I'm a new sim-pilot, and I thought the Piper J3 from A2A would be a nice 'easy' plane to fly for a new simmer, and yet have the features and quality of a payware craft. I picked it up last night, along with it's Accu-Sim package.Oops! hehe ... turns out, the devs want you to run this plane on uber-realism mode, setting every realism slider to the far right, and checking every possible realism box. It took me about 4 tries just to get this thing to stay in the air for more than a minute. It kept sinking despite 3/4 to full throttle. My first question is, is there a way to have alternate realism settings without having to go to the Realism tab each time and changing everything. I tried creating a saved setup profile just for the Piper, but then if I load a previous save, those would retain the hard realism settings of the Piper save. #2 ... when flying the Piper, I'm put in the backseat, I understand this is realistic, but I can't see the instruments! I can move around the cockpit by pressing 'A', but Virtual Cockpit only seems to work if I'm in the backseat. Is there a way to have VC and see the gauges better?#3, I'm RTFM now, but any quick tips on flying the A2A Piper? Why, after takeoff does this plane seem so very weak (much weaker than the stock Piper that comes with FSX). It seems to be a slave to wind direction, doesn't want to climb hardly at all, and then sinks for what seems like no reason after a few hundred yards. Thanks for any tips.

Hi there,First off, you just bought yourself a great package. Just stick with it.That Cub ain't no rocket, and you need to keep that in mind. Once in the air, it basically flies itself when in neutral trim!1. Start the engine2. once line-up, go full throttle and the plane will take-off by itself (almost) at around 40mph3. Climb at around 50-55mph. It will take awhile. But then again, we are talking cruising altitude of 1500-2000 above ground here.4. Conditions depending, we are talking of a cruise speed of around 65mph to 75mph. 4. Check your trim (left side of cockpit)Were you flying with real weather during that first flight? Remember that Accu-Sim means just that= accurate. So if it was warm and humid, the climb and cruise speed will be affected. I won't start my "admiration" thread of the A2A Cub but just stick to it. A few flights should get you confortable.

Thanks, Hercfan. I'm aware it's not a speedster, but it still felt oddly weak, and I'm used to flying low-powered small planes (as a noob, it's about all I fly). Where should the red trim dot be on take-off? In the middle?Also, if anyone knows how to get alternate realism settings without having to reconfigure each time, I'd be most grateful.

If you want to have a closer look to the insturment you can press "A", the view in the virtual cockpit will then change.One of this view is an "instrument view" i.e. you will be like if you were in the front seat.It's not that difficult to fly just remenber it's not a powefull aircraft so plan ahead if you want to pass that little mountain just in front :(

You should be able to shift your position in the virtual cockpit to the front seat by using various combinations of the control, shift, return and backspace keys. Numpad 5 key will reset the view and space bar should re-centre it.Be careful of the weather settings in FS on full realism settings, notably the temperature. At high ambient temperatures, you will have less lift (thinner air you see, so less stuff to provide lift for your wings), and less power (also due to the thinner air because your engine takes in less dense air and that also reduces available power a bit). Set up some cold weather and it will probably fly a bit better.Check your fuel level too, a full tank is not necessarily what you need. Keep the nose down, build up speed and let the thing climb when it wants to, rather than trying to haul it up there. On the plus side, the Cub is light, so light in fact, that if there is enough thermal activity you can actually glide a Cub and even climb with the power off if the updrafts are strong enough! I have actually done that for real, with ridge lift, and you can do it in FSX if you find some lift.But, the Cub is low powered, in fact the original prototype was so low powered that it could barely take off despite the light weight of the aircraft, so various subsequent versions got more and more power over the years. The FSX default Cub is pretty good, but it is more akin to the later PA-18 Supercub in terms of performance, i.e. like a lot of the default FSX aircraft, it is somewhat overpowered in order to cater for casual users, the exception being the default Cessnas, which are actually fairly good for default aircraft, as is the glider since overpowering it is not possible. The worst one is the default Airbus, which climbs like a missile.Al

Thanks for the great explanations. Very helpful! Yep, I was taking off from a small airfield about 3 miles from my house, here in the Daytona area. Air temp was 70F at the time. I'll try and bring this plane into the PNW with colder temps and see how she does. Al, I really liked your background info on the Cub, thanks. Btw, I'm reading the manual now too, a beefy 150 pages, and the Accu-sim manual for it is another 50 pages.

If you look in the Avsim reviews for the L-4 Grasshopper Floatplane review which I did (that's basically a military floatplane Piper Cub), there is a bit of the history of the Piper Cub in it which you might find interesting.Al

Thanks for the great explanations. Very helpful! Yep, I was taking off from a small airfield about 3 miles from my house, here in the Daytona area. Air temp was 70F at the time. I'll try and bring this plane into the PNW with colder temps and see how she does.

Just to give you an example of that, and to show how amazing Acc-Sim is: I usually fly in FTX area (always with real weather) and just found my Cub to be quite different flying in FTX PNW (with cooler temp). At around 2000', I am cruising at almost 10mph more than in Australia summer air. That's quite the jump for the Cub!!

Just to give you an example of that, and to show how amazing Acc-Sim is: I usually fly in FTX area (always with real weather) and just found my Cub to be quite different flying in FTX PNW (with cooler temp). At around 2000', I am cruising at almost 10mph more than in Australia summer air. That's quite the jump for the Cub!!

Funny you should mention that! I just took the Cub from Darrington, and even with realism maxed, got 'er up first try, kept her flying and it was awesome!Btw, Ctrl+Backspace did the trick for getting me closer to the panel in VC mode. Fantastic plane! couldn't be happier now :)