Following the recent release
of JustFlight / Alpha Simulations' "Harrier Jump Jet" package,
a small collection of add-ons have become available from the Alpha
Simulations website, either downloadable for free, or from amongst
the large collection at Alpha's on-line download shop for between $5
and $10 per aircraft/add-on.
One of these add-ons now available to buy is the
Dassault Super Etendard in Argentine Naval colours. First flown in
1974, the Super Etendard was designed as a replacement for the French
Navy's aging Etendard fleet to fly from land bases and the "Clemenceau"
class Fleet Carriers. In 1982, when the battle for the Falklands/Malvinas
took place, the Argentine Navy possessed five Super Etendards, one
of which was probably out of action for part or all of the conflict
and was used for spares.
The aircraft livery included with the Alpha model
is from this era and represents an aircraft flown by 2nd Naval Fighter
and Attack Escuadrilla, based at Espora, but flown from Rio Grande
on Tierra del Fuego, southern Argentina, during the fighting. Despite
only having four aircraft and a very limited number of AM.39 Exocet
Air-to-Surface missiles (the Super Etendard's most effective weapon),
the very real threat they posed was the cause of major headaches for
the British fleet commanders throughout the conflict. The actual aircraft
serial number on Alpha's release, 3-A-202, was flown by either Capitan
de Corbeta Agusto Beddacarratz or Teniente de Fregata Armando
Mayora during the attack on HMS Sheffield on 4th May 1982,
one of three successful attacks on the British fleet by the Super Etendard
/ Exocet combination. In this attack, despite the warhead of the missile
failing to explode, the resulting fire and damage to Sheffield's
firefighting equipment resulted in the the abandoning and loss of
the ship.
Anyway, enough history, what about the aircraft itself?
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The model of the Super Etendard, created by Chris Lampard with a panel by Phil Perrott and
CFS Weapons by Michael Davies, looks very similar indeed to the real
aircraft. On the ground, it sits quite nose high (a quick <ctrl><enter>
adjustment of the seat is helpful, but not absolutely necessary, when
taxiing this aircraft) and includes details such as weapons pylons,
aerials, a transparent cockpit and pilot—as is, being honest, expected
these days. Moving parts consist of the gear and doors, flight controls,
hook, spoilers and flaps. All the animation is smooth and appears to
be "part of the aircraft" rather than appearing from / disappearing
to apparently nothing.
The textures are good quality and include a considerable
amount of detail, down to the holes in the spoilers/airbrakes when
both extended and retracted, warning placards on both the fuselage
itself and the weapons hardpoints, and the actual panels of the aircraft.
The colour scheme itself, while not exactly the most complicated camouflage
scheme ever invented, is faithfully reproduced compared to photos
(unable to be reproduced here due to copyright restrictions). I found
the textured spoilers to look particularly good when deployed and
was only slightly upset when the number on the nosegear disappeared
when the gear was retracted... I'm sure it was just an oversight not
to have included this on the otherwise good underside texturing.
Installation and Documentation
As with the majority of aircraft available via
the Internet, Alpha Simulations' packages come in a standard Windows
Zip file, which can be opened using any number of commercial or freeware
packages. With the exception of certain files, most of the directory
structure is already in place, allowing the purchaser to simply unzip
the file into the appropriate home directory given in the included
readme.txt file. The exceptions are, in both downloads, the gauge
files and, in the CFS2 download, a smoke "jet exhaust" effect
that has to be moved from the aircraft folder to "CFS/effects"
before it can be used. Incidentally, while I mention the jet exhaust
trail, this is a really nice touch and looks very good when used.
Test
System
Flying Time: Panel
The panel included with the Super Entendard is by long-time FS panel designer
Phil Perrott. In consists of one foward view and two subpanels for
the autopilot / navigation instruments and FS2000 GPS (FS2000 only).
The first subpanel will be familiar to anyone who has used Jump Jet,
as it is identical to that used in the Harriers within that package.
Although all the required gauges are present and work (but watch out
for the altimeter in metres, not feet and the Airspeed Indicator in
100s of km/h!), much of the panel is eye-candy only and non functional,
including the HUD and engine instruments other than the N1 indicator
- oh, and much of the labelling is in French... Bonne chance, tout
qui ne parle pas Francais! (Actually, it takes about thirty seconds
to figure out what's what...)
My only real gripes
about the panel instrumentation are, in reality, fairly minor: The
AI is blocky, even at 1024x768 it looks like it is in 320x240, with
LED display-style reversed Es for 3s and squares for zeros. The only
other complaint is that it is a nuisance to have to keep using the
drop-down menu to select the navigation instruments/autopilot sub-panel
in CFS2. I was trying to navigate to HMS Invincible from the Jump
Jet scenery to perform an attack, and either had to fly with the sub
panel open all the time to follow the NDB, or keep going through Views\Instrument
Panel\Nav Instruments to re- or de-select it that way. I think I would
prefer a couple of small icons up the corner of the panel to select
sub-panels, similar to the default MS aircraft, rather than having
to do this each time.
Aircraft Handling and Control
As a reasonably modern military aircraft, first impressions
of the Dassault Etendard would be to expect a reasonably sprightly
aircraft with responsive handling, but still basically stable. To
be honest, that sums up the Super Etendard's flight model. It requires a fairly short roll
to lift-off at about 120-130KIAS, without flap, and will climb out
happily at greater than 6000fpm whilst accelerating to beyond 650KIAS
with full Military thrust (the Super Etendard is not fitted with reheat/afterburners).
Although airspeed decreases with altitude, it will
continue this climb rate through 40,000' still indicating 280KIAS+to
a Maximum "book" altitude of 13,700m (45,000'), which the
Alpha flight model will continue well above without problem at Military
thrust. I didn't test the true maximum altitude or range of this model,
but the climb from a 75' base to 45,000' consumed 272 gallons (1,796lbs),
or 17% of maximum fuel, and took approximately 100nm to complete.
Maximum speed at 45,000' was 285KIAS (578Kts Ground
Speed) which compares very well to a "book" value of 574Kts.
Stall speeds (tested at 12,000', not 45,000'!) were approximately
100KIAS clean and 85KIAS in landing configuration, although no stall
warning occurred in landing configuration and the aircraft simply
descended uncontrollably in a nose-high attitude. Stall recovery included
great loss of height (around 5000' in landing configuration!) and
was achieved by applying full thrust and full stick-forward until
the aircraft responded. Tip: Do not stall this aircraft!
Landing was somewhat tricky to say the least. The
autopilot took four passes through the centreline and over 7nm to
lock to the ILS in a series of gently rolled turns. As, by this point,
the runway at Rio Grande was looking very small, I executed a missed
approach and came around again manually. In landing configuration,
the aircraft sank like the proverbial brick and I ended up landing
at almost full power, 170KIAS. Further testing after these first scares
resulted in reasonable landing speeds being around 90-100KIAS with
a large zero-thrust flare to reduce bounce on landing. The spoilers
did not auto-deploy on touchdown, although supposedly armed to do
so. The brakes were extremely effective, stopping me in less than
the length of HMS Invincible or USS Tarawa, let alone
a full size carrier of the type the Super Etendard would fly from,
so you really don't need that hook for seaborne operations!
At no time during testing did I successfully execute
an automatic approach so this really isn't recommended. Flying the
ILS manually was not too much of a problem after some practice, however.
CFS2 Features
So far, I have only referred to this aircraft in
terms that have applied to both the CFS2 and FS2K versions equally.
So what extras do you get with the CFS2 version to warrant downloading
that? In actual fact, the aircraft looks a lot better with a weapons
load in CFS2 than it ever could (unarmed) in FS2000, in common with
most CFS2/FS2000 add-ons.
The most obvious inclusions are a series of weapons
and loadouts specific to the Super Etandard, including twin internal
cannon and the notorious AM.39 Exocet. In total, there are four weapon
loadouts for the Super Etendard:
2 x Matra AAM
2 x Droptank (Ferry configuration)
2 x Matra AAM + 2 x SNEB Rocket Pod
1 x AM.39 Exocet ASM + 1 x Droptank
I won't linger on these because, to be honest, guided
weapons are totally pointless in the CFS2 environment. If you buy
and download this add-on expecting a fully working, 45nm-range, radar
guided ship killer to wreck the Japanese carriers with, you will be
sorely disappointed—fire the Exocet and it splashes into the water
a couple of hundred yards ahead of you after acting exactly like a
WWII dumb rocket. This disappointment might be a little tempered,
though, the first time you throw the SNEB pods at something and are
greeted with a mass of rocket smoke and explosions... The Harrier
Jump Jet CD's Gr.3 with a pair of SNEB pods under the wing is
probably my favourite CFS2 aircraft and will remain so (at least until
someone releases an A-6 Intruder with a full load of Rockeye cluster
bombs... How about it, Alpha? <g>) but the Super Etendard is almost
as effective—if a little harder to aim with because of the greater
attack speed.
It might have been nice to have included a couple
of missions for CFS2/Harrier Jump Jet users, as well. Maybe one for
each side that include the Super Etendard either as the player aircraft
or AI opposition? Unfortunately these don't appear to be available.
Overall
There is always a great amount of debate in the Flightsim world
about the benefits or worth of payware opposed to freeware aircraft.
In my opinion, an aircraft is worth buying if it is of a model
that is not otherwise available (can I push that A-6 Intruder
enough, Alpha?? ;o) from twenty other authors, or if it provides
additional functionality to an equivalent available as freeware,
such as the PSS and 767 PIC add-on panels with comprehensive Flight
Management Computer systems and (in 767 PIC) failure modes.
So, using that as a base point, is the Alpha Simulations Super
Etendard worth buying? Well, it certainly represents an aircraft
that hasn't really seen the light of day in Freeware releases.
During the run-up to this review I searched quite widely for a
Super Etendard to compare it against and didn't find one for FS2000,
let alone for CFS or CFS2. As for extra functionality, it comes
with a model-specific dp file including several different loadouts
and new weapons. Okay, so only one of those weapons is actually
worth having for any practical purpose (the SNEB pods) but as
far as CFS2's functionality allows, Alpha have done what they
can and it is still good fun to roar up to Invincible at
five hundred knots, a couple of hundred feet above the waves and
place that single unguided rocket broadside on her hull.
I purchased this aircraft myself (no, we don't
get all this stuff as review copies! ;o), knowing nothing about
it other than that listed under "news" on the Alpha
Simulations website and I certainly don't feel my $7 was wasted
in any way. If you are a fan of jets in CFS2, or for that matter
just want to fly a well modeled military jet in FS2000, you can
do far worse for your money than this.
...oh, and Microsoft? Can we have guided missile support in CFS3 please?
Alpha Simulations' website can be found here.
Note: Due to the effect of resizing and format conversion, the
quality of textures seen in these screenshots is significantly lower
than those on the actual aircraft.
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