Felt compelled to offer my thoughts on this one, after picking it up last night.  Relevant background - I have around a thousand hours in various Stearmans in the real world over the last 20 years, mostly in the stock 220hp w/Continental engine, and much of the time serving as an instructor.  

The TL;DR is that I’m impressed.  I was expecting to be pretty critical of this model, given how familiar with and fond of this airplane I am in reality.  And certainly, I found issues.  But overall, this model really does give you a sense of what it feels like to fly a Stearman.  I had a ton of fun trying it out last night.

First, the areas that could be improved:
1.  3D model - gust lock handle in the engaged position when starting hot on runway.  On each lower wing, one flying wire does not meet its connector.  Vacuum system venturi tube missing.
2.  Ground handling - would be nice if tailwheel would break to free castering for pivoting turns.  Complete lack of inherent taildragger directional instability on ground (I understand this is likely a sim limitation, and most people wouldn’t want it anyway.)
3.  Engine response - it’s SO good that the one problem stands out - the delay in power response when the throttle is advanced from idle is exaggerated on the ground, and should not be present in the air at all because of windmilling effect.  This is important because as it currently is, if you experience a sinker in the flare, or balloon / bounce and need a quick burst of power to recover, you can’t get it in time currently.  The real airplane has instantaneous power available from idle in flight, like any other recip engine.
4.  Flight model - Roll rate is dramatically better than reality.  At full aileron deflection, this model rolls more like a Pitts than a Stearman.  A Stearman does big lazy barnstorming aerobatics because that’s all it CAN do.  Even the aircraft with the upper ailerons mod can’t roll like this.  
 

I know that sounds like a lot of complaints, but recognize that most of them are minor and/or issues with the sim itself.  Also recognize that I can’t even begin to list all the things this model gets right, in contrast.  Sounds are perfect.  Most of the flight model is great - I was impressed that drag was correctly modeled.  No one who hasn’t flown a Stearman can appreciate the enthusiasm with which it falls out of the sky when the power is pulled, but it is well represented here.  Slip physics are great, and given the importance of slips in this airplane, that is not a small feat.  Performance / speeds are right on.  Aerobatics to include hammerheads and incipient spins are spot on, minus the roll rate issue (easy for me to just apply deflection only to proper roll rate though).  I could wish for some buffet in an accelerated stall, but now I’m being picky. 😉

I recreated a lot of real-world flying I’ve done in these planes, and the best testimony I can give is that it felt familiar.  It turns out the grass 21 in KGBG they mark out for the Stearman fly-in is in the sim, and a tight slipping approach to that on a calm summer evening was downright nostalgic.

Highly recommended if you like this kind of flying.

Always good to hear from you Andy... I haven't picked up that one, but that may now change 🙂

In re. "No one who hasn’t flown a Stearman can appreciate the enthusiasm with which it falls out of the sky when the power is pulled, but it is well represented here." I've always maintained she flies like a Grand Piano IRL 😉

Edited November 27, 20214 yr by cavaricooper

12 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

 evening was downright nostalgic.

Highly recommended if you like this kind of flying.

I bought this aircraft last year from just Flight - flew it for hours in P3D - tried to replicate the scene in "Tora-Tora-Tora'

where the instructor and the pupil get mixed up with the incoming Jap formation When the Aircraft turned up in MSFS

I grabbed it and it has become my favourite in the MS scenery - visiting so many default airfields in UK and Australia

Good to know that my thoughts on it are almost equal to an expert 

I dont know of any in Australia - a nd would loved to fly one - but my license expired 40 years ago👴 

45 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Complete lack of inherent taildragger directional instability on ground (I understand this is likely a sim limitation, and most people wouldn’t want it anyway.)

I doubt that it is a sim limitation as most or the tail draggers in MSFS are prone to ground loops as the Stearman is supposed to be.

Edited November 27, 20214 yr by Dominique_K

42 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Felt compelled to offer my thoughts on this one, after picking it up last night.  Relevant background - I have around a thousand hours in various Stearmans in the real world over the last 20 years, mostly in the stock 220hp w/Continental engine, and much of the time serving as an instructor.  

The TL;DR is that I’m impressed.  I was expecting to be pretty critical of this model, given how familiar with and fond of this airplane I am in reality.  And certainly, I found issues.  But overall, this model really does give you a sense of what it feels like to fly a Stearman.  I had a ton of fun trying it out last night...

It's great to see a review from a proper driver!    Some excellent points there.

The roll rate has been a point of contention since it came out.  I think it has been adjusted at least once (made roll rate faster), but some people say it is too much now (such as yourself), whereas others have said it it was not enough initially.  
So I feel sorry for the developer on that one.

I think there was some talk about the roll rate of modified Stearman's with ailerons on both upper and lower surfaces, which obviously doesn't apply to this model.

Nice to see the engine cowling version in there as well now (a recent update) - supposed to be a little bit faster apparently due to reduced drag.   And there are some absolutely excellent repaints over at flightsim.to.

Edited November 27, 20214 yr by bobcat999

4 hours ago, cavaricooper said:

Always good to hear from you Andy... I haven't picked up that one, but that may now change 🙂

In re. "No one who hasn’t flown a Stearman can appreciate the enthusiasm with which it falls out of the sky when the power is pulled, but it is well represented here." I've always maintained she flies like a Grand Piano IRL 😉

LOL. I've had only a few hours in one but as I recall it was said she had the glide ratio of a baby grand. Haven't heard that expression in a while!  🙂 

8 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I doubt that it is a sim limitation as most or the tail draggers in MSFS are prone to ground loops as the Stearman is supposed to be.

Which models are you talking about? I'd like to try them. The X Cub, Savage Cub, and Husky do not ground loop or exhibit directional instability either. 

The Stearman in reality is the most demanding taildragger most pilots will ever fly.  She was actually designed intentionally to be that way, and this was when they were flown off big square grass fields. The only thing the original flight manual says about crosswinds is to avoid them.  These days, we're flying these planes off of pavement with crosswinds, and the old Air Corp instructors would think we're nuts.  😉

So yes, there should be a large amount of directional instability during takeoff and landing.  But I've never seen this realistically modeled in any aircraft in any sim, which is why I think it's a sim limitation.  I've seen a few devs try it, like A2A and the DCS warbirds, and it's always been... pretty bad.  Personal opinion here, but I guess I'd rather see it missing altogether than see it modeled incorrectly.

9 hours ago, cavaricooper said:

I've always maintained she flies like a Grand Piano IRL 😉

Good ole Bax!

Ok, had to have some fun and bang together a "sim vs reality" video clip.  Twitch didn't exactly clip the segments right, but good enough; just ignore the extraneous conversation at the end haha.

First segment is a landing in the sim, at Galesburg IL on the grass runway that exists during the annual national Stearman fly-in.  Second clip is my wife's video of the same thing in real life, at the 50th anniversary fly-in from this September.  She's in the back pit and I'm flying in the front.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1217898546

Edited November 28, 20214 yr by Stearmandriver

10 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

Which models are you talking about?

Well, I had a couple of them in the FI Spit and the MV Corsair 😆

As for the DC Stearman, she looks good indeed and I was interested to read your post. I didnt buy her because all the reviews I’ve read or watched indicate directional stability. And you confirm it.

There are three sayings about Stearmans that are the absolute truth.

There are only two types of Stearman pilots, those that have ground looped and those that will.

You are not done flying a Stearman until its in the hangar, the hangar door is closed, and you’ve left the airport.

Even a high time airline pilot (with no taildragger experience) won’t be able to successfully taxi a Stearman the first time.” Phil Whittemore, RAF Liason10

 

20 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

most people wouldn’t want it anyway.)

Well, I would ...

21 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

Felt compelled to offer my thoughts on this one, after picking it up last night.  Relevant background - I have around a thousand hours in various Stearmans in the real world over the last 20 years, mostly in the stock 220hp w/Continental engine, and much of the time serving as an instructor.  

I recreated a lot of real-world flying I’ve done in these planes, and the best testimony I can give is that it felt familiar.  It turns out the grass 21 in KGBG they mark out for the Stearman fly-in is in the sim, and a tight slipping approach to that on a calm summer evening was downright nostalgic.

Highly recommended if you like this kind of flying.

Thanks so much for your kind words, and for the video further down the thread. It's always great to have feedback from true expert pilots, I hugely value that as a developer and always try to learn from it ( I'm a lapsed PPL myself but only have time on Piper Warriors and Tiger Moths, not a Stearman ).

We tinkered a lot with the Stearman based on real Stearman pilots' recommendations, and ended up with what we hoped was something that was both realistic and accessible to non-expert simmers and pilots. It's easy to get caught up in the total-realism game and have the ground loops and cantankerous handling of the real Stearman, but for some ( a lot of ? ) simmers that can be the cause of giving up and not flying their purchase at all, so we aim for something a little more user-friendly for the majority market. As you say, most people wouldn't want the hard-to-handle side of things, and that's who we aim for.

Hope you continue to enjoy the Stearmans! 🙂

 

Would it be possible to have an alternate_flight_model.cfg included that was harder and closer to real world, that the dedicated could copy over?
It wouldn't work for Marketplace purchases but I've seen that done many times in FSX / P3D models...

14 minutes ago, keithb77 said:

Would it be possible to have an alternate_flight_model.cfg included that was harder and closer to real world, that the dedicated could copy over?
It wouldn't work for Marketplace purchases but I've seen that done many times in FSX / P3D models...

Your suggestion looks a bit like what Wing42 did with their Bleriot: offer a seperate model with different (and deadly) flight characteristics. If it is just a matter of replacing a .cfg file that is probably not too much of an issue for most so a seperate model might not be needed.
I was thinking on buying the Stearman and Andrew's post here made me grab my wallet. It might be a good idea for novices to start with the current flight model but I would certainly be interested in trying an eve more realistic one.

24 minutes ago, keithb77 said:

Would it be possible to have an alternate_flight_model.cfg included that was harder and closer to real world, that the dedicated could copy over?
It wouldn't work for Marketplace purchases but I've seen that done many times in FSX / P3D models...

It can of course be done, but we don't currently have time to do the work though - I would not have a problem with somebody else releasing an edited freeware flightmodel.cfg file though that catered to those who want it on PC.

15 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Well, I would ...

And I appreciate that sentiment.  I'd be inclined to agree at first, but when I really think it through, I wonder.  Here's why: 

First, precedent indicates that realistic taildragger physics may not be possible in a desktop sim, and if they are, there are none/ very few FDE devs that are capable of it.  I have not tried the MV Corsair, but if their tailwheel offerings in previous sims are an indication, I probably don't need to.  The closest I've seen a dev get is the A2A T-6, but it wasn't accurate, both in a general taildragger sense and in a specific T-6 sense. 

Most devs seem to just code in a significant amount of directional instability or "twitchiness" and call it "realistic tailwheel behavior", but that's not how it works.  A taildragger is actually fairly stable - if the nose is kept perfectly straight and proper crosswind technique is used.  I mean, these planes are reliably flyable, after all... they aren't CONSTANTLY trying to bite you - as long as you do your job well.  That means corralling any directional deviations the instant they become apparent.  You do that by using prompt but SMALL rudder inputs.  The magnitude of input required to correct the deviation increases rapidly with the magnitude of the deviation, until rapidly reaching a magnitude of deviation that you no longer have enough control authority (even with differential braking) to overcome.  At that point, you're along for the ride and a ground loop is assured.

It seems like this variability of instability, this sliding scale that increases rapidly (non-linearly) with every degree the nose deviates from centerline, is what's difficult to simulate.  All the sim taildraggers I've tried, they're either too stable, or too ridiculously UNSTABLE even when the nose is kept straight (I'm looking at you, DCS Spit.)  Neither are correct, but the latter annoys me a lot more than the former.  That's why I think I'd prefer no taildragger behavior be modeled, over wrong behavior. 

Then there's a significant hardware consideration; if you really had a true-to-life modeled taildragger, no one who didn't have top of the line rudder pedals could control it.  Twist grips and cheap pedals probably wouldn't allow fine enough control.  

So yeah, I think it'd be a limited market. 

None of which is to say I wouldn't love to try out such a flight model. If anyone attempts one, let me know! 

Edited November 29, 20214 yr by Stearmandriver