Intro

The T-37B Tweet is a twin engine, twoseated military jet trainer aircraft built by Cessna in the yearsbetween 1955 and 1975. The B-version, which is covered in this review,is an improved and upgraded A-version featuring improved avionics aswell as the more powerful engines, the Continental-TeledyneJ69-T-25 turbojets which each provides 1,025 lbf of thrust, equal to4.56 kN.

The T-37 has been in the USAF service since it was introduced andhas been a primary jet trainer for new fighter pilots whentransitioning onto jets and multi-engines until its retirement back in2009. The side-by-side configuration is perfect for a betterstudent-instructor interaction, which was one of the reasons why theT-37 was selected as the new trainer aircraft for the USAF.

Often the aircraft was referred to as either 'the Screaming Mimi'or the '6,000 pound dog whistle' or just the 'Converter' (convertsfuel and air into noise and smoke) due to the extremely high pitch ofthe sound coming from the engine - the sound was actually so loud thatbuildings at bases where the Tweet was stationed, had to besoundproofed.

General Information & Aircraft Specs

• Produced by Cessna
• National Origin United States
• First Flight October 12th 1954
• Introduction 1957
• Role Military Trainer Aircraft
• Production 1955-1975
• Built 1269 aircraft (T-37)
• Status USAF - retired in 2009
• Crew 2
• Length 29 ft 3 in (8.92 m)
• Wingspan 33 ft 99.3 in (12,581 m)
• Height 9 ft 2 in (2.79 m)
• Wing Area 201 sq ft (18.7 m2)

• Aspect Ratio 6.2:1
• Airfoil NACA 2418 at root & NACA 2412 at tip
• Empty Weight 4056 lb (1840 kg)
• MTOW 6574 lb (2982 kg)
• Power Plant 2x Continental-Teledyne J69-T-25 turbojets, 1,025 lbf (4.56 kN) each
• Max Speed 425 mph (684 km/h, 369 kn)
• Cruise Speed 360 mph (580 km/h, 310 kn) at 35,000 ft (11.000 m)
• Stall Speed 85 mph (137 km/h, 74 kn)
• Range 932 mi (1.500 km, 810 nmi)
• Service Ceiling 38,700 ft (11,800 m)
• Rate of Climb 3370 ft/min (17.1 m/s)

Purchase, Download And Installation

I purchased this add-on at Store.FlightSim.Com and the purchaseand download went easy and without any issues. The connection to thedownload server was really good, so the download was completed withina few moments.

The download contains a zip file which you of course have to unzipbefore being able to continue and the unzipped file contains a 767 MBinstaller named 'Installer_SWS_T_37B_20200103.exe'. The installer isvery user friendly and you just have to follow the on-screeninstructions to complete the entire installation. There is no'auto-find' the main P3D folder, instead the installer uses thedefault path C:\users\xxx\documents\Prepar3Dv4 Add-ons\ - this you canof course manually override by selecting your own preferred path to adifferent folder of your choice.

The entire installation was completed in less than a minute andduring the installation I also had the possibility to create a desktopicon as a shortcut for the included manual and checklist. After theinstallation was completed I started by entering my virtual hangar tosee if the installation was successful, and it was. In the virtualhangar I found one model with a total of five liveries perfectly placedand ready for selection.

Included in the add-on there is a 203 page PDF manual togetherwith an 86 pages PDF checklist. The manual and checklist containsinformation about normal and emergency procedures, operationallimitations, flight characteristics, all weather operations,performance data together with detailed descriptions of the variousonboard systems and instrumentation. When looking at the manual aswell as the checklist, it does really look like original documentsused by real pilots, but if that is true I cannot verify - thedocuments does however provide a more realistic integration to thesimulation.

Both PDF files can be found using the shortcuts placed on yourdesktop during installation or on the default path:

'C:\Users\XXX\Documents@Prepar3Dv_4_Add-ons\SimWorksStudios\SWS_T37B_Tweet\Manual\'

There are no external tools included but instead a nice onboardsimulation tool where you have several options for variouscustomizations as well as setting the aircraft for either a cold anddark state, if you wish to do the entire start-up as realistically aspossible, or you can select a ready for taxi or even ready for takeoffstate, which will perform the start-up automatically for you. Startingup the Tweet manually takes about five minutes from cold and dark toready for flight - I would recommend this manual start-up to get themost out of the simulation, but if you just want to get airborne, thenthe quick start using the ready for taxi or ready for flight state isa superb feature. This tool can be activated when you have loaded aflight and uses the 'shift+1' key-command.

Another feature using the customization tool is that you canselect to fly either solo or with an instructor - changing thisselection will add/remove the instructor in the right seat or thestudent in the left seat. Additionally you can select who thepilot in command should be - of course this only if you fly with a twocrew operation. When selecting the pilot in command, you will see thehands of the selected pilot, grab the flight control stick andthrottle as well as put his feet up on the rudder pedals.

You can also change the visible appearance of the student and theinstructor's helmet visor by selecting the visor to be either raisedor lowered. Those are some small details that absolutely make thesimulation just a bit more interesting. The tool also features a sheetfor various radio frequencies and a list of the TACAN channels andrespective UHF frequencies for use when flying VOR/ILS flights.

External

I started my test with a walk-around the aircraft like a pre-flightinspection, just to get a good view on the model itself. The model isstunning and appears very authentic with lots of details, and themodel also features the distinctive short landing gear, the wide andsquare wings and the wide and flat canopy - beautifully created with agreat focus on details.

The model is absolutely of a high quality and the textures used areas well. The textures are multi-layer textures showing off theaircraft perfectly with details like the metal plates covering boththe wings the fuselage, the nose and tail, as well as the smallrivets that hold the metal plates, various markings and some degreeof wear and tear which is just perfect for this elder bird. Theappearance is a used and old aircraft which however is very wellmaintained with a good, clean and beautiful polish.

There are several animations included on the model - here both theexternal animations such as the controls (ailerons, elevator andrudder), the gear up/down, the gear suspension, the wheels rotating,the nose wheel steering, the speed-brake, the flaps, the landinglights which drop out beneath the wings and the canopy but youalso have some animations from the cockpit which are visible from theoutside of the aircraft. These animations are e.g. the pilots turningtheir heads when entering a turn but also the helmet visor that goesup/down for both the instructor and the student. All animations aresmooth and very realistic.

You also have some various effects like the lights and the smokefrom the engines exhaust on startup and during flight - when poweringup the engine the first burst of smoke is a medium dense black smokewhich quickly is blown away. Hereafter a rather large and also mediumdense white smoke is visible and when this smoke is blown away you nowsee a combined black and white smoke which is rather dense and takes awhile before being blown away. The smoke effect when flying is alsovery realistic with a black and medium dense smoke.

The lights are clear and with a bright shine - I noticed that theanti-collision lights were created as a rotating beacon which isreally awesome. The landing lights are very powerful and yet soft andilluminate the ground nicely - when activating the landing lights,the lights are lowered from beneath the wings and when doing this onthe ground, you can easily see the entire light animation where thelight moves into position.

The atmosphere that surrounds this aircraft is really amazing andtruly a very realistic and exciting experience preparing for a flightand performing a dawn pre-flight inspection. The model is very true toreal life and just screams of high-end quality.

Internal

Now, jumping into the cockpit I now found myself sitting in a veryrealistic virtual environment. There is no 2D cockpit in this add-on,however there is a comprehensive and beautiful virtual cockpitfeaturing a complete cockpit environment with systems, gauges,buttons, switches and levers.

The virtual cockpit is as well as the model, created with superbattention to details and realism and the virtual cockpit is certainlyalso of a high level of quality. You can customize the seatedconfiguration using the onboard simulation tool (Shift+1) aspreviously described, making the flight customized for exactly thesetup you want to use on the specific flight.

Looking out the windshield is actually an experience itself - theglass is certainly not a new and scratch-free glass in perfectcondition but instead it is created to look old and used with a veryrealistic number of scratches to indicate realistic wear and tear forsuch an elder aircraft. Awesome indeed!

Another feature that I really enjoy is the movable and zoom-ableknee-board which by default contains a map over the area of Vance AFBin Oklahoma - this map you can move around using your mouse, but evenbetter, you can actually change the map on the knee-board and therebyadd you own map of the flight you are going to perform. This is notsomething you can do using a built-in tool, but something you need todo manually by changing the file named 'SWST37VC_kneeboard_D' found inthe aircraft's main textures folder, with a new file, however you canonly do this if you are able to convert your image file to be a .ddsfile.

There are several animations added to the virtual cockpit - heree.g. the controls like the sticks and the rudder pedals, but also thevarious levers (gear, throttle, etc.), buttons, switches, canopy,moving head and arms of the pilots, pilot's visor and the variousneedles in the old steam gauges, etc. All animations are created verylife-like and with smooth motions - absolutely also high quality.

The textures used are also of a high quality - the textures aremulti-layer textures showing off the cockpit environment beautifullyas an old and used cockpit, still very well maintained, but with acertain degree of wear and tear all around. The gauges are beautifuland the entire environment sets a superb background for a veryrealistic atmosphere. The 3D performance or depth performance isperfect with a full 360 degree view and the finish is superb with aclean, smooth and very realistic appearance.

Included are also some effects like the internal lighting effectcovering the panel which is a red night light, illuminated gaugeswhere the lights can be dimmed in two sections (engine instruments andflight instruments). You also have movable swan-neck side lights oneach side of the cockpit - they are able to be moved but I could notget them to work meaning that I could not light them up.

All lights are clear with a soft shine which provide a veryauthentic environment using the aircraft for dusk/night/dawnoperations.

Another effect is the rain drop effect on the windshield - here SWShas included the A2A rain effect providing a superb and realisticenvironment when taking off or coming in for landing.

Overall I find the virtual cockpit to be a high quality environmentwhere SWS had kept a keen focus on creating the environment as true toreal life as possible - e.g. a small but still significant detail isthe circuit-breakers - they actually work but are however notprogrammed for default errors. SWS have succeeded nicely in creatingthe old cockpit in my opinion.

Sound

You have a complete environmental sound set included, as well asthe almost iconic engine sound perfectly integrated into thissimulation. The engine sound set features a very realistic sound whereyou can hear the extremely high pitch of the two Continental-TeledyneJ69-T-25 turbojet engines as they power up. The engine sound is trueto real life and you can really hear the reason for the variousnicknames that this bird had over the years - e.g. the 'ScreamingMimi', 'the 6,000 punds dog whistle' or the 'Converter' which probablywas the most used nickname.

The engine sound set covers all aspects of the engine from start-upto shutdown also including all the various rpm settings. The sound setis very authentic, awesome and absolutely ear-piercing.

Another sound set that is included is the environmental sound setfeaturing all sounds related to the usage of switches, buttons, leversand various chimes such as landing gear, flaps down but no gear,overspeed warning and stall warning. The sound set also covers themovement of flaps, gear and canopy as well as the wind outsideand the shake/rumble when entering a stall or flaring theaircraft. All the environmental sounds are also very realistic, andthey are an essential part of creating a very realistic atmosphere inthe virtual cockpit.

I tested the various sound sets (both internal and external soundsets) in first a stereo setup and thereafter a 2.1 setup featuring twofront speakers and an active sub and finally I tested the sounds in acomplete 7.1 surround sound setup. The sound performed perfectly inall tests and is certainly high quality with clear and authenticsounds.

Flight Dynamics And Characteristics

I started my test flights by climbing inside the virtual cockpitand set my configuration to be a solo flight. I started up the enginesand prepared for a taxi to the active runway. Now this should havebeen easy, but I discovered that I could not steer the nose wheelwhich made the taxi extremely difficult - to get the nose wheelsteering activated you need to map a key to the default 'No Smoking'chime and then activate that key when you wish to use the nose wheelsteering - then you can control the aircraft during taxi.

You have a great panoramic view from the cockpit and even betterwhen flying solo, so orientation during taxi is no problem. Gettingthe aircraft to start rolling does requite quite a lot of thrust, butwhen the aircraft starts to roll you can take back the throttles toalmost idle and the aircraft will still keep rolling at a slowspeed.

When taxiing, the aircraft engines behavior is quite similar toother jet engines or even turboprop engines. Here I am referring tothe delay when spooling up and down which is something you need totake into your calculation, both when taxiing but also especially whenflying the final approach.

Taxiing over a rough surface - which you of course do not normallydo, I would assume would have an impact on the various needles inthese old steam gauges. However, I did not see any impact except forthe G-meter where the needles were very sensitive and reflected everysingle little bump.

Reaching the runway preparing for take-off I felt great and veryexcited - the cockpit environment is so awesome and realistic andespecially the high frequency noise coming from the engines, justkicks the experience to a higher level. I got the take-off clearanceand applied full throttle - the acceleration is actually not that fastand powerful which you would think when hearing the noise the enginesmake, but I gained speed at a fair pace and experienced the aircraftto be very steady and easy to control when blasting down therunway. The corrections that I had to make to keep the aircraft on thecenterline, was only using the rudder with just tiny corrections andthe result was immediate.

Raising the nose and feeling the aircraft lift off was exciting -the aircraft is certainly very steady and firm on the flight controls- actually very pilot friendly, also in rough weather. I set the climbto be a slow and enjoyable climb with a 5 to 10 degree nose up whichgave me extra airspeed - this is a good thing when flying an aircraftwhich you are not familiar with.

I noticed that the controls are very smooth, very responsive andvery sensitive but also that when you make a bank and thereaftercenters the control stick, the bank also has a tiny delay which insome cases can lead to an over-bank which you then have tocounteract. This is not something that I normally see in a simulation,but indeed very true to real life as I remember my own real lifeexperiences. Truly an awesome detail, and that detail is absolutely adetail that makes the experience flying this bird even more profound,realistic and authentic.

During my test flights I also tested the characteristics ofstalling this aircraft and what I discovered was the following. FirstI tried to see if I were able to make a high-speed stall by making anaggressive elevator input - this did result in a high-speed stallwhich in real life must have been a very unpleasant experience. Nospin however during this stall test.

Then I tested a straight out level stall with the nose about 25degrees up. The result was first a stall warning and small cockpitshake, then a nose drop and a wobbly flying experience, but I wasstill able to maintain flight however, when stalling the aircraft withthe nose up at about 25 degrees and at the same time during a bankangle of about 40 degrees, the aircraft entered something very similarto a flat spin which was fairly realistic. I could not just let go ofthe controls to exit the spin - here I had to stop the rotation andincrease my airspeed before being able to exit the spin. No problemthough - the spin-recovery was easy, intuitive and pilot friendly.

To complete the stall tests I also tested if there were adifference in the stall speeds on config #1 vs config #2, being gearand flaps up versus down and the result is yes - you can fly theaircraft slower when the gear and flaps are down. Actually when thegear is down and the flaps are lowered in max position, you almost runout of enough thrust to maintain enough airspeed to keep the aircraftflying, so do be careful if coming in on a low final approach.

Additionally I also tested the impact the spoiler and gear wouldhave on the IAS if any, and the result was perfectly according to myexpectations - of course I could see an impact when using the spoileror when lowering the gear - the gear gave a small indication of lossof airspeed whereas the spoiler had a greater impact.

When lowering or raising the flaps I should also be able to see animpact on the nose position towards the horizon, and this was also theresult when testing this specific characteristic however, I do believethat the result is the opposite than what I experienced. When loweringthe flaps I would assume the nose would pitch downward, but myexperience was that the nose instead pitched upwards... I think thatcould be a tiny flaw in the flight dynamics.

Finally I also tested more chimes as the overspeed warning whichwas perfectly activated when exceeding the max IAS. Also when flyingthe approach and lowering the flaps without lowering the gearactivated a chime for missing landing gear - very nice and accordingto real life as far as I know.

Coming in for landing the aircraft is also steady, verycontrollable and just very enjoyable to fly - the lading is easilyperformed with a flair that seems to be very close to the runway -this makes sense since this aircraft's main gear is rather short makingthe aircraft sit close to the ground. Flying the approach and landingduring stormy weather is also fairly easy, just remember to keep theairspeed up and not over-control the aircraft and you will be able toland the aircraft without much difficulty - it is not that heavilyimpacted on crosswind - probably due to the very flat design.

Conclusion

To wrap up my experience of this classic military bird created bySimWorks Studios, then this is absolutely an awesome simulation wherethe developers have had a perfect focus on all details from the model,the virtual cockpit, the original systems, the textures and to thecomprehensive and detailed flight dynamics.

The model is very authentic and features so many 'eye-candy'details. The virtual cockpit is beautiful and resembles an old andused but still perfectly maintained cockpit environment and thetextures are high quality multi-layer textures that truly shows offthe aircraft beautifully.

This is a perfect add-on for the serious flight simmer that lovesthe old classic birds - this add-on has it all, great authenticity,realism, atmosphere, high level of quality - in short, just an awesomeaircraft that I certainly would recommend for my fellow simmers.

The T-37B Tweet scored a superb 4.82 out of 5 and really set thebar high for future developments from SWS. I also would like to thankyou SimWorks Studios for creating this beautiful rendition of thisclassic old military jet-trainer - you have done an exceptionallygreat work on creating this aircraft and I hope to see many moredevelopments from you.

Raymond Andersen

Rays Aviation

Purchase Simworks Studios - SWS T-37B Tweet for P3Dv4

See other SWS add-ons

Technical Requirements and Review Computer Specifications

System Requirements (recommended by SWS):

• 6 GB GPU RAM or better (minimum 4 GB)
• Quad Core processor at 3.6 GHz or better
• 16 GB RAM or more (minimum 8 GB)
• OS Windows 10
• 1.76 GB of HDD free space
• Visual C++ 2017 (included)

Review Computer Specifications:

• Windows 10 (64-bit)
• Windows 7 (32-bit) (secondary system)
• Intel Core™ i7-4790K 4x4.00GHz (Turbo 4x4.40GHz)
• Asus Maximus VII Ranger (ROG-series)
• Antec Kuhler H20 650 Water Cooler
• Kingston HyperX Beast-series 32Gb DDR3-2133 RAM
• 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
• 3 TB Seagate Barracura (7200 rpm, 6 Gb/s)
• Asus GeForce GTX 980 Strix OC 4 GB
• 1000/1000 Mbit Fiber Internet Connection
• Prepar3D v4+