Just Flight Piper Arrow III Preview

[Bigbluss 304]

5 minutes ago, Matchstick said:

Sorry I was getting my dates wrong and adding a week onto the date that had already been delayed = you are correct and the next update is due sometime next week (around the 9th)

 

My appologies for that.

No need to apologise at all! Thanks for the response :)

[sd_flyer 6,040]

26 minutes ago, Bushido5 said:

Thanks for the info.

In the various video I have seen it seems that it remains on all the time. Understand it is still WIP.

They often known to get lit all the time LOL But it would be too realistic I guess !

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/piper-arrow-gear-in-transit-remains-illuminated.127368/

[Donka 645]

37 minutes ago, Bigbluss said:

Do you still think it's worth it given I plan to pick up the Piper Arrow as soon as it's out? Is it sufficiently different / good quality?

Thanks for your response btw - I appreciate it.

I personally can’t compare it against the arrow in MSFS yet but the Mooney is a great GA aircraft in MSFS - my favourite 3rd party at the moment. If you are only looking to pick up one, I would hold off for the reviews of the Arrow after release but if you are planning on more GA aircraft then the Mooney is a good option. It was also in the Xmas sale on the Marketplace so will likely be on sale again at some point in the future too if you are in no rush. 

[Chock 17,769]

58 minutes ago, Bigbluss said:

Do you still think it's worth it given I plan to pick up the Piper Arrow as soon as it's out? Is it sufficiently different / good quality?

With regard to the Carenado and JF Arrows and the Carenado Mooney M20 and whether they are all sufficiently different from one another to warrant having all or a few of them, and which ones crossover in terms of capability, it helps to know a bit more about the real aeroplanes and where they sit in relation to one another. So...

Piper designed the original PA28 - the fixed gear 140 HP Cherokee - as a direct competitor to the Cessna 172. Thus it was a fixed gear aeroplane suitable for pilot training, but with the capability to be a reasonably usable four seater, although how far you can get and how much load you can realistically lift with a 172/PA28 with four people in it, is down to more than simply whether it has four seats, since the real limit is MTOW and not volume. This is in fact why Piper built the Piper PA32 Cherokee Six. The later PA28 Arrows and other PA28 variants which had more powerful engines and retractable gear, were intended to sit in Piper's range of aircraft above their fixed gear PA28s, but still below their PA24 Comanche.

The Piper PA24 Comanche was essentially Piper's competitor to the Beechcraft Bonanza, although it was a bit slower (about 20 knots or so) than the Bonanza, but in most other respects it was a match for the Beechcraft, and it was about 8,000 Dollars cheaper than it too, so depending on your outlook, the Comanche was either the shrewd choice if you were prepared to accept a slightly slower cruise speed for a lot less outlay, or if you were being more partisan, the Comanche sometimes got referred to as the 'poor man's Bonanza'. 

The Mooney M20 was originally a largely wooden construction design (some of this was a legacy of Al Mooney having worked for Ballanca, who made the excellent Viking model which is tubular metal and wood), however, the M20 was eventually converted into utilising more metal in its construction (partly as a result of a structural airworthiness directive and partly just to modernise its production, which is what Piper were also planning to do with it). So although the M20 had originally been a design which Piper had considered buying off Al Mooney for use as the basis for what they were planning to build (which subsequently became the PA28 of their own from scratch design), the changes to the M20 as we know it nowadays put it more on par with the Bonanza and the Comanche than the 172, as Piper had intended if they'd have managed to secure its blueprints off Al Mooney.

Thus you can say that the Comanche, M20 and Bonanza are more or less competing types, and that the PA28 Cherokee and the Cessna 172 are competing types, which probably makes the PA28 Arrow and Turbo Arrow roughly the competitor of the slightly more upmarket Cessna Skylane models such as the 182T and 182 RG, which sit above the 172 in the pecking order, but below the Bonanza and Comanche.

There are some other factors which make a difference on the real things but which have less bearing in a flight sim, for example, when the PA28 Cherokee was being designed, it was originally suggested it should have a cabin which was 44 inches wide, however, Piper did not want to harm sales of their own Comanche which has a cabin of that width, so they made the PA28's cabin 42 inches wide. This makes no difference to flight simmers, but how wide a cabin is certainly does make a difference to people in the real aeroplanes. It's one of the reasons why for example, the Piper PA38 Tomahawk is a bit nicer to train on than the Cessna 150, because its cabin is a couple of inches wider, so you don't have the other person's elbows up against you all the time.

Thus in flight sim add-on terms, some of these differences don't matter, but realistically, you can regard the pecking order as being something like this (not that all of these are available for MSFS or course):

The PA38 Tomahawk is equivalent to the Cessna 150/2;

The PA28 Cherokee is equivalent to the Cessna 172;

The Cessna 182T/RG is equivalent to the PA28 Arrow/Turbo:

The Beechcraft Bonanza is equivalent to the Mooney M20R and PA24 Comanche.

So for flight simmers in terms of utility, you have to ask yourself if you want the payware Carenado Mooney M20R when it is roughly equivalent to the included default Bonanza, and do you want the Just Flight PA28 Arrow/Turbo, when it is broadly similar to the Carenado Cessna 182T, albeit with a retractable undercarriage.

Then again, you might just kind of want them all because it's fun to have them all.

Other factors in that decision will be the avionics in the things and some of the realism touches. It's a bit more old school in the Just Flight PA28 than it is in most of the Carenado stuff, so if you like following the magenta line, the Carenados for the most part offer that capability as well as probably being able to do a more hands-free autoland. Additionally, if you want to worry about plug fouling when throttled back on a long descent without clearing the plugs with a jip on the throttle, or the battery wearing down, the Just Flight birds include that kind of thing and the Carenado ones don't.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Chock

[Bobsk8 12,680]

I remember when the Tomahawk was introduced and I was only flying Cessna's at the time although but  I did have about 4 hours dual in a Warrior. I started looking into the Tomahawk and one day a friend of mine who was a CFI told me about a Eastern Pilot who was a CFII, and his wife went up in a Tomahawk, so he could show her some spins. They started about 6,000 ft agl, went  into a spin, and was never able to recover from it and augured it right into the ground. I never sat foot in one of those Tomahawks after hearing that. 

[Chock 17,769]

9 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I remember when the Tomahawk was introduced and I was only flying Cessna's at the time although but  I did have about 4 hours dual in a Warrior. I started looking into the Tomahawk and one day a friend of mine who was a CFI told me about a Eastern Pilot who was a CFII, and his wife went up in a Tomahawk, so he could show her some spins. They started about 6,000 ft agl, went  into a spin, and was never able to recover from it and augured it right into the ground. I never sat foot in one of those Tomahawks after hearing that. 

There are a few aeroplane types which have a dodgy reputation in regards to spin training, but many times it's something of a bogey man rather than a deserved reputation . As a result, the reputation can be down to a lack of understanding of what happens in a spin with that type and what the controls can and cannot do to recover from it. In my experience, it's better to address bogey man reputations such as these than to leave yourself doubting your own confidence in your ability to recover from a spin in an aeroplane, and you can do that by being familiar with as much as possible in regards to the aeroplane's behaviour.

Two types that I've piloted which sort of had that reputation, not least owing to some fatal accidents, are the PA38 and the SZD-50-3, and it's interesting to note that in the UK both these aeroplanes had to have a multi-point harnesses fitted to be legally airworthy, regardless of whether you were intending to do spin recovery training with them or not. In the case of the SZD-50, I've known a few people at my old flying club and some other places in the UK who were killed in the things, and that's certainly not helped the aeroplane's reputation of course, but personally I'd be happy to spin that thing all day long and have even done so from an entry altitude of 1,000 feet AGL.

Some of the spin behaviour in those types in particular is greatly exacerbated by things such as a rearwards CoG, and in the case of the PA38, some spin accidents have been caused by an unsuitable fuel load for spin training. In addition to this, some incidents (a long while back, and quite influential in the type gaining its 'terrorhawk' reputation) with the PA38 were caused by a maintenance/modification issue and an airworthiness directive related to it, which if not made, could result in the yoke's travel jamming in a rearward position, which then prevented recovery from a spin of course since you couldn't get the nose down after stopping the autorotation, so it'd just go into another spin. 

The manual for the PA38 goes into a lot of detail about spin recovery techniques, as does the manual for the SZD-50, and it's possibly the case that some people have not read these and instead simply assumed you recover the thing exactly the same as all other aeroplanes, when in fact there are some differences in technique and behaviour. For example, including possibly using the flaps on a PA38 to pitch the nose out of a flat spin attitude to get the tail back into the airflow in order to recover it. Of course if you don't read the manual and don't know these things, then you're probably not going to try them, especially when you're looking at the ground spinning up toward you and wondering why the thing isn't stopping its autorotation when you have opposite rudder on.

It's also worth noting that the PA38 is known to suffer quite a lot of stress on the tail during a spin, not least because it actually noticeably speeds up its autorotation initially when entering a spin owing to its fairly quick initial pitch down as it enters autorotation. Because of that, lots of owners don't like them being spun by those unfamiliar with them, but it's not really because it's dangerous or unrevcoverable, it's because it wears the airframe out, since lots of pilots will see that autorotation speed up when they apply some rudder and think it's not working, and so then try to shove their boot through the floor and stress the living word not allowed out of the tail unnecessarily.

There's not much doubt that the PA38 can be a bit iffy sometimes in a spin when compared to other more well-mannered types, and clearly the SZD-50 has some issues along similar lines too given that there have been a quite a lot of spin accidents with it as well, but these aeroplanes are far from being the death traps many believe them to be, and they really are only guilty of doing what the pilot commands, but unfortunately this includes control inputs which on occasion, were not the right ones for the condition the aeroplane was in.

[Treetops45 1,082]

I've watched one of the Utube reviews of the JF Piper PA28, can the 'Ipad' unit on the passenger's side be made to disappear?

T45

[FrankR409 514]

1 minute ago, Treetops45 said:

I've watched one of the Utube reviews of the JF Piper PA28, can the 'Ipad' unit on the passenger's side be made to disappear?

T45

In the video I posted it can, I think he pressed intercom.

[marsman2020 1,310]

35 minutes ago, FrankR409 said:

In the video I posted it can, I think he pressed intercom.

Yes, per the manual they re-purposed the Intecom switch to show/hide the EFB.

[marsman2020 1,310]

Some optional convenience features they have added which I think are nice to make this more accessible for all users:

• The EFB has an auto fuel tank switch option to prevent fuel imbalance if you leave the simulator going on its own on a long flight
• You can click the Piper logo over the autopilot coupling mode knob to turn on an altitude hold mode, even though the real autopilot doesn't have this

I really like this idea of having a few extras to make things easier for new pilots, but implementing them in a way that they are optional.

[BrianW 124]

6 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

This is "in transition" light. It suppose to remain lit until upper limit switch is hit by properly stowed gears

The gear in transition light is the one above the attitude indicator.  The yellow light under the gear handle is actually the gear override light for the automatic gear system.  This light flashes when the gear override lever is in the up position. It doesn't look like it's illuminated in the video to me though.

[sd_flyer 6,040]

14 minutes ago, BrianW said:

The gear in transition light is the one above the attitude indicator.  The yellow light under the gear handle is actually the gear override light for the automatic gear system.  This light flashes when the gear override lever is in the up position. It doesn't look like it's illuminated in the video to me though.

Your are right I mixed it up with in transit one LOL

[sd_flyer 6,040]

Long time ago when I got checked out Arrow and Mooney for the first time, both aircraft were required to press override buttons! Arrow of course was for auto gear extension and Mooney (M20C) for a steep bank. Now I got think mixed up! One of the had override button on yoke and another on the panel. I guess Arrow had it on the panel but I don't remember for some reason. All Arrow I flew and instructed afterward had this system stripped. I remember swapping "gear down" indicators when one of them was not lit, but I completely forgot about yellow light LOL

[Bushido5 60]

23 minutes ago, BrianW said:

The gear in transition light is the one above the attitude indicator.  The yellow light under the gear handle is actually the gear override light for the automatic gear system.  This light flashes when the gear override lever is in the up position. It doesn't look like it's illuminated in the video to me though.

Well might be a lighting issue with the sun and so on however at the end of the video when he show the lighting of the cabin the light is clearly on.

[WestAir 2,522]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

I'd be happy to spin that thing all day long and have even done so from an entry altitude of 1,000 feet AGL.

Chock buddy, can I ask why? I've always wondered why pilots do this. It's like when I see people start a takeoff roll from mid way down the runway. Is it just confidence having done it 10000 times?