The next part of the documentation is another PDF file dedicated to Procedures and Checklists. This comes in very handy for the simmer who likes to follow real checklists when flying, but provides only marginally interesting information for the casual simmer. Last there is a third PDF document that gives you an overview on what the panels look like in the simulation and what they are called. To my biggest surprise there was not a word as how the various panels are operated and handled. This is a bit annoying particularly for simmers that are not yet very firm with handling FS2002 in general. I would have wished for a bit more explanation in this section since the panel represents the primary interface between the simmer and the simulation. Merely stating the facts—naming the panels without telling the user how they work, and most importantly which gauges can or can not be manipulated—is simply not up to standard in my opinion.
Checking out the aircraft
Since I have got those checklists that come with the aircraft I have decided to follow them to see what we get for the money from Carenado, and how true to life this aircraft is.
The first thing I noticed when I was checking out the aircraft visually was the fantastic exterior texturing. It's very crisp and bright and seems to be almost photorealistic. If you look closely on the windows and the wings you can see those little warning stickers that you always find on real aircraft, but this time you can even see some of them on a FS2002 model. Very impressive. Furthermore Carenado offer paint kits for their aircraft for free download on their website (Note: When this review was written this section was being remodelled by Carenado).
I also like the reflections of the textures on the windows, which produce a really nice 3D effect—I got the feeling I could almost reach out and touch the curbing of the cockpit windows. I then slowly walked around the aircraft from nose to tail and noticed that all antennae, foot rests and hooks for tying the aircraft down are present in Carenado's model.
I then tried to get into the aircraft by opening
the only door the real Archer II has, but was deeply disappointed
to find out that there is no animated door with this aircraft. Carenado
have not included this feature. I must say that I was very surprised
to discover this lack of feature because it actually spoils the good
first visual impressions of the aircraft. Since the door did not open
I decided to perform one of my magical tricks to jinx myself into
the aircraft to continue to check it out; after all this is a virtual
world, right?
2D Panel and Virtual Cockpit
The 2D Panel is photorealistic and in the top left
corner of your screen you will actually find an icon bar with shortcuts
to the various panel windows that you can not see, a feature that
I find very convenient since I did not have to fiddle around with
keyboard shortcuts to go see other parts of the panel. However if
you turn on other panel views your screen quickly becomes crowded
and some panels even overlap others partially or completely.
All panels are crisp and nicely drawn, no complaints
there apart from maybe the fact the the Radio stack appears to be
a bit too small when it's being brought up. It also takes some fiddling
and trial and error to find out how various parts of the panel are
being operated, thanks to the lack of documentation that is. It took
me the good part of an hour to figure out and remember how all gauges
are being used. All gauges are in the place they should be in when
comparing the panel to the real one, so yet again a nice touch of
reality.
Once finished with my inspection of the 2D Panel
I turned my attention the the Virtual cockpit which is clearly using
some of the bitmaps used for the 2D panel to create a more coherent
atmosphere when switching from the 2D panel to the Virtual Cockpit.
The Virtual Cockpit is a joy to fly in because you
have great visibility in all directions and all primary instruments
remain clearly visible at all times, even at night. Take the Carenado
Archer II on a VFR flight and use the Virtual Cockpit for landmark
spotting. I promise you will not regret it!
The yoke, rudder pedals and and lever for the flaps
are animated, yet again one little detail threw me off balance.
Neither the thrust nor the mixture lever are changing position in
the Virtual Cockpit when you apply changes to them through your PC
control inputs. Now for those “bottom of your pants” jocks
out there this might not sound like a big deal because you never watch
where you put your thrust levers to anyway, but those of us that need
to know how much thrust is applied and verify it visually, well, we
need to switch back to the 2D panel to see the position of the levers.
I then changed with another jinx the time of the
day to night to check out the light effects of the aircraft and what
can I tell you. The 2D Panel by night looks like somebody is turning
up a spotlight in the cabin. None of the subtle lighting one would
expect at night in an aircraft to not blind the eyes of the pilots
to the scarce light sources outside. And, what is even worse, the
landing lights in 2D can not bee seen outside, which means that the
pilot literally has to drive the aircraft on the ground in the dark
when it's dark. Funny enough, the lighting in the Virtual Cockpit
is much better done and more subtle, yet still a touch too bright for
my taste, and this is the big plus compared to the 2D cockpit, one
can see the landing lights outside...
By the time I had all of this checked out it was
around midnight and I really did not have much energy left in me to
continue to fly the aircraft any further, so I gave up on it for that
day. I could have saved a lot of that time if there had been documentation
about how to use the panel.
Aircraft performance
The very next morning I continued my test flying
of the Archer II and decided to take her for a test ride to check
out all her flying skills.
The aircraft handles on the ground like a charm,
maybe even too easily. Just release the parking brake and apply maybe
20% thrust; that's enough to get the aircraft rolling. If you apply too
much thrust it quickly becomes too quick and you need to apply brakes.
Turning is easy and I did not even have to increase power to maintain
my taxi speed when I did turn, something that I believe is not correct
because the speed should drop, if only slightly, but it should drop.
I lined the aircraft up on the runway and configured
it for a short take off, which is to say flaps all the way down, trimmed
for take off speed according to the checklist, applied power and sure
enough she lifted off the ground at around 50kts, accelerated to
about 65kts and then climbed steadily with 750 FPM—just like the
checklist said she would. As soon as I had retracted flaps in accordance
with the checklist and re-trimmed the aircraft to maintain 750 FPM
climb speed it accelerated to around 75kts. Spot on! I had similar experience within all flight envelopes and can only give a
big thumb up to that part of the flight model of the aircraft.
It performs very nicely indeed towards specs. Having
said that I found yet again that the aircraft just handled a bit too
easily. It feels more like a glider than a four seated GA aircraft,
just not heavy enough. The aircraft responds directly to control input.
Now, I only have had a couple of real life lying lessons, and never
on a Piper Cherokee, but judging from those lessons I know that there
is always a small yet noticeable time lag between control input and
aircraft reaction. The flight model of the Archer II however does
not reflect this at all.
Sound
I tried to turn my attention to the sound
set-up of the the aircraft. Unfortunately I have not found anything
in the documentation of the aircraft that would suggest that the package
comes with a specifically designed sound-set. The engine sounds to
me exactly like the stock engine of the Cessna 172. Should this not
be the case I stand humbly corrected. The only other sounds that can
be heard are the sounds of the hydraulics when flaps are deployed or
retracted.
Apart from the above mentioned sounds there is not
a single sound effect, not when pressing a button in the cockpit,
setting a gauge or opening the door (oh I forgot there is no door
included with the Carenado Archer II, silly me!).
Conclusion
It is my opinion that the Archer II from Carenado
is a decent General Aviation aircraft for FS2002—which
could have been outstanding if more attention to detail had been paid
by the developers.
Unfortunately that is not the case and although
the aircraft has been available on the market now for a couple of
months none of the issues I have described in this review have been
addressed with a patch as yet by Carenado, despite the fact that they
have issued patches for other aircraft they have published on their
website. The current price tag of $15USD is in my opinion not excessive
for what the purchaser gets. After all you get a beautiful exterior,
a decent flight model and an almost perfect Virtual Cockpit with
this package. I can live with a few errors and omissions that have been
made by Carenado and occasionally take the Archer II for a short joyride
out into the Virtual Skies but there are other packages available
on the market that might be worth your consideration for this aircraft.
You can visit Carenado's website here.
