Commercial
add-ons... do's or don'ts?
Strange text to begin a review with? Perhaps. But it's what has kept me
occupied for a fair number of weeks already. What with all the
freeware, shareware, payware, donationware and vaporware hitting the
streets recently. I received the request to review this little Cessna 172,
which is a commercial add-on to FS2000. What attracted my interest right
away was the fact that this particular offering has been developed by a
very well known institute, the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Sounds impressive, doesn't it? And going over their web site it is
an impressive institute. So what better place to expect something
special to do with aviation? Well, that's where expectations were a
bit too high presumably. And perhaps not fair to compare with
well known aircraft design companies, groups and individuals in our
simming community. You already are getting the feel of my sentiments,
aren't you? Yup, not really impressed would be a good assessment.
Disappointed is another word that comes to mind. I'll show and tell you
why of course.
One thing I would like to stress up front. I got this package before I had
any of the other recent 172 additions, so the review is not based on
comparison per se. Although there is some of that in it of course...
after all we probably all downloaded the FSD plane...
Let's get back for a brief moment on the commercial side of it, before I start the actual review. In forums and other meeting places, and in the press,
there is a lot of discussion about commercial vs. freeware. Personally, I
am a firm believer in freeware, shareware and donationware. All of these
come under the umbrella of 'privateer' projects as opposed to 'real
commercial software'. But where is the difference? I talked to some of
the freeware authors (the ones you all know!) and some told me they had
done commercial projects at some time... and went back to freeware
because that way they could stick with their own – very high – quality
rules. A commercial company is depending on publishing once in a while
and will have more pressure on getting a product on the street. This can
result in cutting corners as to quality (not necessarily so, don't get
me wrong). Now, we're all more or less happily dishing out money for
software like FS2000, Fly! and CFS2. We do the same for 'professional'
add-ons such as FSClouds and the likes. So money is not the issue
really. It's what you get for it! How much bang for the buck, right?
And that's what this review is about... read on if you dare!
Installation
The first thing I didn't like. The installation procedure is pretty
professional in a way. Click on the .exe file and it starts 'doing
things' for you. I could be finicky here, being an experienced FS
user... I know how to install airplanes, scenery and utilities.
Sometimes it's real easy, just unzip stuff into the main FS2000
directory and everything falls into place (although I never do it that
way <g>). And sometimes you have to really search and copy to get
everything working.
This .exe of ERAU is undoubtedly meant to make life easier for beginning
simmers (of which we should have more!), but it 'did things to my PC',
and made it reboot! I don't like that personally. But apart from that
it did install without problems (after typing the obligatory password.
The one that I managed to loose so I cannot re-install the aircraft
anymore :-( ... )
Documentation One would expect documentation to be exemplary, based on the fact that this is an educational institute. And it is good! The one thing I really grumble about is the lack of page numbers. Shouldn't be too difficult to add those in, should it? The documentation is captured in a .pdf file, and has the Installation information in the back (I would have put it up front). Funny thing is it says that one requires 11 Mb hard drive space... but I have never seen anything more than some 4.2 Mb on my disk? It also warns that it uses the default sounds and some gauges of the standard 182, so you must have those installed. Also in the back are some URLs for further contacts, information and acknowledgement of other authors for utilities such as BMP2000, Chuck Dome's gauge utilities, Freeflight Design Shop and Cessna itself. The first page has views of the actual aircraft and is followed by descriptions of the various parts, a section on airspeed limitations, emergency procedures, and a number of procedure charts. All out of the regular manual I think. And then there are a large number of performance charts, all very real, and probably not much used by the average flight simmer. Apart from the pfd file there are also text files for the kneepad with the main speed limits and full checklists. That is neat and saves us from typing the stuff or copying it in from somewhere else. All in all, pretty nice documentation. Perhaps a bit too technical for the average simmer, but then, this is something the students of ERAU would need and use.
The
Aircraft
Let's start with the walk-around. At first
sight it looks nice, a fresh white and blue Embry-Riddle livery. But some
things are to be wished for of course (hey nothing's perfect). How about
a door to get into the pilot's seat? Or the passenger's seat for
that matter. There is a handle but no door. And that's a real shame,
because the interior looks pretty good! It sports nice seats and a
full instrument panel. All antenna's are portrayed nicely too. As are transparent windows
between the wing roots, a nice prop, decals where they should
be, and an exhaust pipe too. All great, but... somehow the aircraft's
proportions look wrong. I took some pictures of it and compared
with real pics and with the drawings in the documentation. It really
looks more like a 152 than a 172, as if it ran into a wall some place.
Perhaps someone forgot to brake at the end of the runway? Nose too short,
tail too high, and the wheels are a bit too close together. As you will
see further down, it 'drives' like it looks.
Alright, let's get inside (through the
luggage hatch). The panel really looks like the standard one and
it obscures most of the view on the runway. Now, this is probably
as it is in reality. (I haven't sat in one of these for some time
now.) According to a real pilot the gauge sizes are closer to reality than
those of some other panels available. But there is no radio stack in
sight. And compared to the real panel (see picture) it looks a bit
too flat. Well, it is too flat. You can see that from the extra two dials
on the right. These should really be on the third row, next to the
yoke column. I think this is clearly a case of real look outside versus real
panel lay-out, much like the original FS panel for the 182S (which
this is apparently a derivative of). I leave it up to you to decide which one
you prefer.
Another thing
to notice is that when looking around there is no further interior.
No interior views at all! Okay, again you could argue whether this
is very important. It's not if you only use the plane for flying mostly
on instruments. But that's not what most of us do, right? Also,
the master switch is not mastering everything—the lights still
work with the switch off. And finally, getting out again and looking
back... there is no pilot. Sure, I just got out... oh well.
The moving parts then. A must for every piece of hardware we get our hands
on nowadays. Prop looks nice, wheels don't retract but that shouldn't
bother us... they don't on the real thing. Ailerons, yep. Elevator,
check! Rudder... errr, RUDDER... Hmm, a severe case of
corrosion? No movement whatsoever. Nose wheel? Yeah, glued to the rudder
of course. Well, as long as my pedals work I guess I can live with that.
Realism and flying
I have been bitching a bit on some of the (missing) details. Sorry for being
a bore... it's just that I think these things could have been done
better. What I did not tell you yet was that the aircraft landed on its
back when I first selected it from the aircraft menu!! Flip!! Not
only is it very (read: very) sensitive when taxiing around, it's
also difficult at times to get started at all. For instance if you
change from a tail dragger to this Cessna, chances are that it will flip
over the moment it's loaded in memory! Whoop! The remedy is to either
pick another plane first—one that more or less resembles the stance of
this one—or go into slew mode and position the aircraft nicely on the
tarmac. Even when changing from the regular 182 to this 172 it dances
around before getting stable... weird! Similarly when driving around
and touching the brakes you kinda get seasick just looking at the
screen. The nose goes up and down like a cork in the English channel (or
La Manche for our French readers). Whatever you do, don't slam on the
brakes! And get your life vest on before you start...
Some comments made by Ian Pearson who also flew real Cessna's; >>Takeoff
run: lots of boot or a bit of rudder trim required; the real aircraft is
quite 'torquey' so that's good as the rudder trim should be set for
cruise. Rotation speed with 10 degrees of flap is about 65KIAS, which is
reasonable, but it takes a lot of runway to get to 65—I've only flown
the SP with a bigger engine, so I'm not sure about that. The C152s and
172SP both need about half the runway, this took closer to 80%.<<
Yes, I found similar problems when flying out of mountain strips and other small airfields. As if the aircraft was stuck in the mud. Taking off from Albertville one day took quite a lot of tries... full throttle to get it moving, reduce quickly because it moves to a side wildly... then it got stuck again, same procedure. Now I know that the surface in some places does this to our planes, but it seems especially strong with this baby. Although I set the mixture to lean above 3000 feet, like the manual says, at some airfields I could not get it airborne until way into the fields past the end of the runway... that's not good! Angry farmers and scared cows all over the place...
>>Climb out: 75KIAS gave between 500fpm and 750fpm, which is reasonable, but did require a lot of work to stabilize. Rudder trim had no "neutral" position, the aircraft either rolls left or rolls right, but this could be altered using the control options within FS.<<
Well, Ian got the better of me there. I was never able to get it fully
stable. It would always move to either left or right and would need
constant corrections with the stick. To be honest, the times I flew in a
real plane, I never flew hands off, so I guess this is not too big
an issue. As for climbing... I had real trouble flying around my
favorite neighborhood (depicted in the screenshots). The mountains
there are some 9000 feet high. I tried a flight from Albertville,
following the valley to Moutiers, and from there I went on to Val Thorens. Well,
I never got there. Crashed 3 times before I gave up. I just could not
get height fast enough. Tried with the 182, no problem at all. And in
real life people are flying around with Robins and Cessna's in
these mountains without any problems, so it must be possible!
>>Cruise:
At 5500', full power was required to maintain a cruise speed of 95KIAS.
At 23-2400rpm, <85KIAS was normal for straight and level flight.
Again very difficult to trim yaw. Stall/Spin: Clean: Warning 45KIAS,
nose break at <40KIAS (off scale) (Stall should be 50KIAS)<<
This would be the same problem as mentioned with the climbing. Not enough power, although it should be there. I set off to do some more testing at our secret base in Lake Michigan... At sea level the performance seems more according the manual. Lift off at about 56KIAS... and it took
some 260 meters. Still, not a big performer.
>>Approach: Warning 40KIAS, nose break at <40KIAS (off scale) (Stall should be 40KIAS) Approach: Flap20, 65KIAS and 1700rpm gave a descent rate of 5-700fpm, about right.<<
>>Landing/Rollout: Landing was fairly smooth, touching the brakes caused the nose to drop sharply and the aircraft to move like on ice... Dabbing brake worked but reduced deceleration significantly. Holding brakes and using rudder at all was not an option!!<<
Again, it is much too sensitive on the ground. Although that is not where an aircraft should be, there is no way we can fly without driving around the place every once in a while. If the real thing handles like this, then ERAU must own the scrap yard in Phoenix and it will be littered with little white/blue Cessna's.<vbg>
Some more flying Okay, just so you have more pictures to look at. I did some flying out of Daytona Beach, where the real ones fly too. I thought it might feel better in the warmer climate and give me some more power... hmmm, mistake. Actually, I was planning to do a sightseeing trip over to the NASA space shuttle launch pad, when for some reason unknown to me the ailerons froze up on me. Everything else worked, but no ailerons. That made for some interesting flying... mostly in circles to be honest. Since this is a school plane, I figured the (invisible) instructor must be playing tricks on me just to see how I handled that. The only thing I will tell you is that I never saw any Space Shuttles that day.
Another trip took me out to New Zealand, and again you will find some pictures here. Actually, the nice thing about the Cessna's and other small aircraft is just trundling along and enjoy the countryside. Providing you have good visibility. It's also nice in FS2000 to use them for testing out new scenery files. So I used this plane to try out the New Zealand mesh scenery, the Italian mesh scenery and the French airports. All can be downloaded by clicking on the links in the previous sentence.
Conclusion
As always, it is entirely up to you to decide whether you like this aircraft or not. More importantly, whether you want to spend money on it or not! I for one, will not. For a number of reasons. First of all, I don't think this particular project is worth the money. There are much better examples around. Secondly, I doubt if anyone cares to spend money on additional planes, or scenery for that matter, that do not add something significant. Like much more reality, a real special aircraft, or a very detailed airport that is too simple in the standard version. I might be a bit unfair with all the very high quality offerings around lately, but lack of moving parts, no pilot inside, no photo realistic panel... come on guys! And thirdly, if I do spend money on this hobby, it is either because I get good value for it, or to support a good cause. That's it. I don't think the plane or the company fall into either of those categories.
But they have announced other planes, so let's hope this review will prod them to push the bar higher up! They have also announced an updated air file and a help forum. I checked today (November 14th), and neither of those were on the site yet...
Finally a word of thanks to Ian for helping me check the flight characteristics of this aircraft. Much appreciated Ian (and you were much quicker at it than I was <g>).
Some links you might want to check out
The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – home page with links to their different campus sites
Fighting Eagle Software – the creators of this aircraft
Cessna Aircraft Company – the builders of the real aircraft
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