Hi everyone,

I thought I'd share this review that I have made with you, especially as there has been a call for reviews due to the price point of this product.

Kind regards,

Rich

Very comprehensive, Rich. Should be a great help for people being on the fence about buying.

Thanks Rich!

Excellent review. I got mine yesterday after being rather on the fence. I'm glad I got it - it's awesome!

 

I've been a Citation II fan ever since the old one from Eaglesoft under FS9, which was one of my most flown planes. Obviously, that one just won't cut it these days. 

 

I got it from JF and did a few longer flights like on New Zealand NZNS-NSNV, in the US, Bozeman, Montana to Denver, Colorado, (all excellent ORBX scenery), also a nice ride from San Fransisco - LA, some flying around the Netherlands... A saturday well spent :-) A combination of day and night flights in real world weather.

 

My first impressions are very good. a sleek looking, nicely detailed jet up to the usual standard of eye candy we expect form Carenado. Nice modelling and texturing in the cabin and VC. A joy to sit in, thanks to the excellent visibility through the large windows.

 

It's a fast aircraft with very nice handling. It'll get you to your destination quick and you can fly into and out of smaller airports which gives great flexibility. She handles very docile with no unexpected issues.

 

The avionics seem to work well together with planning and executing a variety of GPS and NAV routes. The FMS helps with approaches and gives good insights into the fuel burn, weights, etc. I don't really worry about those much anyway. 

 

One thing that pleasantly surprised me is how nicely it plays with my FSX FPS. I didn't really have any noticeable drops, even with some decent weather like the REX clouds. YMMV of course. 

 

I REALLY hope there'll be some other repaints in the near future, as I expect this to be my favourite aircraft for a while to come. 

 

All in all, it's a fun to fly aircraft with enough depth for my personal needs and wants. About the only issue I have is the lacking documentation, which means you'll need to fiddle with the knobs and menus a bit to figure out what works how. Carenado could and should do a bit better job at documentation for people new to the aircraft given this price point, but I doubt us old timers will encounter many problems.

Thanks for the kind words guys, it is much appreciated

Glad you are enjoying it bjornkeizers and yes it is a joy to fly (albeit a bit simplified in some areas for my taste), though the proposed FMS update does sound good it really is a bit cheeky that Carenado are asking us to pay for it.

Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise to me as well, mainly because standalone avionics isn't their thing... plus, it's already their most expensive aircraft. 

 

Still, I might very well buy that upgrade. Did another flight this afternoon from KSEA (Seattle) to KSFO (San Francisco) and it was a very fun flight. Great to be back in the cockpit of the CII.

Very good video Oblivion! I'm planning on buying the Citation soon and your videos are the best I've come across so far. Most other FSX youtubers are blabbering too much nonsense and go OT too often but your videos are concise and to the point. I will be subscribing to your channel and I'm already looking forward to more of your videos.

 

Cheers!/Andreas

Don't forget the main point of a good review video. No silly music! ^_^

I really appreciate that Andreas and thanks very much for the sub too. I'm just in the process of recording some more videos, so I'll publish them as soon as I can.

Great movie on 550.  If anybody knows a place on the forum where I can get some info on setting trim for take-off I would appreciate it.  I look through last night but couldn't find anything.  I am having to add in a large amount of nose down on the trim when taking off to keep it from climbing out to steep.  I made a short trip today from KGTF to KSLC to KLAR to KDEN to KBIL to KGTF about 5 hours.  Aircraft flew great with no problems except take of trim.  I have Bert's MOD with Reality XP GNT530 installed.

 

Dick

Unfortunately there is nothing in the manuals that suggests how you set up the trims for take-off other than just stating in the checklist 'trim for takeoff' but I found the default trim setting that loads with the plane was fine for take-off. 

If you are having problems with it banking up on take off the only thing I could think of is that the autopilot is on because when you set the autopilot to VNAV modes it automatically switches on the autopilot, which I have found causes the citation to immediately bank upwards quite dramatically following take-off if you don't realise it is on.

Need help with operating the ILS, Also not sure how the use the FMS. I'm able to navigate with the auto pilot now. The ILS is the major issue I'm having.