1900D from a real world Perspective

[toucanair 41]

Well here goes,

I Flew the real girl for around 6 years or so from the left seat, and the right, not going to pull the log book out

but it's well over a couple of thousand hours on her.

So,

I'll try and tread carefully here lol,

This is mostly just a real world comparison for the purists

When Carenado anounced developemnt, I was enthralled.

PMDG's version was more than a little disappointing releasing a "light version"

So I thought well carenado's, version, if nothing else, she'll at least aesthetically look right. But I

did hope they would go a liitle deeper Systems wise.

So I'm thinking do I buy this thing or not,

I mean how could I not, We've got history.

This was the machine I cut my two crew teeth on.

I've flown her in some pretty attrocious weather and conducted some Hardball approaches and landed off

some real dark night "black hole arrivals"  she got us home every time, safe and sound.

What an awsome IFR platform she was too.

Most had no autopilot, some did but, a lot did'nt. It did'nt really matter in 2 crew ops, she had great

handling characteristics anyway.

Typical Beech, stable as a rock. A seasoned driver could fly her half asleep, one eye half open with

two fingers lightly touching the yoke, with your right knee resting against the trim wheel feeling for

any potential trim runaway.

 

So what do I say about Carenado's rendition, Well of course I'm going to be passionate.
 

It's all too easy to be torn to shreds on a forum because someone missunderstood the context, cultural

differences or some misconstrued paragraph. Such is the limitation of internet forums, with the usual: 
"Oh it's a $40 or what ever I payed for it, piece of software. or "Thats typical Caranado" or it's a

limitation of FSX, of which I'm happy to agree with to a point.

Now I admit I will pull my Manuals out again and confirm some stuff and its early days yet with the

usual Service packs, mods and what have you.

Ok so initial impressions,

I like it!...alot!!!

Visually She looks right, big tick

the snag list is relativly long though, but it's to be expected I guess

 

I will do a whole lot more flying with it and update the good the bad and the ugly.

so far I've  just gone through the various systems on the ground engines running for about 3 or 4 hours

and then took a quick flight from  KDYS Dyess AFB to KNFW NAS/JRB Fort Worth default weather.

THE LIST (observations)

 

Handling:

-So far the numbers are about right.

-Handling so far feels right.

 Props could be a little more Draggy at low torque settings, she should slow up ok if high and want to 

 get down with power off or low ...will fly a little more with it

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on the Main instrument Panel:

-Battery gang bar operates in the wrong sense i.e push down on bar to turn batt and gens off

 carenado got this wrong with all their Beech turbines.

 

-EFIS AUX POWER not operative, cannot test it,

  Their Carenado Kingair 200 does have the switches I'm sure of it will heve to boot her up again and  

check,    although not functional, the switches were clickable at least.

  In test mode with master battery on- makes a    continous high pitch beep until silenced with red

button.

-No gear horn silence button ..markings for it but no button near gear handle.

 You Kind of need it for low torque settings i.e Emergency Descent or when you get track shortening and

 you end up high on descent profile the gear Warning horn will sound below 84 to 86% below N1

-Gear Handle easily selected (even if mouse clicked) while up on ground a solenoid should hold it down.
 There is a down lock release button to the immediate left of the gear handle selector.
 A bit deep systems wise, FSX limitation?, nice to have?. Anyway just saying.

-No gear handle light test button, I'm sure they modelled it on the Carenado B200 King Air

-A BUG--Altitude Alerter locks up.
        It must be tied into either the vnav part of universal computer or cabin pressure controller or

        something. which it shouldnt, Its just an alerter.  I would select it on FSX but it would      

  return to its last setting. arming VS back down to last assigned altitude and playing havoc          

  with the autopilot I'll give it some more trouble shooting to see whats causing it.

 

-Environmental Mode control T switch no workie.

 I'll test further, It's been a while. but from memory it was a no dispatch item.
 Test Simulates an overtemperature condition causing to overtemp sensors to shut down the environmental

 sytem.

 The P test was usually a maintainance test not normally conducted by the flight crew

-GEN TIES?

 I'll play with this a bit more, a critical bit of kit on this Bird.

 

-Fire loops test seem to work correct YAY!!!

-Comm switching cannot monitor both freqs at once, FSX limitation maybe although a few payware 

developers have overcome this

  Also on the Collins Comm radios you can store regularly used frequencies.

  I had the old FFS SAAB-340 for FS9, had this function and you could actually do this, which is pretty

  cool even by  todays FSX standards.the SAAB and the B1900 have share the same Collins Nav/Comm      

option. this would be on the nice to have list

-left and right pitot switches linked. i.e default Kingair.

-left and right landing lights linked. coding!

On the pedestal:

-Park Brake handle operates in wrong sense.

 Should be, pull on push off.

-Electric trim master switch not functional

 

-Cannot test cvr,
 Just an observation.

-PA Auto Brief.
 would have been a nice touch ...not implemented.
 (put an MEL/Inop sticker next to it, they do break I guess)

-AP CLB DESC mode buttons not implemented

 Cued the flight director pitch bars in climb mode, to provide climb pitch relative to a changing IAS  

cue to  altitude, from memory it gave a pitch cue of 160KTS to FL100, 150KTS to FL180 and 140KTs to  

FL250 as a  rule of thumb. I used it all the time on the "D"... but I'll have to dig my notes out on 

the  actual  numbers as it was a while ago

 Never really used the DESC mode though, as I used to ride the barbers pole all the way down when I   

could, I remember, a senior captain saying; "If you can see the barber pole, you're either too fast, 

or too slow!"
 

 

- AP Soft Ride and Half Bank no workie not functional.

  You need half bank operative in cruise, unless you really do get a kick from scaring the begeezus    

 out of your PAX, Hey they do pay your virtual wages.

  Not going to get into Soft Ride too much, its a nice to have option.

-No yaw damp master switch...errmm.

-Universal FMC

 All the UE and UC series that I had Flown (three different companies) Had KLN90B GPS Units on the main

 instrument panel.

 So can't say much about the universal Unit, except it seems functional and that you don't see many  

around, probably because servicing them were expensive in a GA market and all the associated bits that 

went  with it probably ate into the useful payload.

Actually whole Auto pilot system seems a little default FSX'ish, Sorry, but it is mostly functional and

point's you where you wanna go, It's just dumbed down a bit maybe

 

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Displays:

-EHSI outer Compass rose in HSI mode should be white not green.

-course selector selected to VOR for guidance, CDI should be green, which it does YAY!!(outer compass 

rose wrong  colour though)

-MAP Format should look very similar to a ARC format the Flight Planned track Lines or Active Course 

Line should be much thickerand only ever displayed the flightplanned waypoints with three letter

identifier on track in white  I suspect it looks a lot like its being displayed straight of the default

 GPS image

the only other waypoints that would show on the EHSI in map format where the one hard tuned on the NAV

Frequencies, they would display in a cyan colour when setting the course switch to "PRE-" on the

pedestal you could re set an inbound radial for an intercept to, Say, an ILS course for instance, all

you had to then was flick it across to "XFER-" and you could intercept the LOC or Radial inbound or

outbound. it looks and operates very similar to PMDG's 737NGX when manually dialing in a radial on the

course selector. Again would have been very nice to have for stuational awareness and workload.

-Course select should be White for GPS guidance in HSI fromat the CDI just stays green

-Flight Mode Annunciator test button not operable.

-Composite display not implemented.

 If a primary instrument display screen Fails, you can shift to composite EHSI/EADI display in the 

functioning screen.

 Probably not that big a deal in FSX, but hey in for a penny,in for a pound, right.

-xfer display non functional.

 Again not massively inportant for the sim world, but functionally you have 2 independant display 

sytems should one of them fail you can transfer the nav data to the other EHSI, the slaved hsi data 

Compass Rose Display etc. should all turn yellow for awareness

 

HSI's not independant-no biggie thats a Carenado/FSX thing

There was an older payware kingair produced by Aeroworx in fs9 quite a few years back that coded the 

Collins system very well it was almost bang on, bar some minor nuances

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Overhead panel:

 
-Instrument emergency lights switch no workie...

This is kind of a big deal when you push that switch it turns black, they are those bright blue panel

lights that are that light up the main panel and yep they are that bright in real life. Now if it stays

red then either the switch or the system is Unservicable and if this doesnt work then it is a no

dispatch item.

So you are required to take Off and land with those bright blue lights on they are not dimmable in real

life. and were way to bright a lot even so a few guys would turn the Instrument emergency lights switch

off on take-off at night, because they were way too bright and were a pain in the rear on a dark night,

The Flip side of this of course is, if you have a major electrical bus failure, things go dark real

quick, and then there you are your pants down around your ankles,sweating bullets ready to receive the

big pineapple,

Anyway I think Carenado may have rigged those bright blue life saving lights to the master panel lights

switch which is of course Wrong, as they should be rigged to the Instrument emergency lights switch.

which is inturn rigged to the Hot battery and battery bus, should you lose every thing,and thats

feasable even in sim FSX world. Effectivly making Carenado's B1900D a day VFR only aircraft.

-Fasten Seat belt switch not working.

-General Overhead panel lighting system.

 Not even gonna go there!

I will say though Carenado's exterior lighting is THE best out there full stop. It just looks real and

feels right. I just sit there looking at those Strobes, Position and landing lights and think these

guys have nailed it!!! Don't change a thing, PMDG, QW, and Cera have now caught on as well you got that

X-factor happening for sure.

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Animations

-Prop blur.

 Awesome, bang on, I wish Caranado Devs, would have a Word in Razbams ear, or any Devs ear for that  

matter  except for Majestic maybe, Re- spinning propellor Characteristics and what the natural eye

sees.

-Tail Stand.

 Is there one? I couldn't Find it, You're a braver man than me, Gunga Din for loading a 1900 without 

one. They sit real Tail heavy when loaded.
 Guess who gets out first 19 Pax or my case it was on occasion, 19 big burly Miners and all their 

crap...guess what comes off second and is all the way down the back in the cargo hold,.... Drilling 

equipment, Bags, Tools etc.....Tail stand, yeah!

-Cargo Door lanyard, not Implemented.

 It's not hydraulic actuated.
 When opening Cargo door unhook the lanyard and open door leave it dangling. 

 Then pull on lanyard to close cargo door.....or

 Forget to unhook lanyard...then take a 10 minute walk to find a ladder while the Chief Pilot, gives 

you  a curious look as to why he gave you a command on 2.5 to 4 Million Dollar Aircraft. You'll only do

it  once!

-Wheel Chocks. are usually only under nose wheel.

 I know what the flight manual says, under each main Wheel, but,

 Unless you're mothballing her for a 6 months or more, or you're an OCD freak.

 In all the years I've been flying, I have never seen a regularly used civilian twin engined aircraft, 

with Chocks under the Mains, Including the one I fly now.
 Because A). It is a royal P.I.T.A. to get on your knees for the little twins, Doubled over for the 

mediums size puttin your back out and try and kick the chocks out from an aircraft has rolled back or 

forward on it's chocks on a sloped surface, which is, Always and B.) refer to A). I mean, why do that 

to yourself. So consequently no one really does it that way....I know it looks clever in Sim,.....But 

just stop doing it, put em under the nose...no virtual crouching and it looks silly.

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Sound

-Flight Deck Sound.

 Actually Sound is pretty good, sounds just as I remember it

-External Sound

 pretty good also although FSX does some pretty wierd stuff with it's sound cones and would be a tough 

nut to crack I reckon.

 Whoever did The PT-6 external Sound for Flight1's PC-12 absolutly nailed it bang on. especially during

 Fly By view and I've heard a few flyby's high speed at close proximity too

-Ground Fine

 Ground fine sound plays in reverse detent, all the Carenado turbines do it. I've had a play at    

tweaking their sound file in the past but no real success yet. They've managed to get the prop pitch   

sound to vary with the prop levers which is bang on by the way, as a lot of devs seem to have trouble  

with this in FSX
 If they could just tweak the Sound file to get Ground Fine or Beta to play in that Detent and a    

Descent Reverse Sound Wav file in the reverse detent all would be well in the world of FS.

If someone has a tweak or can sort out that insanley inacurate engine spooling up when going into    and 

coming out of reverse and  sending  most poor simmers off the runway and into the weeds that plagues 

all the FSX aircraft using default  FSX turbine  engine model, that would be awsome as it does my head 

in,   Seriously!

 

 So. there you go,
 
 Hope I haven't stirred the pot too much,
 I'm sure the developers have put a lot of skill and passion creating her and from what I've seen so  

 far they've done a pretty commendable job in her re-creation.
 I'm Just passionate too, because I had the opportunity to make living flying the Mighty "D" and she   

 Didn't kill me. Stable or not they can still bite. having said that, those very reliable PT-6-67's   

 Kept on turning.

 Remember, It's just a real world comparison,

 More observations than anything, to the real B1900D and  so far I actually really like it.  and am    

 gonna go have serious play with it to get a better feel for  the Sim version and maybe bring  back a  

 few  memories, she could probably do with a few tweaks here and there. It would be nice as well to 

have the Collins avionics pack modelled a little more thoroughly one day perhaps.

 

T.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

[CaptKornDog 284]

Thanks for sharing.

[peppy197 165]

Composing such a long write-up is indeed a good sign that this 1900 is worth something.

If you had quickly found her unworthy, I am sure you would not have writen her up in such detail, regardless of any sim-inherant and/or dev-induced drawbacks.

 

Thanks for the work . Thats a long report.

[toucanair 41]

Yep, I'm Spent, wasn't how I planned to spend my 4 days off. I would just like to see her done right, They're a good honest workhorse in the real world.

[learn-by-flying 37]

Thanks for the excellent write up, hopefully some improvement is seen in a service pack or two in the near future.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Yep, I'm Spent, wasn't how I planned to spend my 4 days off. I would just like to see her done right, They're a good honest workhorse in the real world.

 

I was interested to read your comments about the EHSI color.. for the C90, I actually modified the gauge so it would switch between white and green, depending on the nav source.

 

However, I thought that white would mean VLOC and green GPS, since the Garmin GNS uses those colors.

 

You indicate the other way around... White for GPS?   Would like to know, in case I touch this gauge again. 

 

 

[toucanair 41]

Ha Bert, yeah  I actually had to pull my manuals out in the end. Some of it goes Deep in to the Collins system, some of it barely a paragraph and some from memory. it's getting very late here. So gonna get some sleep, (what is it with sim world and burning the midnight oil),  but if you like I can pull the manuals out and tell you what turns which colour and when. but  basically its Rockwell Collins EHSI-84 and a EADI-84 display GPS in arc was white, with track line in white in HSI mode compass outer bezel was white with data such as DME, GSP, CRS radial are green  VOR in PRE format were Cyan on my manuals GS index is green also..weather radar was also displayed on EHSI in map mode.   

Here check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6HayD_ChvU ironically enough this machine has the KLN90B GPS actually I'm a little baffled why Carenado chose the universal unit.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

From the video, it looks like a Direct-to course on the GPS and the CDI in green..

 

If you do have time, have a look at the manuals and send me a PM if you like with the colors!

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

 

 

So. there you go,

 

I encourage you to post this review in our Reviews System here:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/reviews/

[toucanair 41]

Bert, check your PM's.

 

Cheers,

 

 

T

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Bert, check your PM's.

 

Cheers,

 

 

T

 

done, thanks!

[toucanair 41]

Tom,

 

Thank you very much for the invitation,

 

 

I will take the time to write a review for this soon,

 

I do however want to test her out some more though,

 

I also have a real world sim coming soon as well, so I better knuckle under for that one.

 

I've really ripped back into the books on the Beech, problem is, hope I don't jump into the real world full motion sim with 1900D figures and profiles still rattling around in my head. Doh!

 

 

Thanks again, Mr Allensworth. I will look into it.

 

Regards,

 

 

T

[signmanbob 592]

 

 

I Flew the real girl for around 6 years or so from the left seat, and the right

 

Wow!! Thank you for your initial review.  It's exciting to hear from someone that has flown the real B1900.

I noticed also, that it seems to be hard to slow down, but I figured it was just me, since it was my first flight.

Knowing you have so much time in the real aircraft and still enjoying this beautiful simulation, is going to make me enjoy it all the more.

I'll be really looking forward to your full review, after you get a chance to spend more time with Carenado's version. 

I certainly hope they listen to your suggestions, but I know that they will.  They have a great history of listening to the desires of their customers and doing their best to implement them.

 

Thanks,

Bob

[stans 703]

I think reviews from pilots who flew the real aircraft carry a lot of validity.  Thank you for what I feel is a great initial review. :Applause:

[Mangouste 13]

Hi

 

I thought it was pink for the GPS function, white Loc and green for Nav/vor..