Picked up a couple of nice subtleties while flying IFR/ILS flights on the AP.

After you set up your flight plan in MSFS Scenario  and choose an ILS runway & its Nav1 frequency, the latter is automatically pulled into the Garmin as the live NAV1.

And when you fly the magenta line on NAV, as the aircraft swings into range of the landing Localizer, it automatically switches to LOC1 and as long as you are in the approach feathers height profile & have remembered to press the NAV1 button, the ILS is pretty much guaranteed.

As mentioned above, this aircraft is special, and a joy to fly.

T45

Edited February 14, 20242 yr by Treetops45

I am quite impressed with the NXI, particularly as I understand they did not build off of Working Title's work but developed their own unit from the ground up. Great aircraft and really nice to see a modern twin in the sim. My old tired 310 and 414 are now retired to the hanger for what I think will be very long term storage.  

2 minutes ago, Cognita said:

I am quite impressed with the NXI, particularly as I understand they did not build off of Working Title's work but developed their own unit from the ground up. Great aircraft and really nice to see a modern twin in the sim. My old tired 310 and 414 are now retired to the hanger for what I think will be very long term storage.  

The NXi in the MSFS version of the DA42 is definitely the WT version. The custom NXi that COWS is doing is for the XP12 version of the DA42 which they are still working on.

Not that it needs saying since we all know it by now, but given how we take so much for granted in MSFS these days.. so cool how due to WT, that the base sim can provide such deeply simulated avionics and a free framework for 3rd party devs to use and/or build on. Avionics so good that 3rd party devs like COWS and others who aim for high fidelity in their aircraft offerings can just pick & up and use the default avionics suite (and therefore decreasing the cost for us and also bring their product out to market faster). One of the most brilliant moves by MS, Jorg and team Asobo to bring WT into the fold!
 

Edited February 14, 20242 yr by lwt1971

12 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

In the US, on initial callup, you can say a few things:

N12345

Diamond 12345

Twinstar 12345

As an air traffic controller, I'd recommend saying "twinstar 12345" because it clues us in that you are a twin, increasing situational awareness too so like if you have an engine failure, we would know you still have one good engine.

Thanks!

41 minutes ago, Malaromane said:

The NXi in the MSFS version of the DA42 is definitely the WT version. The custom NXi that COWS is doing is for the XP12 version of the DA42 which they are still working on.

Ah, I must have misunderstood.

Seems to be another very high quality aircraft addon! However, I find myself in the fence-sitting group, as I have numerous other quality aircraft incl. the whole Black Square range (minus their Baron). I too find that the C310 and 414 are in long-term storage. 

Not sure if it's worth getting this one (for me) as I have the BS Bonanza, Van's RV-14 and the Sting for non-turboprop fun. 

I was a bit skeptical at first when I heard it uses the default flight model but the flight model on the Twin Star is something else. I don't have the 310 or the 414 but I've seen on YT they both fly in a this MSFS way. Twitchy, too sensitive, with no inertia. Not the case with the Da42. It's so good I finally stopped flying the Comanche after 7 months. So I'd say it's not just another high quality addon. It's the second aircraft for MSFS, that I know of, which flies in a believable way. 

 

Great news for the flight sim in general I'd say. When the Comanche came out, people realized how a plane should feel in a desktop flight sim. But it was A2A's own, external physics engine that took ages to develop. The Twin Star uses the default flight model but guys at COWS have shown everyone it can be done. The more simmers try such excellent aircraft, the better. More pressure on other devs to up their game too. So when you hear next time that it's just a desktop flight sim, it doesn't cost $30.000.0000 so it can't feel realistic... Point them to the Da42 and the Comanche.

7 hours ago, dawidcolombo said:

I was a bit skeptical at first when I heard it uses the default flight model but the flight model on the Twin Star is something else. I don't have the 310 or the 414 but I've seen on YT they both fly in a this MSFS way. Twitchy, too sensitive, with no inertia. Not the case with the Da42. It's so good I finally stopped flying the Comanche after 7 months. So I'd say it's not just another high quality addon. It's the second aircraft for MSFS, that I know of, which flies in a believable way. 

 

Great news for the flight sim in general I'd say. When the Comanche came out, people realized how a plane should feel in a desktop flight sim. But it was A2A's own, external physics engine that took ages to develop. The Twin Star uses the default flight model but guys at COWS have shown everyone it can be done. The more simmers try such excellent aircraft, the better. More pressure on other devs to up their game too. So when you hear next time that it's just a desktop flight sim, it doesn't cost $30.000.0000 so it can't feel realistic... Point them to the Da42 and the Comanche.

The DA-42 doesn't use the default flight model, because there isn't one!  All aircraft have their own flight models, configured across various CFG files (but mostly the flightmodel.cfg).    What you mean is, it uses MSFS's integrated flight dynamics engine.  (As opposed to an external FDE engine, like the A2A).

Just clarifying, as what you wrote sounded like the DA-42 was using a 'default flight model', as in, aliased to something like the default DA-62.

8 hours ago, dawidcolombo said:

Great news for the flight sim in general I'd say. When the Comanche came out, people realized how a plane should feel in a desktop flight sim. But it was A2A's own, external physics engine that took ages to develop. The Twin Star uses the default flight model but guys at COWS have shown everyone it can be done.

Yup! Like many aircraft devs have said on these forums and elsewhere, MSFS offers various tools in the box for aircraft devs to flesh out their FMs... A2A, especially since they always had their own AccSim external framework for previous sims, chose to realize an even better version of it for MSFS, other devs like iniBuilds/FSReborn/etc have chosen to embrace the latest CFD tech in the MSFS FDE, and many others the regular modern FDE like COWS. All of these require tuning, customizations, etc using the core FDE tools of their choice to get the FMs just right for their particular aircraft. It certainly can be done very nicely as in COWS' and others' examples... all comes down to the aircraft developer and their skills/experience, and they're getting more and more experienced with the MSFS platform 3+  years on, so that's great.

Now of course the FDE can still put up roadblocks to not getting that perfect experience.. ground handling was the biggest pain point in the MSFS FDE so far, and finally that's being addressed in SU15 (it was re-written for MSFS 2024 and partially backported to v2020 SU15).
 

Edited February 15, 20242 yr by lwt1971

Only thing holding me back on this so far are the reports of the excess yawing action...waiting on the first update / fix...anyone know when this will be?

20 minutes ago, Purr said:

Only thing holding me back on this so far are the reports of the excess yawing action...waiting on the first update / fix...anyone know when this will be?

There has already been an update released (v1.0.1). The changelog direct from the COWS Discord:
 

v1.0.1 Changelog

Flight Model:

Fixed yaw damper oscillations
Reduced flap pitch down moment and increased elevator authority to improve takeoff with flaps 1
Reduced gear pitch down moment
Increased stability in crosswind landings/takeoffs
Improved filter icing logic
Increased ground shake
Fixed some electrical gremlins
Fixed "don't sink" callouts
Pilots are only visible above 10lbs
General bug fixes

3D:

Reduced blur on G1000 LIT textures
Fixed TDI G1000 LITs
Fixed ignition clickspot
Fixed storm window flickering
Fixed anomaly on "ribbon" livery (TDI)
Fixed missing rudder decal on "stripe" livery (TDI)
Added GPS Placard
Added tablet placeholder for future integration
Added AFM in backseat

Other:

TDI sound fixes

Livery Pack:

Removed inboard logo on N309ER
Added strip to LEA 
 

9 hours ago, dawidcolombo said:

But it was A2A's own, external physics engine that took ages to develop.

However, A2A did something, because the Comanche is now available in the Marketplace for both PC and Xbox. I don't know if they did stop using their external Accusim for the non-Marketplace version; I haven't checked in my rig.

10 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

However, A2A did something, because the Comanche is now available in the Marketplace for both PC and Xbox. I don't know if they did stop using their external Accusim for the non-Marketplace version; I haven't checked in my rig.

It's still AccuSim, and it's "external" in the sense that it uses in-sim code frameworks (i.e. WASM modules) to implement their overrides and heavy customizations of the core MSFS FDE and systems. Initially on release for the PC the only truly external component was an executable for the sound engine, and now A2A is using the in-sim sound engine so therefore they can get everything onto the marketplace and XBox.
 

Edited February 15, 20242 yr by lwt1971

New update -