Hi,
I posted that I'd just got it on the "aircraft" thread but I'll give my impressions here. Most of the earlier reported bugs seem to have been fixed and it's pretty much bang on the numbers with regard to speeds, weights and generally really nice to fly. It looks amazing! Virtually no documentation with it at all so have used the default Beaver & Goose refs to get an idea of MP & RPMs to use for takeoff cruise etc. Seems to work fine.
6 x classic liveries, including plain white, overall red, white with red stripes, silver with white stripes, blue with yellow wings, yellow with black stripes. The interior looks as if it were brand new with piano-black yoke and photo-real textures/materials and wood panelling - it's so good you can almost smell it!
Yes, the sound of the engine
does increase as you pull back the prop control, and it speeds up, but I read on another forum that this
is correct? (Have had this experience with some other aircraft too. No probs).
As I haven't flown a real one (I wish!!!!), it will run out of up elevator trim on approach but only light back pressure needed and it usually makes a beautiful touchdown (no groundloops or even close - have yet to try a crosswind). Can't comment on the fuel flow as that's really hard to find the info but seems a bit "economical". Max cruise is around 174 kts and flat out she'll do 184. (The figures they provide are correct in kts and mph).
Only one door as an openable feature, which is a real shame, as the cowlings and luggage compartment look as if they
could open. Sounds seem pretty close to the real one I saw flying at Ardmore several years ago (ZK-AMU), no longer on NZ shores
You have to hand-fly this bird, no GPS or autopilot, but a quick edit of the config and panel, I pasted in from the default C172 - now this may have caused it to start shaking at around 140 - 150 kias, but turned down the the pitch stability to 0.6 from 1.0 and no problem (and it doesn't appear to have affected the handling (which is real nice).
On final or taxying, you may want to crank your seat/eyepoint view up so you can see over the nose in the VC.
I haven't been able to get it to it's claimed service ceiling of 25,000 feet - it "staggers" pun intended
- to get much past 17,000 feet, and that's with the cruise lift scalar increased to 1.2. May have a bit more of a tweak with it (and throw out my passengers and fuel). For slightly over NZ$25, I love it. Frame rates are great even on less powerful machines.
My biggest complaint which may be NZ servers rather than Alabeo: I had to download it 4 x. The first few times it just stopped on about 98 % but the Alabeo people were very cool and adjusted my account back each time as it effectively only downloaded correctly ONCE. (You get 3 x downloads). Whatever you do, don't use a third party download manager. Have had the same experience downloading Carenado planes directly too but when I purchased them from Flight 1 instead, no problem.
All in all, very satisfied customer here - I love it! (And it looks gobsmacking beautiful!)
Regards to all, and will try and provide some screen grabs shortly
KiwiElf
PS - re the
engine shutting down twice, sometimes I get this with
most of my prop planes, including the default ones! Could be an FSX or graphic card bug rather than a fault of the model.
.. least you can talk about it 
