Enjoying Carenado Citation 525

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Currently, having just installed P3d a week ago, I only have two aircraft add-ons--the Carenado Mirage and the Citation 525.  Today I enjoyed my first full realtime flight in the 525, from Reno to Napa.  I quite enjoyed the handling of the 525.  Once trimmed and set for cruise clime it flies pretty much hands off in calm air.  I climbed to FL 260 reaching cruise alt just past Lake Tahoe, then proceeded westwards towards Napa.  I set the autopliot for altitude but managed heading by hand until I reached the vicinity of the airport.  I hand flew pattern and final and came in just past the numbers, touching down at 83 knots with full flaps.  The Citation settled down easily and flared quite well with the altitude being called out by the avionics from 2500 agl to touchdown.

 I really enjoyed the flight dynamics of the Citation, best of any bizjet I've flown.  My system, within recommended specs from Carenado, had fluid no stutter, no blurry fps during the entire flight, as opposed to Carenado jet add-ons on my old system.  The upgrade from a 2.3 GHZ system to a 3.6 GHZ system was a great help I feel, even though my system is not the highest end in performance.  I have always bought Intel products so I don't know how my system would compare to the AMD competition.  At Fry's I did not see any AMD systems for sale in the new computer section nor intel cpu's beyond the 7700 which is what I have.

Anyway the Citation 525 comes with my recommendation, although I haven't flown a real one I've watched CaptainMoombeam's videos on youtube and my numbers and performance matched his very well during climb and cruise on the same Citation (although he flies several different ones out of his St. Louis base).

John

[MartinRex007 390]

Yes, would agree John the C525 is a sweet aircraft, I fly her in P3D v2.4 with a number of mods that Bert and gang did and she flies and handles very nice!

Cheers

Martin

[Highmike 68]

This is good news as I plan to get this one on Thursday. I had already read a number of good reviews of it and I saw it mentioned a couple of times in the Favourite Carenado Plane thread on the Carenado forums: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/518359-which-carenadoalabeo-airplanes-do-you-fly-on-a-consistent-basis/
 

I suspect this topic will be moved there before long.

 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this topic, thought about the Carenado forums but thought the review would get more recognition here.  The 525 was my second choice over the 550.  The 550 is not v4 compatible yet, wrote Carenado and they expressed their apologies.  They are virtually identical aircraft except for the tail config anyway.  The 525 handles much better than the 550 did when I had FSX.  It accepts my control inputs quite well, just like the Mirage, and it has a very gentle touchdown, better than any light jet I've ever flown in a sim.  It was easy to keep on the runway centerline in calm air, easy to stop with reverse and gentle braking.  Napa has a 6000 ft. main runway so plenty of room there.  The real airport is quite busy with light jet traffic and from time to time has seen a private 737 or MD-80 drop in.  The airport is a revenue maker for the county of Napa, although the tower saw damage from the 6.0 2014 earthquake centered only a mile or two to the south.

John

[JoTayhen 6]

Hi John,

Appreciate very much the info you shared about the 525. I have a few questions if you don't mind.  Are you using P3d v4?  If so, have you been successful in using all of the onboard avionics?  I have several of the Carenado A/C that have been listed on their site as being P3dv4 compatible and, while I have been able to fly them, I have not been able to successfully use all of the onboard avionics such as the FMS unit if it is available - specifically the alphanumeric keys.  If you get the chance, I would really appreciate your input.  Thanks! 

John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

1 hour ago, JoTayhen said:

Hi John,

Appreciate very much the info you shared about the 525. I have a few questions if you don't mind.  Are you using P3d v4?  If so, have you been successful in using all of the onboard avionics?  I have several of the Carenado A/C that have been listed on their site as being P3dv4 compatible and, while I have been able to fly them, I have not been able to successfully use all of the onboard avionics such as the FMS unit if it is available - specifically the alphanumeric keys.  If you get the chance, I would really appreciate your input.  Thanks! 

John

I've had the same problems. The avionics don't seem work as they should.

 

[Zatoichi 45]

Carenado does not fix the little issues like mislabeled switches et cetera.

I find each of their aircraft fly on rails.

 

In short, they are gorgeous but lacking in depth or immersion.

[JoTayhen 6]

That's something I've never understood.  The fact that they offer their aircraft models as being compatible with a platform such as P3d v4 and these models turn out to be actually only compatible to a certain degree is misleading in my mind.  Honestly, they do a very good job of presenting their product visually.  Why can't they finish the task and make sure that all of the avionics available in each of them work as advertised?  I guess their business model doesn't permit that kind of quality control.  I have reported these problems using their support tickets and have not received any response.  Too bad because I, for one, would certainly consider paying more for an aircraft that is modeled as beautifully as some of them are and receive full functionality as well.

John.

[Greggy_D 935]

My two prerequisites for buying a Carenado aircraft:

• It's on sale at the end of the year
• Bert's GTN750 mod is available for the particular model 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I took a flight in the 525 this morning and I played around with the FMS.  It does accept input, I just can't find any documentation on how to work it.  I could see on the screen that it recognized my input in the flight plan section, but it's a step by step process and I am one to just set the autopilot and alt and heading to follow the gps, to be done with it.  So the FMS does seem to work, I just can't explain it well.

That said, the 525 is a nice handling aircraft once trimmed for airspeed and climb.  I don't have the flying on rails feeling that some say they experience, although I have my aircraft realism set right.   It's definitely on par with the Mirage and does not impact my performance whatsoever given my cpu speed.  I like aircraft that fill niches, I just need two more, probably the TBM 850 and the Cardinal.  If I want to go ultrafast, I can fire up the included F16 which I did yesterday, which got me down the length of California fast. 

My MSE California scenery stays perfectly sharp, even at high speeds, with no blurries or stutters.  I think it's a bit too color enriched though, but I can live with it.  I rendered the Phoenix metro area with FSEarthtiles, and have my Colorado scenery installed so I can have photoreal scenery at most destinations.  Next I will capture the Vegas metro area.

John

[lownslo 592]

12 hours ago, Greggy_D said:

My two prerequisites for buying a Carenado aircraft:

• It's on sale at the end of the year
• Bert's GTN750 mod is available for the particular model 

+1 And it had better be a good sale, too!  Oh, and it can't have a glass cockpit...

Greg