In the aircraft list for MSFS 24' there's a HU-16B/G111 by Amphibian Aerospace listed, shows a pic of the classic 60's Grumman HU-16B Albatross, but text says modern Amphibian Aerospace, will 24' have the classic and modern versions ?

Great question!

7 hours ago, jymp said:

 In the aircraft list for MSFS 24' there's a HU-16B/G111 by Amphibian Aerospace listed, shows a pic of the classic 60's Grumman HU-16B Albatross, but text says modern Amphibian Aerospace, will 24' have the classic and modern versions ?

In other cases where there are multiple versions of a default plane in MSFS (XCub/NXCub, DA40 & C172) they have been listed separately so I suspect there will only be the modernised turboprop one.

If that’s true ?, then a shame 

This is an in-sim screenshot so this is what we're getting. The modern Albatross they're making is designated G-111T, this just says G-111.

I'm assuming Amphibian bought the rights to the Albatross, so that's why Asobo has to use their name. Like how IRL the Bombardier CRJ is now the Mitsubishi CRJ

Edited September 21, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

That’s good, rather have the classic version anyway 

On 9/21/2024 at 5:17 AM, jymp said:

 In the aircraft list for MSFS 24' there's a HU-16B/G111 by Amphibian Aerospace listed, shows a pic of the classic 60's Grumman HU-16B Albatross, but text says modern Amphibian Aerospace, will 24' have the classic and modern versions ?

I've test flown both in the last couple of days. The only differences I've been able to spot:

1. The basic airframe and powerplant are the same for both. One is in the livery of a Coast Guard HU-16E, serial number 7399. However, this livery is incomplete: there should be a banner: "COAST GUARD" painted in large black letters both sides of the fuselage, and it isn't on either side. There are some other oddities about the livery than I can't put my finger on, but there is a real HU-16E in Santa Rosa, California at the Pacific Coast Air Museum, #7245 "San Francisco", and there are several elements of the paint job on that aircraft that are missing from the livery of #7399 in the sim. On the interior, the seats are old-style, with low backs, steel tube frames, very Grumman 1950's looking. The flight deck is mostly steam gauges and toggle switches. Both aircraft have Curtis electric propeller hubs, so the pitch control is by a pair of two-way toggle switches, instead of the big pitch control levers I was expecting to see, like you get on the G21 Goose.

2. The first thing you notice about the G111 variant is the lack of the dual 295 gallon drop tanks, This loss of 590 gallons of fuel capacity puts a serious dent in the maximum range of the G111, but on the interior, you get a glass-cockpit flight deck. The livery is ambiguous - I assume this aircraft's livery was modelled after a G111 in private ownership somewhere; it doesn't seem like a Military livery.

The interior passenger cabins of both of these aircraft, behind the flight deck, are the same: nicely textured and accurately modelled; mostly empty space, but you can really see that the Albatross is way bigger than the G21 Goose.

They are both fun to fly, and easy to operate off land or water. Very good visibility out of the pilot's seat, but be sure to use the noise-cancelling Headphone Simulation option; those two R-1820's just a few feet away are deafeningly loud. There is a switch on the panel labelled "Anchor Light", and the real Albatross did in fact carry an anchor, as did it's smaller nestmate the G21 Goose, but as far as I could tell, there's no actual anchor in the sim model. This could be significant if you land on the water, in a lake or river for example, and there's some wind blowing; the aircraft will drift downwind if you've shut it down to go exploring "on foot" - a passtime that actually means something in FS2024 with it's stunning ground and vegtation texturing.

Edited November 26, 20241 yr by lgcharlot

@lgcharlot Thank you very much for your nice writeup on the Albatrosses.

A couple of quick notes regarding your observations...

1. The white and red livery for the HU-16E was loosely based on a real privately owned aircraft livery, which in turn was a former coast guard airframe, and its livery retained most of the coast guard's original style. However, since this aircraft was initially photographed for reference material it has since been sold and repainted and refurnished, oddly enough. I really wanted to use the actual US Coast Guard livery, as well as a couple of other military ones, but unfortunately it just wasn't possible to license them. MS really tried. The liveries included with 1st party planes must be licensed or fictional.

2. The two private liveries on the G-111 are fictional, but loosely based on real world ones.

Anchoring is something I plan to look into later on, if time allows, but I suspect it may eventually be added as a native sim function at some point down the road. Hope so anyway.

Regarding prior questions about the G-111 vs G-111T. The G-111 airframes were HU-16s refurbished by Grumman in the early 80s and converted to use as regional airliners. 53 were planned but only 13 completed, all of which went to Chalk Airlines. When they folded most of the G-111s were mothballed in Arizona, but a few were sold to private buyers. The G-111T is the new turbine version that Amphibian Aerospace in Australia intends to produce. They purchased the trademark and production rights from Grumman, and they have a design, but are still developing their first prototype based on a refurbished HU16. I think the first flight is still at least a couple of years away.

 

Cheers!

-Mike

 

Edited November 26, 20241 yr by Ramasurinen

@Ramasurinen I haven't yet got MSFS2024, but the Albatross is one of the aircraft I look forward to most.  I notice what was said about the lack of drop tanks on the G111: with its amphibious capability, and glass cockpit, this G111 is perfect for world tours. Would it be possible to add those drop tanks to the G111, please ?

@Paul K Added to the wishlist for a future update. Cheers.

7 hours ago, Ramasurinen said:

@Paul K Added to the wishlist for a future update. Cheers.

Thank you, Mike. 😊

For all of you who loved flying the SA-16/HU-16 in FSX, and have been eagerly looking forward to flying the new version in FS2024, I have a real-world story to tell about this airplane. Back in the 1990's, I was working for CalTrans Office of Structure Design as a drafting tech, and had a co-worker who had been in the USAF from 1950 to 1972, retiring as a Major. After basic basic pilot training, he got an opportunity to train in the SA-16A as a SAR (Search and Rescue) pilot. This training was in Florida, and the students flew the aircraft out of a base near Lake Okeechobee, using that base to train in landing and taking off from water (the lake was great for training because it was almost always calm, and being a freshwater lake, the aircraft were not exposed to as much saltwater corrosion). After graduation, he was posted to a SAR squadron in southern Greenland, at Narsarsuaq AB; this base had been built in 1942 and was first called "Bluie West 1". The specific mission for this squadron was to respond to emergency ditchings of USAF or US Navy aircraft flying between St. John's or Gander in Newfoundland, and Kevlavik or Reykjavik in Iceland. Fighter jets being deployed to England or Germany, or returning to the States from Europe for factory repairs or modifications, would be loaded up with ferry tanks, and make these flights on their own - my friend told me that land-based Air Force fighters were not designed or equipped to be transported as deck cargo on a ship, although that seemed to me to be a safer and less risky way to move a fighter between North America and Europe. It was risky for the pilots, as there was always the possibility of a catastrophic mechanical failure that might make the aircraft unflyable, in which case the pilot would have to ditch, or bail out and parachute into the water. But this was the height of the Cold War, and military aircraft needed to get wherever they were needed as quickly as possible. So pilots were tasked to fly the planes across the North Atlantic as long as the weather wasn't unacceptably bad. An emergency ditching never actually happened during the 2 years that my friend was in that squadron at Narsarsuaq (1953-1954), but they trained several times every month, whenever ferry flights were passing by southern Greenland, to fly the 100 mile long fjord between the coast and the air base, in every kind of weather including zero-visibility dense fog, knowing that there were 3,600 foot mountains on both sides of the fjord waiting to claw them out of the sky if the flight crew made a navigation error. They would then patrol along the route of the ferry flights, just in case. In theory, the SA-16 could land and take off again in waves up to 10 feet high, but my friend told me that the roughest sea conditions he ever actually landed in were 5 foot high, long period swells, and the plane was barely able to get back in the air without being battered to pieces. In the North Atlantic, the weather and sea conditions are hardly ever less than "very rough", and my friend told me that the chances of actually being able to get to and rescue a downed fighter pilot before he died of exposure or drowned in that freezing cold water were slim, but the effort had to be made.

So any time you fly the HU-16 in FS24, maybe you'll remember this little story, and it will add something to your appreciation of the effort Asobo's developers put into creating this sim model.