Did some testing with my A2A C172R.

 

With OrbX CRM at Indian Creek USFS, I need about 1650 RPMs to get moving. You move very slowly at first but quickly pick up speed. Remember if you do get stuck on an incline, you can use Shift+P to back off a little and pick up some speed. I had no problems maneuvering around the airport. On taking off, I left the ground at around 1/3rd down the runway or ~1600 feet with me and 90% fuel on board. Keep in mind that this airport is at 5,000 ft AGL. Landing rollout was perhaps unrealistically short if the runway was dry.

 

I also tried Mile Hi Airstrip. The friction wasn't enough to stop me as I rolled down the hill with full brakes applied. It was not possible to drive up the hill again with the A2A C172, but neither did the Carenado C172N manage it. Had an expensive prop strike as well, simulated by the A2A addon. If you're going to land here, better get a Super Cub or similar.

 

Finally I tried OrbX Bowerman since I read lots of people had problems there. At 1200 RPM the plane starts creeping forward. At 1300 RPM you can taxi at normal speeds.

Edit: Appently, Alt+3 should be that menu? My Alt+3 only makes a beeping sound, so must be something I have misconfigured at some point.

 

Alt...? On my PC it's Shift-3. Alt is used for the FSX ingame menu.

 

BTW I am one of the lucky guys who doesn't have a problem with the clickspots. I don't use the GPS. What happens if you do have problems and choose the setup without GPS...?

Finally I tried OrbX Bowerman since I read lots of people had problems there. At 1200 RPM the plane starts creeping forward. At 1300 RPM you can taxi at normal speeds.

I've had a bit of a breakthrough at Bowerman. If I apply and release the parking brake and then throttle up to 1000-1200 rpms, I start to roll. As soon as I touch either toe brake (using saitek proflight rudder pedals) the plane comes to a halt. If I re- set and release the parking brake, I start to roll again. I think the issue is something with the brakes not releasing 100% even though I'm not depressing the toe brakes at all.

 

And yes, I've checked my sensitivity, config, ect... and my pedals work perfectly fine with every other addon. The problem is specific to the a2a c172.

 

As for the intermittent clickspots, I'll get it once in a while after quickly mousewheeling through radio frequencies, hiding the yoke, or dropping the flaps but the clickspots always come back after a few seconds. I can see how this problem is a dealbreaker for some.

 

 

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Alt...? On my PC it's Shift-3. Alt is used for the FSX ingame menu.

 

BTW I am one of the lucky guys who doesn't have a problem with the clickspots. I don't use the GPS. What happens if you do have problems and choose the setup without GPS...?

 

Sorry, I meant Shift:-) My Shift+3 only makes a beeping sound, sounds like something is enabled and then disabled again when I press Shift+3 again(Dooodupp--Dudopp kinda sound). Doesnt matter as I can get the menu from FSX menu.

 

No, you're not the only one, I have no problems that I am aware off so far(except the menuthing, but thats probably just me).

Alt...? On my PC it's Shift-3. Alt is used for the FSX ingame menu.

 

BTW I am one of the lucky guys who doesn't have a problem with the clickspots. I don't use the GPS. What happens if you do have problems and choose the setup without GPS...?

 

Well, the clickspots aren't GPS related - I have mine configured GPS-less, and just (about 30 minutes ago) had the clickspot problem, but exiting the flight and entering again fixed it, it didn't need a *full* restart of fsx.

 

That's the one time I've had it, so it's not that I'm 'afflicted' by it, it was just a shock after all this time of it not happening.

 

The only thing that's really 'bothering' me about the plane is the floatyness, but I can live with it until they fix it. The odd thing is, I didn't get the floatyness with the standard fsx 'clear sky' weather, but do with activesky running, maybe it's exacerbated by air temperature :unknw:

 

 

Remember if you do get stuck on an incline, you can use Shift+P to back off a little and pick up some speed.

 

Tried your suggestion, didn't work, still stuck in the mud :(

I've had a bit of a breakthrough at Bowerman. If I apply and release the parking brake and then throttle up to 1000-1200 rpms, I start to roll. As soon as I touch either toe brake (using saitek proflight rudder pedals) the plane comes to a halt. If I re- set and release the parking brake, I start to roll again. I think the issue is something with the brakes not releasing 100% even though I'm not depressing the toe brakes at all

 

I've read about that in the A2A forum too. So far those who had the issue all seem to be using the Saitek pedals. I'm using the CH Pro Pedals and don't have any problems so far.

 

I did another experiment. At Bandera State, I took a screenshot just as I reached 60 KIAS with both the Carenado and the A2A C172 (sorry for the difference in viewpoints). The Carenado plane *did* pick up speed faster in beginning of the roll. With the A2A C172 I was afraid I was going to end up in the lake, but once it had gained some airspeed it started picking up speed faster.

 

 

 

 

The only thing that's really 'bothering' me about the plane is the floatyness, but I can live with it until they fix it. The odd thing is, I didn't get the floatyness with the standard fsx 'clear sky' weather, but do with activesky running, maybe it's exacerbated by air temperature :unknw:

 

What do you mean floatyness?  Are you talking about like floating over the runway while landing? 

Yes I must admit I have not managed a single acceptable landing yet ..... :lol: .... I've floated and/or ballooned on every single landing so far.    The airplane does not seem keen to meet with Mother Earth, after a flight.

 

Also rotation seems quite extreme, it really needs to tiniest of back pressure to shoot up, and then - if you set your trim at the T/O position - you find yourself furiously trimming down, as your airspeed bleeds ....55.....50.....45......42.... !! ........   

 

Thus I have been setting an artificially nose down trim setting for take-off, which reduced the above two 'effects'.

 

I have performed a couple of take-offs in a real C172 (albeit it not a 'R' and I remember needing a lot more back pressure to get airborne at 60-65kts, and also, if the trim had been set on the T/O markers, the aircraft was then nicely trimmed for the climbout; it wasn't necessary to significantly re-trim down for the climb.

you find yourself furiously trimming down, as your airspeed bleeds ....55.....50.....45......42.... !! ........   

 

it really doesn't help this that the trim functions seem to operate at about 1/3 the change of trim on most other FSX addons, this is a 'good thing' overall (it means that the trim has a higher resolution and can thus avoid some of the 'nope, that's nose up, and now it's nose down' problems), but at the same time it makes rapidly trimming difficult unless you have a dedicated trim axis. ie. if you're using trim up/down buttons, you're going to need about 3x as much time to trim to a position.

 

 

Also rotation seems quite extreme, it really needs to tiniest of back pressure to shoot up, and then - if you set your trim at the T/O position - you find yourself furiously trimming down, as your airspeed bleeds ....55.....50.....45......42.... !! ........   

 

 

As molleh said on page 7; change the elevator_effectiveness in aircraft.cfg.  It's set to 2 by default. Set it to 1 and you should be good.

 

I had the same "problem", but this fixed it. Realistic or not, flying with a stick sort of negates the realistic part, so I think this is totally fine realisticwise:-)

 

 

but at the same time it makes rapidly trimming difficult unless you have a dedicated trim axis.

 

I do wonder a bit if my happiness with this add-on thus far is partially due to an extensive collection of hardware bit and pieces. For example, trimming is effortless with a trim wheel.  And with a bit of extra mapping (the input configurator is an excellent addition), there's very little other than the gps that requires the mouse for my setup.

 

Long story short - excellent platform for cockpit builders, I guess.

As molleh said on page 7; change the elevator_effectiveness in aircraft.cfg.  It's set to 2 by default. Set it to 1 and you should be good.

 

I had the same "problem", but this fixed it. Realistic or not, flying with a stick sort of negates the realistic part, so I think this is totally fine realisticwise:-)

 

That actually changed (reduced) the floatyness too, perhaps it was that the elevators were being too effective on flare?

(it doesn't quite fix 'realtrim' to work properly though, nearly, but it's still out some)

The easy part about simulating warbirds is that few have actually flew a Mustang or a Spitfire.Yeah you got your charts,manuals and 2nd hand pireps but there is a built in reality buffer that allows some degree of interpretation.

But coming out with a realistic 172 was asking for some lively debates especially among this crowd.Few have not flown in or flew a 172. I have over 2 thousand hours in high wing Cessna aircraft a lot in 172s.I could pick it apart but all I want is a hour or 2 of suspended reality once in a while and $50 bucks is a bargain.My issues with the FM are already covered but the power needed to get moving especially on dirt/grass is off.IMO the flaps are weak but not by to much.I also noticed the pitch can be hyper sensitive so I intend to make some cfg tweeks and maybe add some deadzone.Otherwise the 172's fm is overall in the ballpark and feels right.Like any aircraft in FSX stay within its envelope and you will be ok.

None of the 172s I flew in the 80s had autopilots but this one would have killed alot of students. I was experimenting with the alt hold settings and hit something causing the plane not to descend quickly but actually rotate straight down.When I grabbed the stick it then went inverted.Under ap control,inverted and pitching wildly to ground soon rise up and smacked thee. I have had this dramatic nose down under ap alt usage happen twice. Also on my only ils attempt when switching from nav to app to capture the loc and the plane turned away from the field???? Click app and it goes to nav.Something just wonky with the ap operation.

That is a very good point Jim.

 

I would just add though that, with a strange issue like this one (all VC clickspots disappearing) prospective buyers have something of a Russian Roulette proposition, as to whether they'll get an experience like yours (with no real issues), or a one like mine (a showstopper of a bug).

 

In other cases (such as Carenado releases) it's a case of "oh the fuel flow meter is not working mind guys", and thus people have a clear choice as to whether that is important to them, and whether they want to buy the aircraft with the full knowledge of the reported bug(s), or whether they won't.

 

Until this major issue is resolved all future buyers have a XX% risk of buying a beautiful add-on, but one that by it's own feature set, requires a lot of mouse clicks, and may not have any mouse clicks working.

 

For that reason, as much as I can see this will be a beautiful product, I personally wouldn't recommend people to be buying it - yet.

 

In fact, although I am genuinely not one of the alarmist generation, and I hold A2A in the highest esteem of developers, I personally think that for this type of show stopping bug, the aircraft should be withdrawn from sale until it is resolved.

I think the real factor is not whether there are bugs or not - there always are, especially with such small test teams (I've worked with test teams ten times the size, 40k bugs fixed prior to launch and _still_ with issues....).

 

It's whether the developer has the track record of being able to jump on them and resolve them.

 

A2A does. They are one of the most responsive, and kindly, dev groups I've ever run into. Patient almost to a fault, where other devs might get testy, angry or arrogant as they get increasingly frustrated around a sticky issue. You won't see that from A2A.

 

And that's why every thing they release, I will be excited by.

 

The real frustration is when a dev seems to give up too easily, takes literally a year to respond to a pervasive issue, and then with a response that is inscrutable, ambiguous, or leads to a sense of, this is our first and last try and then we're done. Even there, there are reasons for it that have nothing to do with laziness, or competence, just scale. Plus, for some struggling devs, the easier and more profitable path is to go to new development instead of circling around the vanishing point of a few issues. I can understand the wisdom of that, too, and am not willing to sit in public in casual judgment of whatever choices are, or need to be, made.