Got my eye on Just Flight Piper Warrior

[vbazillio 2,234]

Believe me, I'm an awfull painter. I have other talent but really not this one.

[F737MAX 5,592]

I'm aware it's all very subjective, however I am struggling with making a decision between:

• Just Flight PA-28-161 Warrior II
• Just Flight PA-28R Arrow III
• A2A Cherokee 180
• A2A Cessna 172

I'd like to have a realistic experience, therefore could those of you with real life time on type let me know your favourites, please? Additionally, I like the idea of controlling carb heat and fuel mixture, with the occasional failure thrown in.

Recommendations?

Thanks.

[Martyn JF 388]

Quote

Not sure how many people would find this of interest...A range of normal paint schemes with both European and American registrations would be far more useful and desireable, I should think.

Hopefully quite a few - we certainly found it interesting. G-SIXT was produced as an interesting/unique livery for the demo and we decided to include it in the SP for owners of the full product. A new set of liveries for Europe and USA would no doubt be more desirable but that would have taken considerably more time of course, and we are happy with the selection included in the product already which provides good coverage for our customer base. Simmers from the USA would probably like additional N-reg liveries, simmers from Germany would probably like more D-reg liveries and simmers from Italy are probably feeling even more neglected but unfortunately we have to draw the line somewhere 

As for why there are no repaints available, that's not something that I can provide an answer for, however as mentioned above, a layered paint kit is provided with the product so repainters should have everything that they need.

Thanks
Martyn - Just Flight

[Chock 17,769]

Personally, being a Brit, I quite like there being a few more 'local' paint jobs on many Just Flight products, but it never really bothers me that much if there are not, it certainly would not put me off buying an A2A aeroplane because there were no Golf registrations on the things.

For those of you who are curious, here's that G-SIXT livery Martyn mentioned was included with the Warrior II service pack, which has BEA colours on one side and BOAC colours on the other side. Note I toggled the wheel spats option on for the second pic so you could see it with and without that option, one of many options the add-on features:

With regard to the query about various A2A GA aeroplanes versus Just Flight ones as a choice. I've not flown all of those types in real life - only a fixed gear Cherokee and a Cessna 172, since I am more of a glider pilot in real life - but based on that and some other GA aeroplanes I've flown, I can tell you that pretty much without exception, all of A2A's GA aeroplanes and the more recent Just Flight GA offerings (i.e. all their PA-28 derivatives and their Socata TB series Trinidad and Tobago), are worthy choices, however the JF Socatas are not yet available for P3D V4 (come on JF, get that done! I'm missing flying those things).

One thing which does separate them however, is the inclusion of AccuSim functionality in the A2A offerings. This is somewhat offset in FSX if you add A2A's AccuFeel (which isn't available for P3D yet), so with P3D as far as realism goes, until AccuFeel is available for P3D V4, you are going to get a bit more stuff going on with the A2A birds providing you buy them with AccuSim. That is not to say the Just Flight ones are not realistic in general, it is simply that AccuFeel made them a bit more fun. But...

Having said that, there is definitely one big difference when it comes to flying them which I notice regularly because of the way I fly in real life, that is to say, I usually fly gliders, and so circuit planning for landing is something which requires a bit more thought when you don't have an engine. Because of this, I generally plan circuits to have a bit more height in the bag when I turn onto finals than most powered pilots would typically do, it's a habit of mine and I do that with powered aeroplanes too, this is because I will generally sideslip that height off when I know I'm definitely going to make the field, or in a glider I will sometimes use the wing spoilers to dump that height.

Big Al Baby Flying Tip: Sideslipping is a great way to get you right on the centreline if your turn to final was a bit offset!

You will notice that A2A aeroplanes sideslip more accurately, exhibiting a realistic loss of height and the increased airflow nose you get when crossing the controls. The Just Flight aeroplanes don't do that; they will sideslip, but you won't hear the noise and they don't get it quite so accurately as the A2A ones do, which like the real things, will drop like a stone if you really get them sideways.

Big Al Baby Flying Tip number 2: Close the DV panel if you sideslip in the rain or you will end up with a wet left ear lol

This is why I am missing having Accufeel in P3D and it's also why Flight Sim World has a better flight model than either P3D or FSX by default, because it has A2A's AccuFeel built in to it. You might be interested to know incidentally, that Just Flight's Cherokee is the first officially announced add-on aeroplane for Flight Sim World, so that's something to look forward to. But back with P3D and FSX...

Price-wise, JF's offerings beat A2A's offerings by quite a bit, although this is not perhaps quite the fairest comparison because whilst both of them feature systems failures such as vapour locking, battery and oil usage and attendant stuff for those functions,  A2A's stuff does have a bit more going on with maintenance facilities you can play about with, such as choosing different oil variants, changing propeller types performing maintenance checks and customising other aspects of the aeroplane, whereas with JF's ones, whilst there is a bit of that going on, for example spats or no spats, changing the battery and oil etc, it is definitely more comprehensive in the A2A offerings, so you could say that the price difference was justifiable providing you like all that maintenance tweaking malarkey.

In terms of flight modeling, insofar as you could say any PC-based flight sim aeroplane replicates the real thing, they are all very good with perhaps A2A edging it a bit when talking about super-accuracy of detail, such as how much things vibrate at certain RPM settings, and the aforementioned sideslipping depiction; the A2A ones have got that level of realism on top of the accurate flight models which all of the contenders enjoy.

This is why I maintain that A2A's Piper PA-24 Commanche is the best add-on GA aeroplane you can get, as it has that stuff down to a tee and is fun to fly. But I am a big enough fan of the Just Flight various Cherokees to have gone to the trouble of buying all of them, which is three add-on products in total (with some discounts/bundles available if you do that), and I would certainly not have done that if I did not think they had merit. Being a Brit, I am undeniably a bit of a fan of Just Flight, but I would not blindly buy anything they produced, nor recommend it simply for that reason, if they made something which I thought was rubbish, I certainly would say so.

Incidentally, it is worth noting that even if you decided that the A2A one was the way to go, those A2A add-ons are all sold on the Just Flight web store, and they have a very generous loyalty bonus scheme worth getting into if you buy FS add-ons fairly regularly. If you store the points up, you do eventually end up with enough to 'buy' something for no money at all.

[lennie 48]

I am late to comment, but i have a RW Warrior and the engine sound is not comparable. It flies Ok however.

[ckyliu 1,749]

I'm in a very similar situation to @F737NG; I'm considering JF's PA-28s (both the Warrior II and Arrow III) and also A2A's C182 for P3Dv4 (this is on sale at 25% off until 1st Jan so there is little price difference at the moment). Could anyone offer counsel?

I want something that's fairly versatile in the sim (I sometimes visit gravel and grass strips), has great visibility for sight seeing, and must high systems fidelity and flight model realism (so I'm not considering anything from Carenado/Alabeo). From what I can tell with JF you don't get the walkaround functionality and the nightlighting doesn't look as nice as the A2A stuff (and you miss out on the Accufeel stuff obviously) but I think I may prefer PA-28s irl (I'm not considering A2A's PA-28 because it's such a rare variant) and JF seem to have been incredibly responsive to user feedback, which is most refreshing.

The Warrior seems to be a later release specific to P3D, does that mean it gets extra functionality over the Arrow in P3D?

I own RealityXP's GNS430/530 v2 and I understand there is a freeware XML gauge that will translate commands from F1 GNS integration to the RXP, if someone would be so kind as to point me at it, that way I should be able to get my GPS in to these birds? That's an important point for me.

I will try the JF demos soon but obviously A2A don't offer a demo and that's why I'm hoping for some advice/insight from a kindly soul

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

I don't have the JF model for comparison... Based on a limited amount of time flying the prototypes (C182Q Skylane and Comanche 180) and owning the A2A models - A2A did a far better job on the low wing FDE's than they did on the high wings... The FDE on the Skylane - imho - is a bit squirrely and not nearly as stable as the RW counterpart... In a moderate crosswind takeoff - it's downright dangerous (others have expressed similar experiences)... If I were to pick out of the current crop of A2A offerings - I'd stick with either low wing... The Comanche truly is an impressive experience - it just radiates power when you open the throttle - and I'd dare say it's the absolute best GA Single Engine Land we've ever seen in flight sim... The Cherokee is similar to a fixed gear low wing O360 I fly regularly and the experience is spot on...

Just my two cents - take it for what it's worth...

Regards,
Scott    

[b1bmsgt 207]

17 minutes ago, scottb613 said:

The Cherokee is similar to a fixed gear low wing O360 I fly regularly and the experience is spot on...

I don't remember the real thing being as "floaty" as the A2A Cherokee... I never had any trouble getting the real one onto the ground, but the A2A just wants to float all day!

Of course, my RW experience was a while ago... 1975 to be exact.

 

My memory might be a bit off, I suppose...

 

Russ

[scottb613 1,188]

1 minute ago, b1bmsgt said:

Russ

Hi Russ,

LOL - now that you mention it - I could concur with that - I think I have a post on the A2A forums stating the "ground effect" seems a tad overdone...

Regards,
Scott

[b1bmsgt 207]

Thanks for the confirmation, Scott.

No Alzheimers yet, I guess...

 

Russ

[tttocs 301]

1 hour ago, ckyliu said:

I own RealityXP's GNS430/530 v2 and I understand there is a freeware XML gauge that will translate commands from F1 GNS integration to the RXP, if someone would be so kind as to point me at it, that way I should be able to get my GPS in to these birds? That's an important point for me.

You shouldn't need anything extra to get RXP working.  I've implemented it in the Turbo Arrow fairly easily.  Basically you configure as though you were going to use the F1 unit and then use the RXP v2 tool to get the RXP version sub'ed in.  The only gotcha that I ran into is that you have to turn on the underlying nav/com first and then switch over to the RXP unit via the in-sim add-on menu or the unit won't drive the CDI or autopilot.  See this post for more details:

Hope that helps,

 

Scott

[ckyliu 1,749]

It's interesting some have said the dynamics of the A2A's high wings aren't as good as their low wings, didn't expect that. The more I read the more I think I should get the JustFlight PA-28s, especially since if I were to hypothetically change from P3D Academic to Professional then A2A would make me do a complete repurchase.

[Mad_Mac 21]

I fly a real Arrow, not as much as I would like and this one is close enough to keep my landings smooth when I do get to fly. It does not have the A2A preflight, which would be helpful for me, and I have not been able to figure out how to configure my Saitek switch panel with it (the radio panel does work well). The flaps seem very comparable to the real thing. Manifold and prop settings are dead on. Overall a very worthwhile addition. 

[Bobsk8 12,689]

Many hours as PIC in the real warrior. A2A Cherokee is hard to beat. 

[tttocs 301]

On 3/9/2019 at 5:50 AM, Bobsk8 said:

Many hours as PIC in the real warrior. A2A Cherokee is hard to beat.

Keep in mind that the JF PA-28's are newer than what A2A simulates.  In particular, A2A's 180 (analogous to what would become the 181 Archer) features the older "Hershey Bar" wing, while the JF's 161 - a Warrior - the newer semi-tapered wing.

Scott