Overall, the Dreamfleet 172 is fairly incredible, but I'll admit that that bar has been raised far enough now that we have good tools to build off of. From a distance, this looks very much like the 172s that I have almost 150 hours in—lots of time in 172P's (modeled here) and M's. I've flown 150, 160 and 180HP Skyhawks. This photo of N929747 is the aircraft that I have most of my recent flight time in (along with a couple of PA-28 Warriors). I'd say that in my limited exposure to different types of airplane, by far my favorite is the 172. Not particularly sleek or fast, it's an incredibly docile and forgiving trainer that has plenty of room for you and three of your friends. I could actually carry four persons and almost full tanks and not overload or go out of the CG range.

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Back to the C172. I've flown in over 25 different airframes during my Private Pilot Training at ERAU back in the early 90’s. In recent years, it's been all of one airplane, N92747. I'd like to say that Cessna 747 was or is mine, but that's not so. I can't afford to own my own... Yet. Thankfully, DreamFleet and FSD teamed up to give us a 172 that I think is remarkable. External visual models are nice, but in the end, we do fly these airplanes, not watch them fly, so the panel is where it's at.

This panel does a great job in the feeling of perspective of looking over the cowl of a real 172. Admittedly, I'm 5’8” and I tend to crank the seat up to full height so that I can use the cowl and the top of the whiskey compass to set my climb attitude—this yields just about a perfect 76 knots (which incidentally is the best rate speed in a C172P). I just can't obtain that performance here, but major points for the fact that there is a cowl view with instruments that are usable.

The primary panel is a thing of beauty, and is one of the best-executed photo-real panels that I've seen to date, but naturally, I've got a few issues. Don't get me wrong—this is the best 172P Panel that I've ever seen—but there are a few flaws.

I'll begin with the turn coordinator—it's only recently that Cessna has been using the high-wing airplane on this instrument (they started in 1998) so every plane I've flown has shown a low wing silhouette or an even more simple needle here. This is evident when you look in the left quarter view, where you see a low wing TC!

The EGT is too responsive—I've never seen one that is as responsive and active as this one, plus the fact that the range of travel in normal operation is too great. This could be attributed to the fact that Cessna was not known for using the highest quality parts in their secondary and tertiary instruments. If memory servers, the EGT was functional on only a few airframes that I've flown. The Ammeter shows far too great a state of charge at all times. Typically if one sees more than a couple of needle widths, then there is something very wrong with the electrical system of the aircraft.

I can say that most airplanes of this age (or any age for that matter) no longer look just as they did from the factory. I know I'd replace quite a bit given the opportunity. Many of the original monitoring instruments were cheap and of minimal effectiveness (like I said before, were next to useless). The primary flight instruments, tach and unfortunately Hobbs meter always worked for me.

The radio stack is classic Cessna, though we are spared the Narco navcom Radios here—notoriously difficult to tune in the Florida heat (I loved the King radios that are modeled here) due to slippery and difficult to turn knobs. There is one other minor quirk that is that when you enter the aircraft, the flap switch is set to Flap 30, but the indicator is only showing flap 10.

I've also noted that I can see right through the #1 OBS to the terrain behind, but this is an issue specific to having Voodoo cards, and is an issue that I can live with.

All of these panel issues are minor at worst. I love this panel! The fact that I'm being nitpicky is an indication of just how solid this panel is.

Externally, the visuals are quite nice, and well done. Obviously recently painted since Cessna was not known for creativity in paint designs.

The flight model is very good. I took this model up from KOWD, a place that I know well in a 172. The basic performance was about right. Stalls however, were creative. Power on stalls worked ok, but the power off stalls had me performing loops. After literally thousands of stalls in a 172, I think I know what I'm doing. I feel confident in saying that this issue is not due to FSD, but is more a function of FS2000 itself as I have been able to duplicate this in multiple flight models.

I run Fs2000 under both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 with a Voodoo 5; installation and compatibility were never an issue.

Overall this is an impressive panel/aircraft combination. The instruments are correct for the airplane that is modeled and differs only slightly from anything I've flown, but we are talking about airplanes that are between 15 and 20 years old here, so variation from factory standard is normal. Even N92747 had a GPS and new radio installed in it a few years back. I love the panel and the perspective on that panel. I think that this is an excellent GA panel worthy of anybody that likes to fly the bugsmashers. It is not a ‘go fast’ airplane and it's certainly not as fashionable as the PSS 777 And 747, but we all needed to start somewhere. Download this one from the Avsim Library TODAY!