Anyone tried it yet? Interested to hear any first impressions.

simMarket: KWIKFLIGHT BONE MSFS20

 

Would be interesting if it modeled the terrain following radar, but see no mention of it.

Inibuilds didn’t make this, they’re just the publishers 

Edited November 1, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

3 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

Inibuilds didn’t make this, they’re just the publishers 

Thanks

It's probably more of a visual collectors item than a Hi Fi add-on.

From the trailer, it seems to have the basic systems covered for A to B flights and such.

That said, it's also the best Bone in the game, so...

It's not going to be Fenix systems for the price but it honestly looks really good.  The cockpit looks really quite accurate.  Looks like they may have used the PL21 as a background for their CDU - works for me honestly.  The B1 is such a beautiful plane.  It did a surprise flyby when I was at OSH this year.

I'd skip the spooky liveries lol but the rest looks great.  And I noticed the end of the trailer said compatibility for msfs 2024.

I bought it and I think I had mistaken it for the B-2. Anyway, at $27 usd, I was eager to try it out and  this is my first impression of it after about an hour introductory flight. it's very pleasant to fly. Can't vouch for the accuracy of the sounds, but they are loud.😱   Overall it looks very good, inside and out. Systems depth is a little shallow. The panel really looks good, unfortunately, few click spots. I did enjoy hand flying it for awhile and as long as your speed is up, very benign and gentle. It cruises nicely and responds quickly to gentle nudges on the yoke. The "FMS" is simple, basic, but is most adequate. One doesn't get confused and dragged down with a lot of minutia. Easily create flight plan in the cockpit or it will auto-insert from the World Interface. I didn't see any means for loading a OFP though. As UrgentSiesta suggested it does track a route from A to B, very nicely I might add. I had it track a magenta line with 120 degree switch back and came upon the intersection quickly without realizing I was traveling almost 500 kts. It just rolled the wings over and only overshot it slightly but quickly recovered and re-established on track. Holds the APP with LOC and GS as long as your speed is up.. ~170 kts. If your speed drops below 140-ish, expect serious issues. Elevator effectiveness disappears about 120-130. Sometimes AB in the engines might save it, but if you're below 5k', it's iffy. A couple of times I found myself slewing up to over 5K' to recover. Overall, I'll have a lot of fun with it. The manual is very sparse. Has a few pictures, with descriptions and little documentation on system ops. Saw no mention of opening bomb bay doors. The crew hatch is closed by operating the inflight refueling door. 🥺 It could be improved and hopefully the developer will enhance some of these features. Would be great if we could use Touching Clouds Air Show Assistant and do some InFlight Refueling.😄

      Couldn't assign a key to wing sweep.. slight inconvenience. The engine start sequence was a little peculiar, but perhaps that was due to my being unfamiliar. Took a couple flicks of the starter switch from Off-Start-Run to energize the starters. CTRL-E does work if all else fails. TFR? nope, don't think so. I have the Typhoon and that beast will track 300' off the deck. Haven't really tried the B-one in TFR, but no mention in the "manual" and there are no click spots on the control head in the cockpit. The manual states that it cruises at 400kts, but I was screaming down the valley at over 630 kts 4500'. Inching up towards Mach whole number. I didn't hang in there long enough to determine if it would reach it..(I was approaching that 120 degree intersection mentioned above.)

If it was $20, it'd be a no-brainer. Personally, I won't quibble over the difference. I will get a lot of use  out of it. It goes very nicely. It "feels" big and heavy, not like the FBW AB380 that released today; but at least somewhat believable. Slowing down from 600 kts didn't seem realistic; as with the throttles at idle, I traveled about thirty miles to get down to 250 kts. OTOH, once touching down, seems the auto brakes, or invisible drogue chute brought that beast down from 130 kts to 50 kts in really short order. 

Again, the developer has done a very nice job modeling the cockpit. It's clear, believable and looks very good. Just disappointing that one can't interface with many systems. The essential ones get the job done and the sight picture out of the cockpit is very good without any blind spots and a good view of the PFD and ND.  Looking forward to spending more time with this AC and the 380 well until after MS2024 releases. 

 

1 hour ago, simtech209 said:

  Looking forward to spending more time with this AC and the 380 well until after MS2024 releases. 

 

Thanks!! for taking the time to write up your thoughts. Believe I will go ahead and check it out.

Thanks for your review; apparently, it seems much better than the Virtavia one.

I was a B-1B mechanic who got to fly in the DSO spot, I'll see what's up.  I'm not hopeful given their B-2.

2 hours ago, aniiran said:

I was a B-1B mechanic who got to fly in the DSO spot, I'll see what's up.  I'm not hopeful given their B-2.

I’m gonna get this now based upon the excellent write up above.  For B-2?  The is only one and one alone, Top Mach.

-B

Just a quick update after spending another couple hours with Kwikflight's B-one. Really having a lot of fun with it. The lack of system depth does mean one gets into the air quicker. 😅 I flew several approaches by hand and via AP. They were vanilla LOC-GS, VOR-VOR and Direct-GPS. All were very capable and accurate . I think this model might be little overpowered for the purist, but man, it' s fun  screaming along M 1.3. Pull the AB's off and it cooks along M .94.  One can cover a lot of ground at that rate. Atlas, there seems to be no TFR capability, yet. The control boxes are there, but non functional at this time. This is a very stable platform and a pleasure to fly. The engine sounds are there, but not being familiar with RL B-1, can't attest to their accuracy. But the startup whine and light off is present as well as the shutdown howl. Looking forward to trying high altitude long distance flight. Should be a good experience. 😊

In the interest of transparency, I discovered a youtuber who has a more critical review. Check his channel out and then decide for yourselves if this is a product you'd want to invest in. He's correct on many points. As I mentioned, its price point is too high for what one normally gets in MSFS. I don't feel angry about the purchase, just disappointed at the system depth for the price.  Here are the links to his review and the comments from the developer after the review posted. Caveat Emptor

https://youtu.be/j8EEMKzPnZg?si=YETCAtLj8gD80256

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1iCrridjPk

3 hours ago, simtech209 said:

In the interest of transparency, I discovered a youtuber who has a more critical review.

When someone uses the words "It's not acceptable!" they start emitting Karen vibes.

When someone uses the words "It's not acceptable!" for a bug that's likely going to be corrected really quickly, they lose me entirely.

Edited November 2, 20241 yr by Abriael

Okay, I want to give this a fair and balanced look so I took some time with it.  This is from the perspective of someone who has spent 4 years around these aircraft as a maintainer and even got to fly as the DSO, it was boring and there is only one little window to look out of, but I won't go into that.  From my point of view I am only interested in this as a good realistic representation of the B-1,  If you think the F-16 by SC Designs is a good airplane then what I have to say will not sit well with you. 

First the good things.  

1. The modeling is hi-res and accurate, i.e no hexagons for circles and the model looks very true to the real thing.  The engines specifically look fantastic. It also has the counter measures at the rear of the aircraft correctly modeled.

2.  The texturing is very good, I'm assuming 4k because it looks good up close but not stellar like an 8k texture.  PBR materials are correct and look believable. The textures of real airplanes look good and accurate. The skin of the aircraft has a realistic and 3D look. The cockpit feels like the airplane, there's no glaring lazy x-box/asobifacation.  There is some but it's hidden a bit in the menus.  

3. The plane flies ok and has no glaring defects like, bad ground handling, pitching up and down violently and crashing, no really weird behaviors that I saw during my testing. FMC works, ILS works. It feels a little heavy and very lethargic.  It acts a little strange on landing and take off but it's not horrible.  I found my self trimming the elevators a lot.

Now the not so good:

1. Very few custom animations or features.  I knew this would be a screenshot airplane but I was hoping for something a little more than just being able to extend the wings and the flaps and open the entry. For the same price Captain sim would at least give you cutesy things like opening engine cowlings and all the doors, but alas no, the bomb bay doors don't open to reveal a rotary launcher or a CBM or 10 by, nothing.  And there is no reason that could not have been modeled without the bombs on the racks. Hell they did not even do engine covers or chocks or remove before flight tags and covers. No pods, no external pylons. Nothing that made me say "oh that's neat they modeled that."

2. None of the systems that make the B-1B cool work.  The refueling door doesn't open, none of the terrain following or avoidance stuff works the SMCS vanes aren't animated. The DSO and OSO stations are not model at all. There is no EFB to control things like you would find in even LVFR quality aircraft for the same price. So no weight and balance or anything like that.

3. Where it really falls apart: The flight dynamics don't feel like a B1B.  I was curious how the wing sweep would be modeled, and the answer is not well.  Basically, above 300 knots you can do whatever you want with the wings and below 300 kts the wings will automatically sweep forward to 15 degrees.  So, yeah not realistic. There doesn't seem to be any ill effect to CG for sweeping the wings too heavy or too slow of airspeed. you can also put the flaps out with the wings swept at 67.5 degrees.  Eventually, the plane does auto-sweep forward to 15 degrees once it slows below 300kts.  The wings should be able to sweep below 300kts below FL200. Not all the way to 67.5 degrees, but 30 degrees should be fine. I've seen them land with wings swept back at 30  before. They tend to cruise and refuel at 25-30 degrees. With wings swept full back or pinned it feels more like a A320 than a F-14. It should be able to do a full aileron roll in 5 secs. but the kwikflight B-1 takes 12 seconds and you can't keep the nose level under any circumstances, the elevators have little authority and it makes low level flying feel nothing like the real thing. 

Here's some screen shots.  Top view, PRB looks good, panels are accurate, modeling is great.

I especially liked the detail at the back of the plane, Counter measures, tow decoy bays. Engines look great.

The cockpit looks convincing just don't try flipping switches.  You'll be going nope, nope, nope, nope, that one works, nope, nope, nope surely this one, nope nope okay, none of that does anything.  

Woah it looks like they did the OSO and DSO station lets, just get back there and look at it. nope huh um hmm, okay 

Drone camera time.... and...nope that's why I can't get back there. 

Okay let's go back outside then.  The ladder and front gear look nice, I still think they could have done chocks and covers at a minimum.

Flaps and Slats look pretty good.

Look at the detail in those engines tho, they are animated properly based on throttle position.

Looks tidy high off the ground but don't try low speed canyon carving.

But let's be honest this will just be a screenshot machine for this scene. Oh yeah it also takes off in a weird flat attitude when lightly loaded.

So my opinion is: Not worth $25 bucks to me. Virtavia I took one look at and said no way, so this is better than that.  This is basically for screenshots, don't expect anything beyond that.  I am disappointed, this is my first and last kwikflight purchase. But hey I should have known by the flaming neon jack-o-lantern livery this would be cartoony and bad.  However, I am disappointed that iniBuilds is willing to put their name on this by backing this developer. I would be a little more happy with it if it flew like a B-1 but it flies like an a320. Like I said, if you are happy the SC/DC designs F-16 or F-15, you might like this.  This is not on the level of IndiaFoxTecho and no where near Heatblur.  

 

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by aniiran
I swear English is my first language