Best flight model after A2A ?

[sloppysmusic 299]

1 hour ago, s0cks said:

Yeah, the British RAF used the Flying Iron Spit on MSFS to train their pilots to fly their vintage Spitfires. They gave some feedback to FI too, who then updated their version, so it should be very very good.

I saw that video! YouTube at its finest. No razzmatazz just great little segment. 

[Orlaam 319]

This is a rather subjective query.  I'm not particularly fond of the Comanche flight dynamics.  In moderate winds (~5 knots), she takes off and lands decently.  Yet, regardless of the wind, you have a strange pitch sensitivity I've never been able to rid myself of.  It just becomes too unstable at slow speeds and the flare is a pitchy fail almost every time.  I can take out a number of other add-ons and produce a smooth flare to idle and touchdown about 85% of the time.  The Comanche lands this way about 30% of the time for me.  Throw in a little too much wind >10 knots, and the Comanche is not very enjoyable to fly at all.

Now, I really enjoy most Black Square add-ons.  The Caravan is probably the most stable.  It lifts off the runway very gracefully and swims through the air so well.  It has an excellent view from the driver's seat and lands very nicely.  It offers oxygen and high altitude capability, with the ability to handle more ice than others.  The only reason someone would maybe dislike the Caravan is the speed is pretty slow.  It's faster than the Comanche, but still on the slow side.

The other Black Square are almost as stable, but a tiny bit lighter on the controls.  The TBM and King Air are a handful with more buttons and busy work, but they hand-fly every well.  They don't offer very good visibility, but the King Air offers more forward and the TBM more side window.  Both handle a decent amount of icing and can fly fast and high.  The Baron and Bonanza are rather similar in feel and overall systems.  The Baron is a twin, but it essentially a Bonanza in the cockpit.  They are the lightest in feel, and while stable, they can be a bit more twitchy.  I really like the Baron, but I seem to always have issues with it.  The cabin pressurization is very temperamental, as is the cockpit temp.  You can be at 75 degree, drop to 65 and two clicks on the heat lever puts you at 80.  I have a fair amount of cabin pressure deviations as well, but no other plane I've ever had does this.  Stay in the lower altitudes and the Baron is a great bird.  The Bonanza is great but the simplest of the bunch.  It can climb rather high as well, but it is not pressurized and won't like icing.  

The HondaJet, or HJet.  This plane lands and hand-flies very well.  It's an all glass panel however, so if you aren't wanting glass then you might not like it.  It's newer style means very little button pushing or adjusting for pre-flight.  Setup the displays, FMC/flight plan, and start the engines.  Even the exterior lights and most anti-ice is automatic.  It lands very well and is stable on final.  Call-outs on final above the threshold down to 10 ease the flare a bit.  Takeoff in the HJet is a twitchy little mess sometimes.  You kinda have to excel past VR and slowly pull the yoke back.  Otherwise you run the risk of "unsticking" from the ground popping into the air with an unstable, unrealistic pitch.  IOW, takeoff is not an assist to flight moment, rather a dance with the controls.  You get used to it, but it's kinda annoying.  It's also a bit weird about speed.  You never know what cruise speed will be acceptable.  You set .72 on the cruise page in the FMC and you'll overspeed if you aren't at least in the 30,000 range.  It offers no overspeed protection, which I find odd.  It's an autothrottle-operated bird.  You can turn the AT off.  It's also a bit of a slow climber too.  Once in the 20,000 foot range you'll be at about 1,000 FPM until the top of climb. 

That brings me to the default business jets.  The Longitude and CJ4 are very nice.  In many ways, short of some payware features you find on the HJet, they hand-fly better than the HJet and are both really easy to land.  The CJ4 seems to offer a slower Vref and on final she almost flies herself.  You can trim the plane so well and take your hand off the yoke.  None of the constant trimming you find in something like the Comanche.  Some of the other default planes seem to attract folks, but aside from the Cessna 172, I haven't found any others appealing enough to even open. The Cessna 172 hand-flies good and lands well, but the trim is a bit sketchy.  Just Flight offer an enhancement to the default gauge equipped 172.  The same folks to enhanced the 152, WB-Sim.  I'm pretty sure they are both very good. 

If you are looking at airlines, the PMDG and Fenix are both great. The Fenix, being an Airbus, is operated differently with a side-stick.  Being FBW makes her a lot different to learn.  Landing can be a challenge IMO.  The PMDG is a lot easier to land, but I find the -800/900 the best for stability.  They takeoff really well and are easy to land.  The 700 is a bit too twitchy.  All of the PMDG aircraft have horrible ground handling and twitchy LNAV behavior.  I get a lot of panel freezes with the PMDG too.  In terms of bugs, I find the PMDG to be the worst.

I hear the Blackbird C310, Flysimware C414, Flysimware L35, FSS E-Jets, inibuilds A300, and FSReborn M500 all have great flight models.  I've never tried them, and some of them have things that put me off.  The FSS E-Jets, for example, are not complete.  The only thing I can see myself buying before MSFS 2024 are the Black Square Duke's and Fenix A319/A321.  So you can see, my opinion on GA is Black Square wins in the overall flight model, visuals, and experience award from me.  The A2A Comanche is very pretty, has incredible sounds, and is most realistic, but their flight model is a turn off for me.  If they could make it a little more stable (e.g., not shifting all over the runway or tipping in 10 knots, not bouncing up and down like a boat in rough water at 30 feet), then I would love it.

And again, these are my perspectives on a variety of add-ons with MY hardware.  A different yoke or controller could change how I feel about all these products.  When I from CH Yoke to Thrustmaster Boeing Yoke, it was night and day.  Planes that were awful to control were now handling much better and realistically.

Edited April 29 by Orlaam

[JBDB-MD80 1,487]

I would not know but.?

 

 

[precog 103]

Comanche for me has the best flight model out of the GA planes I've tried.  Wouldn't recommend the fsr500 for hand flying...I find it very twitchy in pitch 

[History 47]

ALL CAPTAIN SIM PRODUCTS

[Bobsk8 12,863]

4 hours ago, Orlaam said:

 

If you are looking at airlines, the PMDG and Fenix are both great. The Fenix, being an Airbus, is operated differently with a side-stick.  Being FBW makes her a lot different to learn.  Landing can be a challenge IMO.  The PMDG is a lot easier to land, but I find the -800/900 the best for stability.  They takeoff really well and are easy to land.  The 700 is a bit too twitchy.  All of the PMDG aircraft have horrible ground handling and twitchy LNAV behavior.  I get a lot of panel freezes with the PMDG too.  In terms of bugs, I find the PMDG to be the worst.

I

I have been flying the Fenix allot lately, also  flying the PMDG too. I find the opposite. The PMDG always flies well, and zero problems. Seems to do everything well. The Fenix on the other hand, seems to have bugs that crop up every so often. In the last couple of weeks, fault lights on engine de-ice come on during pre flight, AC ESS fault light on, can't extinguish ( seen by other users per Discord) ,  PFD lighting  is dim at the top of display especially on a sunny day( Fenix says they are aware of this per their tech support), Fenix has problems on takeoff maintaining runway centerline ( Fenix says this will be fixed soon), I never had a Freeze with the PMDG, but I have had to restart Fenix flights a few times, due to erratic behavior. Nailing the Centerline on takeoff with the 737 is a piece of cake. Landing the 737 is much more consistent than the A 320. . I use Lnav on both aircraft, and in well over 1,000 flights, have had no problems with either one. 

Edited April 29 by Bobsk8

[Ron Lefebvre 127]

Cessna 414

TBM850

BAE146 

Depending if you want to stay small or bigger

[sloppysmusic 299]

7 minutes ago, Ron Lefebvre said:

Depending if you want to stay small or bigger

THIS and also prefer A/P or manual? Magenta lnav vs vor/dme? Autothrottle vs seat of pants?

If you want to do all of these and don't mind a jet then the PMDG 737-600 is my all time favourite plane for any runways over 3000ft. It's dirt cheap for what you get (35USD) and it hand flies well even completely manually. If you're tired you can just import a simbrief plan and take off enjoy the view or plan your own route and use the fms with or without smartphone CDU remote operation. Flying VOR/DME/ADF is very easy too as the displays are huge for that purpose and you have 2 of them to monitor during changeover radials. It will of course autoland ILS and RNAV_Lv/Gs approaches as its Cat III or you can take over the flare yourself.

In clear conditions I turn AP off at 1000 and A/T off at 500. Very stable plane. 

I also regularly fly it completely manual, no AP or AT at all. Short sight seeing hops are fun and you can install the included STOL package that will get you in and out of 2000ft runways including grass (!) IF you fly light and prep well. 

If you have a good audio system or quality headphones with good bass the engine sounds are superb so hand flying a descent with manual AT gets the hairs on your neck sticking up until you get that baby down safely. Sound during TOGA especially gets the adrenaline flowing.

That might sound like a commercial for PMDG lol but I've been through the FCOM and QRH manuals for this plane in FSX and MSFS (sadly not included anymore but you can easily find them online) and EVERYTHING works as the Boeing books say it should.

It will go fast and high with those big engines on a plane with a wingspan wider than the plane is long. 

[lwt1971 7,457]

I would also add to this list the default Cessna Citation Longitude and SR22T for those have the Premium Deluxe version of MSFS. Working Title really did a stellar job on reworking these to higher fidelity, both FM and systems/avionics wise.

And definitely agree re: the Milviz C310 too.
 

[Lonesome Cowboy Burt 174]

No idea about the big stuff as the biggest thing I've flown irl is an An2, but in the small  light end of the scale thenin my opinion the default savage Cub and the Husky are as close to something like a realistic FM as any of the 3rd party stuff I've tried (and I've tried a lot)

[sd_flyer 6,091]

17 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Any thoughts on the COWS DA42?

It's pretty good, but seems like developer doesn't wont to go further into the world of "tear and wear", tablets, "maintenance" and etc like A2A

I think BS Duke should feel the void of A2A quality aircraft with good useful load, range and two engines 🙂 

[Purr 125]

Yes about the duke, I imagine they will release asap after su15 dropa6….gosh I sure hope no more delays

[UrgentSiesta 942]

23 hours ago, sniper31 said:

What about the new JF PA-38 Tomahawk that was just released? It has very similar features to A2A's Comanche, to include a walk around inspection. I can't believe no one has mentioned it yet 😊

JF isn't known for their flight models.

3D? Yes. 

Systems? Yes.

Flight model? Meh.

--- at least on the handful I own.

[Aglos77 181]

Thank you for all the answers 

Mainly what I am looking for is flight model as realistic as possible, things like maintenance etc are welcome but also not the main thing for me I can live without it in the end.

[qqwertz 799]

12 minutes ago, Aglos77 said:

Thank you for all the answers 

Mainly what I am looking for is flight model as realistic as possible, things like maintenance etc are welcome but also not the main thing for me I can live without it in the end.

The flight model is important, but I would recommend looking for state preservation as well. If you know that your sloppy way of shutting the airplane down will bite you further down the road, you may pay much more attention to what you are doing. That's why I love the Comanche and the 310R, they really change the way I fly.