, I gave her a bootfull of rudder to help her along, and dang!… She spun like a top. Power off, nose down a bit, opposite rudder and… She was still rotating. It took me a few attempts at centering the rudder and applying opposite again before the rotation was interrupted. I climbed and did a few more spins, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right. Never did the aircraft recover as easily as I hoped, but it never crashed either. Typically I lost around 1400ft before recovery. This Ryan has a bite to it!

I then performed a couple of 360-degree turns with a 45-degree angle of bank. This is easier in real life than it is in MSFS regardless of the aircraft flown in the sim. I think there’s a problem with MSFS trim and flight dynamics here, or maybe my controls again! Anyway, with a bit of jiggling and juggling of the controls, the turns were reasonably well done, although it will take practice to perform them to flight test standards in terms of altitude gain or loss.

I then tried slow flight, and a couple more stalls with the different flap settings. I really noticed very little difference in stall speed between clean and dirty, and that surprised me a little. Then I looped the Ryan, and threw in a couple of wing-overs and rolls for good measure. It was superb fun, and the aircraft was a joy to experience.

However… What was not a joy was the fact that the engine cut out twice during my test flight. No, it was not fuel starvation, even in an extended inverted flight the engine kept running instead of cutting out. The problem was it seemed like the tank was sucking fuel as if it had afterburners. I will have to check real-life endurance numbers (if I can find them), but to me the aircraft seems to be overly-thirsty. I probably could have changed tanks (and re-reading the mini-manual I should have as I may have been on reserve), but at the time I resorted to cheating, using the top menu to add fuel “on the fly†instead.

And at that point, my dog came into the room and wanted to play. Pause key was hit…. and I took a five-minute break!

Landing

It was time to get back to CYBR. I noted that I was more than a few miles south of the city, and headed back north again. After establishing myself on a left downwind, I had time for one more external view before I got busy. And then I turned onto base and started the descent. And here I ran into an issue. The manual suggests landing is in the 50’s (MPH), but that is certainly not an indication of approach speed. Even with full flap, the best I could manage on a stable approach was in the 70’s and sometimes 80’s, depending on how steep or shallow my approach was.

As a result, my landings ended up with a few unwanted bounces. Getting it any slower would have raised the nose so high that the runway was hidden under the nose. Maybe I could have side-slipped in, I shall try that next time I fly it. I pulled off the runway, parked the aircraft, and shut her down.

Thoughts?

Here’s what I think. Although this is NOT a study-level aircraft, it almost demands some study to fly it well. One could certainly do with revising spin procedures and practicing them over and over. Landings will also take some work too, and best to read that mini-manual, because the sparseness hides the fact that missing some points will impact your flight experience.

In terms of look, fit, and finish, this thing is on par with the default Asobo aircraft in my opinion. What you see from the cockpit is so good that you forget you are in a sim. Not all third party addons can boast that.

Is it perfect? No. It would be great to have the ability to open up the front seat, as Carenado does with the Waco. It could do with a better manual, and some aspects of the flight dynamics do feel a bit less than optimum.

Having said that… is it good? Yes, it is good, and piloting it will bring a smile to your face. It is without doubt an absolute blast to fly, complete with enough idiosyncrasies to keep you from being complacent.

In short, this is a keeper. I am going to fly it again tonight, and it will be interesting to fly it back-to-back with the Stearman too.

For the price (around $20), I think this aircraft is well worth it. I also really look forward to seeing what A1R does next. Man I would love to see them do a De Havilland Chipmunk.

There are some available re-paints out there, but sadly they are not on this website. I do wish people would support Nels better than they are now doing!.. (Rant over).

Great aircraft, great price, great fun! – It’s a YES from me!

Kenneth J. Kerr

Purchase A1R Design - Ryan ST-A Special for MSFS 2020