After a visit some years ago to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago I made a remark to a colleague that, for facility standing on the largest freshwater lake system on the planet, it had rather a lot of saltwater tropical fish on display. Which is a little unfair; the Chicago Aquarium has a global focus on aquatic life. He smiled and said, “It’s the bright colours; they bring in the visitors, and that brings in the money.â€

It’s the same in aviation museums and, to some degree, in flight simulation. We often go for the bright snappy liveries and the iconic planes, passing over others. But some of these can surprise us and give a lot of enjoyment.

One plane I like these days is David Garwood’s 2004-2006 period Avro Anson Mark I (ANSONMK1.ZIP) for FS2004. I found it while preparing the flights of the Air Transport Auxiliary for in In a Moon’s Course (see the ‘moonscourse’ blog below for more information). The Anson played an important ‘taxi aircraft’ role for the ATA, delivering pilots from their regional stations to the various factory or dispersal points, then bringing them back again afterwards. It was also selected as the primary twin-engined trainer for BCATP (the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan) and many of them filled the Canadian skies during WWII.

Fortunately the FS2004 model has automatic landing gear whereas the original Mark I had 140 turns of a hand crank to get the gear up or down. To be a passenger or crew member on a WWII Anson was a bicep development exercise.

The FS2004 model is nice and easy to fly with good all-round visibility, an old-fashioned 2-D cockpit and, other than the default GPS, nothing too modern. The flap indicator needs to be switched on and off with a little button beneath the indicator light. Everything else about the panel is similarly old and nicely worn.

I haven’t found a civilian livery for it yet, but in the bright yellow RCAF livery from Damian Radice (asn01.zip) I have an Anson reasonably close in appearance to the Mark II in the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum (see http://www.warplane.com/vintage-aircraft-collection/aircraft-history.aspx?aircraftId=2). And, like the tropical fish, it now looks pretty bright.

See my other blog entries here by simply by clicking on the Aviation History & Flight Simulation link below.

Allan Jones

allanj12@gmail.com

http://moonscourse.blogspot.ca/