Some aircraft really catch peoples attention yet seem relatively unknown outside of the usual GA group of Beechcraft and Cessna. Seems the Ted Smith Aerostar or as it was laterly known the Piper Aerostar and now again just Aerostar is one of those. There are now four different Aerostars offered in XP12. A side note did some time in the real one many many moons again. A very impressive aeroplane, squeezy but they went good! Block to block almost as fast as a King Air over a reasonable distance. Had a reputation for being difficult but they just had a high wing loading that was all. 

I am more taken by the fact that of all the light twins about in the world that the Aerostar would be the object of such attention. Always enjoyed the Aerostar my go to light twin. 

In order of appearance:

Avia's Aerostar 601P

XHangars Aerostar

Aerospheres Piston Aerostar

And the Aerostar Jet

They are all good models with some quirks. Avia's is probably the best finished in terms of working nicely with XP12 and generally faithful to the Aerostart switches systems etc. Low speed handling is a bit twitchy. X-Hangars just as nice but has an old clunkyXP11 vintage AP probably handles more smoothly to my appreciation than the Avia. Aerospheres were a giveaway providing two models the piston and the jet. The Jet was reworked with the help of a a lot of folk and released again as a standalone package. And yes I have them all, depends on what I am interested in flying, 601, 701 the plain piston with a G1000 cockpit or the Jet. 

Still surprised that it attracted so much attention, two payware two freeware, Guess you gotta be an Aerostar nut!

 

The fastest Piston Twin...

There was only one in Portugal that I know of, and no longer in use...

Edited December 18, 20232 yr by jcomm

I put up this post as a matter of interest about what appeared to me a very healthy state of affairs for the Laminar flight simulation program XP12. Its not curious but simply happenstance perhaps. That three developers would do the same aircraft as a simulation model for XPlane is unusual. I could cite another developer A2A who never built in the XPlane environment but promised an Aerostar for years (literally) for P3D and or MSFS but never delivered. So here I now find in XPlane almost a glut of great models.

They are all slightly different - 601P, 701P, 600 G1000 and the Jet. But it is the Aerostar airframe. All deliver full AP, Navaids, engine controls, fuel and hydraulic system controls and switches including pressurisation - correctly and accurately.  Both Avia and X-Hangar were built for XP11 then have been updated to XP12 releases. The other Aerostar is by Aerosphere, was a payware XP11 but released partially updated with modern glass cockpit or G1000 variety. A bonus separate drop from Aerosphere was a very early Aerostar Pure Jet or just the Aerostar jet. The Jet has been upgraded and fixed for XP12 and is in the library at the Org. The Jet was what Ted Smith always hoped and had designed the Aerostar to be - a pure jet. Still only one but it is a rocket with Aerostar manners. The wing with that trailing edge taper was short and all the moving control surfaces - ailerons, elevator and rudder were of identical size and shape and hence interchangeable. The spar in the centre of the cabin made in and out of the rear seats a challenge! The real ones also had this crazy rocker button electric nose wheel steering system (a nightmare to use) thank goodness not replicated either. Quite capable of climbing on one engine with the gear out as well. Nice high climb speed 150 kts and high cruise 200 kts plus. Yet you could shoehorn them in and off or out at 80 kts. All the sim models reproduce the Aerostar as one would expect to find it - texturisation is variable. 

So we have the variety of four Aerostars and a very good representation of the marque - the 601P the 701P the 601 and the Jet. No lower powered or unpressurised Aerostars with the little 295HP engines thank goodness. X-Hangars allows integration of the GPS with the HSI, the AVIA more early in instrumentation does not! 

Thought it was worth a mention!

While the XP11 is nice, it has some bugs, most notably engine performance, that were never addressed. The developer also played ballistic missile sub for a long time and went quiet just to suddenly resurface out of the blue and throw an XP12 model on the market. Not quite the fine English manners (as the - loosely translated - German saying goes).

 

Side note: The XP12 release is 50% off for owners of the XP11 release.

Yep I noticed that. XHangars and the Modded Aerosphere Jet Aerostar are the pick of the bunch. Avia is a bit a let down and the handling is not right not a stable heavy wing loading aeroplane but nice otherwise. 

The Aerosphere Piston - needs some mods and appears the prop blender object is not properly integrated. G1000 suite is ok and there is an update mod for it to fix some issues. Basic but interesting:

Here is the XHangar 701P

I gave it a grey instrument panel. 

The Avia 601P

The Aerostar Jet

Like em all but the jet well what a machine and you want a biz jet? The Aerostar Jet does it in spades. Keeps the simple cockpit and layout, fuel tanks etc wing fuselage all the same just two PW 615F Turbines replaced the Lycomings. Already had a simple pressurised cabin with no fuss automation. Minimal doors simple seals. So it goes not quite exotic Bizjet speeds but a respectable M0,6 at F280. Climb is spectacular at 7000 fpm and climb speed Fuel tanks remained as were - one in each wing and one in the fuselage, that limits its range. You can rotate it at 90 kts pitch up to 15 degrees and get the gear up and then flaps watch it accelerate on out to over 220 kts climbing like a demon. 

 

 

Before your interesting thread I didn't even know about the Aerostar FJ-80 in 2011 !!!

Before your interesting thread I didn't even know about the Aerostar FJ-80 in 2011 !!!

My favourite feature about the Avia Aerostar is the animated ventian blinds for the roof windows and every Aerostar rendition for XP should have those.

 

17 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Like em all but the jet well what a machine and you want a biz jet? The Aerostar Jet does it in spades. Keeps the simple cockpit and layout, fuel tanks etc wing fuselage all the same just two PW 615F Turbines replaced the Lycomings. Already had a simple pressurised cabin with no fuss automation. Minimal doors simple seals. So it goes not quite exotic Bizjet speeds but a respectable M0,6 at F280. Climb is spectacular at 7000 fpm and climb speed Fuel tanks remained as were - one in each wing and one in the fuselage, that limits its range. You can rotate it at 90 kts pitch up to 15 degrees and get the gear up and then flaps watch it accelerate on out to over 220 kts climbing like a demon.

While I certainly like the idea of the Jet Aerostar, the model is in "close, but no cigar" territory because Aerosphere completely forgot to replace the piston engine controls with something more appropriate for a jet, as well as the winglets.

Could be a good beginner exercise for Blender though. Rip out the prop and mixture levers and magneto switches, including manipulators, move the throttle levers and their manipulators around a bit, steal borrow some ignition and starter switches including manipulators from an XP12 default aircraft, adjust the panel and throttle quadrant textures for the change in controls, add some winglets. I'd even sponsor a Blender model of winglets I made for the default C90B as a basis to circumvent the necesssity of having to model all the changing curves.

Bjoern - Agree never quite understood why Aerosphere dumped these two out there like that! A few hands got to work on fixing some of the Jet issues and apart from the visible cockpit controls (Engine pedestal and controls still being piston)  it came out very well. Blender work however is way beyond me! (I confess I cannot be bothered enough to learn yet another software program) Need to fix the prop version (no prop object) and the Jet Engine controls and pedestal and it would be done really! Alpeggio and DonHopgood at XOrg were very keen to fix it to a point but I think have other things they are more interested in!