Those of you who have been awaiting the freebie Basler BT-67 will have to wait no longer, as in case you missed it in the other forum on Avsim, it has been released. It's really good, was well worth the wait. You can D/L it from flightsim.com, here: Basler

 

 

 

 

Al

Definitely looks nice. How's the VC? Flight model?

Looks good. Downloading now. Thanks for the heads up :)

Definitely looks nice. How's the VC? Flight model?

 

I know Alexander Metzger worked on it.... 'nuff said.

I know Alexander Metzger worked on it.... 'nuff said.

 

Perhaps for you, but I have no idea who Alexander Metzger is. I'll take it as a good sign though that some apparently do and regard it as a good thing. I'll have a look when time presents itself.

VC is very good, pretty much identical to the real deal. It's not super-duper photorealistic like the kind of thing you see from CS, but it is dimensionally accurate and almost fully functional, which is what really matters. The performance is good too - especially when one considers how crap FSX is at simulating turbos - it is quite close to the real performance figures for various torque and RPM settings at different altitudes. I'm pretty impressed with that to be honest, I had it climbing at MTOW almost exactly on the brochure figures for the real one.

 

As one would expect, it is depicted as being a bit more stable than a regular DC-3 with its fuselage stretch, improved wings and control surfaces etc. In short, it is a really very well done simulation indeed, especially for a freebie - I paid about 15 quid for the Dirk Stuck Basler BT-67, which is fairly poor for a payware aircraft, but was the only FSX option; this one is FREE, and it looks and flies about a million times better than the payware one. I did some repaints of the Dirk Stuck one to improve it a bit, but I'm going to cheerfully delete that now! This is the new champion.

 

You've got nothing to lose in trying this, since it is free, and regardless of what anyone else thinks, personally I'm really very greatful that these guys have gone to the trouble of making a decent BT-67 for us gratis, since I've been wanting a good one for years, and now we've finally actually got one. I would have happily paid 25 quid for this, and I suspect any DC-3 fan probably would have too.

 

Al

Okay, so here's a question. Being a freebie, the sound is aliased to the default FSX King Air, I've changed that to alias to the Carenado C90 sounds, but they're not spectacular. I was looking at the TSS King Air 350 sounds as an alternative, which I quite like on their video preview, and might purchase since they are for a four bladed prop PT6A, which is resonably close to the multi-bladed props on the BT-67. But does anyone else have any other suggestions for a sound set which would better suit this?

 

Al

How about the RealAir Turbine Duke? I'm downloading the BT-67 now. I actually have a rw DC-3 type rating. The one I flew was not even a cousin to this one. Ha.

 

Ray

Okay, so here's a question. Being a freebie, the sound is aliased to the default FSX Kind Air, I've changed that to alias to the Carenado C90 sounds, but they're not spectacular. I was looking at the TSS King Air 350 sounds as an alternative, which I quite like on their video preview, and might purchase since they are for a four bladed prop PT6A, which is resonably close to the multi-bladed props on the BT-67. But does anyone else have any other suggestions for a sound set which would better suit this?

 

Al

 

I am using Aerosoft Twin Otter , but I am thinking about the Bronco X. (Yes I know it is different engines, but they sound GOOOOD!)

 

Glen

Let us know what you think of the Bronco X sound in the BT-67. I have the Bronco X also.

 

Ray

Wasn't too enamoured with the Bronco sounds for it, so I decided to throw a tenner at the TSS King Air 350 FSX sound set. As you'd expect with TSS, that's very good indeed and suits the BT-67 well in fact. Makes it sound like a big twin with PT6As, so now it sounds as good as it looks.

 

Al

Wasn't too enamoured with the Bronco sounds for it, so I decided to throw a tenner at the TSS King Air 350 FSX sound set. As you'd expect with TSS, that's very good indeed and suits the BT-67 well in fact. Makes it sound like a big twin with PT6As, so now it sounds as good as it looks.

 

Al

 

 

Good to hear on the TSS sounds. I just took off for my first flight. Very impressed. I have to reset some views, my VC view has me looking at the left engine. Not a bad view, just not the one I'm looking for. Aerosoft did that on the AirbusX. Not a good idea to mess with an standard.

 

Nice VC for the most part, but, especially nice for freeware and as good or better than several paywares. Looks like a good candidate for the Reality XP GNS. Hope it works with the 3d knobs.

 

This has a boat load of nice animations and my initial impression is the fight dynamics are also good. The takeoff and climb was perfect. Runway acceleration was nice and smooth and realistic. Climb to altitude was good also.

 

Ray

Thanks for the HU and reports, guys. Wow, I'm so happy with that one right at the start of the weekend. I guess your TSS sound tip is a good one, I will look for some set or maybe tune some of my Carenado planes in that respect, to make use of their sound set.

 

Same as Ray, the RXP GPS will be vital on this one and I hope I'll find some time to try if it fits. Antarctica will love that plane.

 

The control panel looks pretty familiar for the folks running the Uiver DC-2 and if Alexander Metzger rendered the FDE, there will be no doubt that it's good. All that for free? What a treat!

After some tests and trials, I came up with a hopefully workable modification. First of all, great plane, great docs included and a HUGE thumbs up for the team offering it for free! :Party:

 

The RXP gauges do work, but one has to to turn on the VC 'model' by right clicking on the power knob. This will allow the RXP screens to show up in the VC, otherwise they will stay dark. Unfortunately, the knobs don't work the RXP gauges itself, so you have a VC display only and the rest has to be done via the popup. Seems like some other gauge intercepts the VC clicks. Perhaps one can find and disable it, I don't know.

However, the RXP popup does work if you edit the panel.cfg correspondingly and add an ident number. By this, the usual RXP clickspot will open and close the popup window for you, which is nice. The guys being familiar with the RXP edits on other planes will know how to handle this. The RXP.ini needs to know about that ident number, that's all.

 

The night lighting (with the RXPs installed) is a bit dim when compared to the rest of the gauges, especially the radio stack from MS. But the analogue gauges itself are nicely lit, so the very subtle lights of the GPS stand out a bit, that's all. Great work overall.

 

I've added a popup for the AP in window7. Seems easier to operate at times.

 

On the sounds, same as Glen, I went for the Aerosoft Twin Otter ones. Those are from TSS and fit in without extra edits, except for something on the gear. Since the BT-67 authors recommend some Twin Otter set in their readme, I came across that solution which is free for AS Twotter owners. Also, that set does not incorporate the dreaded prop rpm bug, so you will actually be able to hear the prop rpm changes.

 

The external lights received some 3D detail right out of the box. Sort of like the Shockwave lights. Very nice detail. Best to be seen in the night shot.

 

The VC views Ray mentioned had me puzzled first. Means that VC starting up with looking at the left engine. I've deleted that one since it seemed to confuse EZCA for me. Can't tell if that's true for all of you folks, but it helped here.

 

I actually haven't flown her yet, but the docs describe the performance in great detail and with the FDE pro on the team, there shouldn't be any downsides to expect. Also, due to the ways they present the system status, one can expect quite some detail on those.

Thanks for the HU on this one AL, but I 'm probably out in the cold on this one and think I'll give it a miss. A turbine DC3?