Pixel Planes Breezer Sport is out

[Matchstick 1,905]

If anyone was in need of another Rotax powered two seater with G3X avionics Pixel Plane & Aerosoft have you covered with their new Breezer Sport.

Looks pretty enough but I'm pretty burnt out on these kind of planes so I'll skip this one myself, at least until it's in a sale.

https://www.aerosoft.com/en/shop/flight/microsoft-flight-simulator/msfs-aircraft/4216/pixelplanes-breezer-sport

[outermarker 237]

It looks good, I'd like to try it but certainly not with the default G3X in it's current state.

[St Mawgan 1,406]

Yes, I've had too many of this type in the past and don't have any left now. The Vertigo, the Blackwing, the VL3. All nicely done but never really flew them. 

[JYW 2,990]

I love these planes more than any other in MSFS, as I fly them IRL.   But..... whilst there are a load of them, few (maybe none) have really got to a good, realistic level of quality.   The SWS Zenith CH701 is probably the nicest from an immersive point of view but the flight handling characteristics are definitely not reminsent of the real thing (which I have 150 hours in).

...and of course, as said above, most LSAs released for MSFS so far have that gawd-awful, unimproved, all round nasty G3X in.  It's such a shame that unit hasn't had the WT treatment.   In real life the G3X is a phenomenal unit!

The LSA / ultralight that I personally think flies the best is the Bristell B23 on the marketplace (by airfoil labs). But it's limited on immersion and is missing sounds in some areas.    The Rans S6 is also areally nice with a reasonably convincing FDE.  But it's little uncertified AP is very buggy.

There's been a freeware Breezer around pretty much since the beginnings of MSFS that I fly now and again. I wonder if this is a further iteration of that model, or a completely new development.

Off to check it out.

[EDIT:  Was hoping it was also released to Contrail but not as yet.  I'll have to wait until it's released on Contrail or Simmarket, as I don't 'do' Aerosoft. Ever.]

Edited December 20, 2023 by JYW

[JYW 2,990]

Well, I broke every rule in my own book and bought this.

TL;DR - it's really very poor.

**POSITIVES**

• The flight model is reasonably convincing and it's not too far from the numbers
• It has some sounds that most other MSFS LSAs tend to ommit; such as the canopy

**NEGATIVES**

• Earlier Breezer Sports had a manually variable pitch propellor. Controlled using switches and a rotary dial on the instrument panel.   Later models have a fully automatic constant speed prop that maintains 5500rpm in all flight phases.   THIS MODEL has no electronic prop control and neither does it have an automatic constant speed. On take off it goes to 5800rpm and it stays there unless you cut the power significantly.  5800rpm is only available for 5 minutes in the real aircraft, so to say that this depiction is unrealistic is an understatement. Really, really poor.
• There is no autopilot.  All Breezer Sport 915is (the model depicted) have come with the Garmin GFC500, since late 2019.  Worse than that, you cannot use keyboard assignments and neither can you just set autopilot available=1 in the [autopilot] section of the systems.cfg.   I tried this and the AP was still not available on the G3X.  I believe this is because no bus power has been set for an autopilot in the [Electrical] section of the systems.cfg.   The Breezer Sport 915i is a 150knot touring aircraft.  You will struggle to find any Rotax 915i-engined aircraft that don't have an AP (except perhaps a few rare Kitfox 915s).  Pixel Planes seem to think that all people will want to do with this plane is take off, tool around in the sky, then land.  As soon as I loaded into the VC and saw there was no GFC500 panel, I was ... "Nooooo!".   It is such a poor, lazy decision for the developer to have made.
• No EFB or tablet.  There are some arbitrary functions on the instrument panel tablet, like opening the canopy (pointless, as you can do it by clicking on the handle, directly on the canopy.
• For navigation, they have not even used the main ND screen of the G3X.... all you get is the really nasty 'map' page from the FSS GA aircraft (there are signs of FSS all over this plane. Either 'Pixel planes' are their budget brand, or else they produced the avionics in this plane).  The map screen has almost nothing on it. 
• Default sounds.
• It's just a bog standard, poorer than average, low quality depiction of a G3X-equipped LSA.  Both the Airfoil Labs Bristell B23 and even Orbx's (not particularly good) Blackwing 635RG are far superior to this offering.

Both of these points; the prop that maintains an overspeed 5800rpm and the lack of an autopilot are absolute showstoppers for this aircraft IMHO.  

You'll have a better experience in every regard (other than opening the canopy) in the default MSFS VL3 with the 915i mod from flightsim.to

3/10

[EDIT: I googled "pixel planes" and found that they are based in Switzerland (so are FSS). The main guy, Sacha I believe may be part of FSS. Could be wrong on that but there is definitely a link between Pixel Planes and FSS].

Edited December 21, 2023 by JYW