AVSIM Commercial Aircraft Review LAGO's "Roaring Thirties"

During the 1930s, two of the most popular and arguably among the most beautiful civilian aircraft were the Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing and the Stinson AT-19/SR-10/V-77 "Gullwing" Reliant. Both are considered the "jewels" of the Golden Age of Aviation for their general appeal & popularity, which their popularity was also greatly influenced by their high performance.

Beechcraft Model 17 "Staggerwing"

First hitting the market in 1932, the Beechcraft Model 17 "Staggerwing" was slow to catch on (it took nearly 12 months to sell the first one built), but as the economy slowly improved, after the Great Depression, and after Beech began installing larger engines (up to 710 hp radial engines were used) the popularity of the "Staggerwing" became lengendary. The name "Staggerwing" relates to the Model 17 being a biplane with the top wing being set back some distance, yet despite most designers calling Walter Beech and Ted Wells foolhardy for their design, the Staggerwing would set many speed records and would, by the mid-thirties, actually out perform the best military aircraft of that time.

Streamlining, enclosed cabin, 5-person seating, and retractable landing gear all contributed to the Model 17's top-speed of 200 mph, so considering that this Beech had a stall speed of only 45 mph points to this aircraft's stability and practicality. Originally selling for $14,000 to $17,000, restored models today will command $175,000 to $200,000 a copy. And even though intended as a business executive (civilian) aircraft, a few did see military duty in World War II, and a few were even used as light bombers in the Spanish Civil War. All in all, 781 Beechcraft "Staggerwings" were built and sold, making for a truly classic and historic aircraft where several examples are still available today.

Stinson "Gullwing" Reliant AT-19/SR-10 (V-77)

First flown in 1934, the Stinson Reliant (AT-19/SR-10) would become another very popular civilian aircraft of the 1930s and like the Beech Staggerwing, would also see military service in World War II. Originally designed as a business executive aircraft, seating 4 to 5 persons, the Gullwing could cruise at 120 mph (with a 9-cylinder, 290 hp, radial engine) and exhibited a 52 mph stall. One of the more notable features of the Gullwing was that you could enter a stall, yet the aircraft would perform a "hands-off" recovery. Over 500 Reliants were delievered to England as part of the Lend-Lease program and surprisingly 415 of those 500 were returned after the war. In 1939, "Eddie" Stinson had sold the Stinson aircraft company to the Vultee company and they maintained the AT-19/SR-10 designation, but post-world war II they (Vultee) changed this numbering to the V-77 (the Gullwing was the Vultee Company's 77th design).

Test System AMD 1.2Ghz processor 512MB SDRAM 48 Megs RAM ATI 9700 Pro 128MB video card 44GB Harddrive 19" ViewSonic monitor Windows98SE Altec-Lansing Surround-Sound 5 Speaker system Saitek 3D Cyborg "Gold" joystick w/throttle Flying Time: 6.5 hours The Beech Staggerwing is truly one of the icons of the Golden Era of aviation and the LAGO version is beautifully done. The LAGO Staggerwing has excellent textures (note the wing ribs showing through the paint) and of course full animation of the aircraft's components. With the parking brake applied, wheel chocks appear, plus the animation includes opening engine cowl, roll up windows, opening doors, and when you move your flight yoke you'll notice the Staggerwing's pilot move as well. Of all the liveries for the Staggerwing, I believe the red-maroon paint is my personal favorite. Shown here flying over a default French countryside. In a livery displaying an airrace number (the Beech Staggerwings won several speed events in their day), the LAGO Staggerwing stretches itself out with its 450 hp radial engine. In another popular paint scheme, the orange Beech also has a gold tinted prop spinner. TShown here are the 4 paint schemes of the float version as well as two of the wheeled Staggerwings included. The five additional liveries of the wheeled Beech. Here I'm in the VC mode with the visibility set for 5 miles, but my fps is only 7.8, which was surprisingly low. Here again I'm only getting 8.4 fps, but I've decreased my screen resolution to 1024 x 768 and I have the scenery detail and autogen sliders turned off Switching to the 2D panel without any changes in my settings and immediately my fps jumped up to 18+! From this angle you can see that LAGO got the Stinson's wing shape and dihedral just about perfect. The Stinson "Gullwing" Reliant is one very beautiful aircraft and LAGO's float version is above average for a FS version of this legendary aircraft. In the Blue-White livery, the wheeled Stinson looks very good and note the pilot's window is rolled down!

Downloading and installing

Available as a downloadable file (46MB), the LAGO "Roaring Thirties" addon is a part of their (LAGO's) continuing series of aircraft for the Century of Flight series. (LAGO's first addon was for FS2002 and that was the Lucky Lindbergh addon) The large size of the download is because of the many liveries or paints included as well as both the LAGO Staggerwing and Gullwing having wheeled and float versions included. There are plans for these aircraft being available in a boxed version as well.

Like many that have an interest in add-on aircraft and scenery for FS2002 or FS2004, I'm stuck with a slow dial-up modem (56K), so it required the better part of 3 hours or more to successfully download, but once I had my registration number (supplied by LAGO) installation was the typical and simple "point & click" affair.

I'm going to tell you right up front, that these are a pair of really terrific classic Flight Simulator aircraft, though I did encounter a problem with the Staggerwing that I will detail later, I still feel they are very much a favorite of mine and I do find I like to fly them on occasion (I'm not much of jetliner fan, so give me a prop and I'm pleased, but give me a truly classic prop and I'm as happy as a pig in slop).

Documentation

With your download is a PDF file which contains a short history on the Model 17 Beech and the Stinson "Gullwing" Reliant, plus other details on there specifications and check-lists. Included in the documentation are instructions on how to assign various keys (wing folding, tail-hook, etc.) so that you can get the unique animations to function easily. Did I say "animation", well, each of the various aircraft included with the LAGO Roaring Thirties add-on have the ability to have windows that roll up or down, opening cowling, tie-downs (with the parking brake applied) and wheel cocks that appear. The Stinson Reliant has other unique animations that include a battery (with jumper-cables) and a passenger that climbs from the rear seat and down the starboard side latter, very cool actually.

One of the first things I noticed about the PDF file, on the contents page, was that everything listed in the manual was located on page "1". No doubt an oversight by whomever wrote the manual, but finding what you needed was generally not a problem as there are only 23 pages total, so finding what you need is a simple matter of flipping through pages.

In the manual was also the minimum requirements for your system, that being a Pentium II 750Mhz, 64MB ram, plus a sound card. A 3D video card of 32MB is recommended, as is 128MB ram, and a 1Ghz processor. Being as my system is a bit beyond their recommendations, I was a bit surprised by what I found.

In the Orange-Blue paint scheme, note the smooth engine cowling (no cylinder clearance bumps) and the passenger sitting in the rear.

Here you can see just how large an aircraft the Stinson Gullwing is when compared to the size of the hanger doors behind.

The Beech Staggerwing

Once I choose one of the wheeled versions of the Beech and I was in the cockpit, I found that the LAGO version of the Staggerwing has both a very high quality 2D panel with a fully dynamic 3D virtual cockpit, but I immediately noticed that my system's (computer) performance appeared to slow. Granted, I'm working with a moderate level system (AMD 1.2Ghz, 512MB SDRAM, and 128MB ATI 9700 Pro video card), I was just little surprised by the frame hit I was getting when in the VC mode.

I finally reduced the display settings to absolute minimum and set my screen to 1024 x 760 x 32 and it was only then was I getting reasonable frame rates or at least a reasonably smooth flight experience. Others with a more powerful system or maybe a different combination of hardware may find better performance, but the fps hit I got seemed to be only with the Staggerwing and not necessarily with the Gullwing (Stinson). Go figure?

Aircraft

With the Beech Staggerwing, there are a total of 11 different liveries between the 4 float versions and the 7 wheeled models, but I personally preferred the civilian paints (orange, yellow, red, and blue), though others may enjoy the military paint version too, which include both British and USA military liveries. The exterior appearance of the LAGO Staggerwing is quite exceptional, from its fully animated components to the very realistic reflective paints, the FS aircraft designers for LAGO have done great justice in their rendering of this truly classic, and should I say "one very sexy", aircraft from the 1930s! The overall appearance of the LAGO Beech Staggerwing gets a very hardy thumbs up from me.

Panel/s

As I've already mentioned, the LAGO Roaring Thirties Beech Staggerwing has both a very high quality 2D panel and a 3D dynamic virtual cockpit. Though its with the Staggerwing that I ran into my first difficulty and that was the frame rate hit I got when in the 3D virtual cockpit mode (as I've already mentioned). After a bit of fiddling around, I did manage to get up to about 8 to 9 fps, but smooth flight in the VC mode was simply not possible for me and my low performance system. I had reduced my screen resolution to 1024 x 768 and I reduced the display sliders to absolute minimum, but 8 to 9 fps was about the best I was able to do.

I have not had this problem with other aircraft I've installed and even the Stinson (with this package) was able to give me 18 to 24 fps under similar conditions, so I have to think its more a problem with the Staggerwing's VC panel than it is my lowly system specs. I suspect that those of you with a Pentium4 2.5Ghz+ processor should have better performance than I was ever able to obtain.

Despite this problem, the panel/s in the LAGO Staggerwing was fairly well done, and its generally accurate to the majority of Staggerwings I've seen (which has been a total of 1 in real-life) so I do feel the designers at LAGO have provided a very nicely rendered set of panels for the Roaring Thirties Beech Staggerwing.

• Airfile

  One of the problems with developing an airfile for an aircraft like the Beech Staggerwing is that the originals were generally each custom built to each customer's individual specification and offered a wide variety of different engine choices. LAGO has opted to go with the 450 hp engine version, so the overall performance is based on this engine application. In the documentation, it does warn or suggest to the purchaser that the airfile and this FS aircraft's performance is based on an average set of specifications, rather than a specific set of numbers, so just fly and enjoy it.

  I found that the numbers (cruise speeds and rate of climb) to be more than acceptable and considering its vintage to be a very speedy aircraft. In its day, the Beech Staggerwing was usually faster than the most speedy of military aircraft, so it was based on this that eventually got the sales of the Staggerwing off the ground.

  As far as the feel of authenticity, well, with my problem at getting the frame rates up in the VC mode, I generally flew the Staggerwing from the 2D panel mode and there I could get my fps up to the 18 to 20 fps range and the LAGO Beech flew very well and was quite stable under most conditions. Crosswind landings were still a b***h, but so is any taildragger for that manner. I found that the Beech would perform a fairly nice forward slip, so control in a mild crosswind was easily learned and as long as you kept the flap settings to a minimum, crosswind landings could be performed with confidence and success, without ground-looping.

  In the overall the airfile for the LAGO Beech Staggerwing is rather generic in its feel, but as I will explain in the airfile section of the Stinson part of this review, I believe that LAGO has done the proper thing with the two aircraft included with their Roaring Thirties add-on.

  Sounds

  Both the Stinson and the Beech Staggerwing have the same sound package and I did find it to be more than acceptable. I suspect that the FS designers at LAGO had some source for the engine sounds (both the Stinson and the Staggerwing had similar engine types and sizes) from a real-world aircraft, so the sounds are above average for a payware aircraft of this type. There was a very noticeable high-pitched whine once you speed passed a certain point, that probably was a condition of their (LAGO's) original sound source, but I did find it a similar sound to an older Chrysler electric starter when they still used a gear reduction gear assembly (those of you from the older crowd reading this will know exactly what I mean here...hehehe!).

  In this series of shots, you can see how the passenger climbs up an into the rear seat of the Stinson.

  With the parking brake applied, tie-downs and a jumper battery appears.

  The Stinson "Gullwing" Reliant

  Like the Staggerwing, the LAGO Roaring Thirties Stinson "Gullwing" Reliant comes in a variety of liveries and in both a wheeled and float version. Called a "Gullwing" because of its distinctively shaped wings, this Stinson is still a very popular aircraft for the restorer. I have no idea of the number of original examples still flying today, but I am aware of at least 3 of them, two based at the Carson City (Nevada) airport and another one located at my hometown airport in Cottage Grove, Oregon, so I'm sure there are quite a few of them still roaming around at other airports around the world.

  Aircraft

  The LAGO version of the Stinson Reliant is quite well rendered and is certainly among the best I've seen of this classic aircraft from the 1930s. I think what will surprise those first flying this aircraft will be the actual physical size of the Stinson, as it is a very large aircraft requiring a real effort to climb up into. The height of the door, because of its very long gear legs required due to the overall diameter of its variable-pitch propeller and 300 hp radial engine, is nearly at the level of your head for an average height person.

  Each of the various Stinson liveries included are well designed and do have the unique cylinder bumps around the engine cowling and the odd wing taper combined with its gullwing shape, just like the real-world counterpart. Unlike the Staggerwing's retractable landing gear, the Stinson is equipped with fixed gear, contributing to its much slower speed capability (130 mph cruise vs the Staggerwing's nearly 200 mph cruise), but the Stinson is still an able performer.

  I still due find myself preferring the overall sexier shape of the Staggerwing, but the Stinson is still a very good looking aircraft that LAGO has done reasonably well and the wide number of livery choices holds at least one that should appeal to just about everyone's tastes.