Captain Sim - SPAD S.XIII - Released

Probably marketplace in a week or so.

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This honestly looks really good.

Does it have a cockpit?

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I loved flying it in Rise of Flight.

Honestly, this looks great and First World War aircraft are very under represented.

I bought it, going to give it a try now.

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it’s captainsim, I wouldn’t expect much.

Curious to see how this one is. I know Captain Sim doesn’t have a good reputation, but it looks lovely and as long as it flies and sounds alright, the price is fair. No word on custom sounds so I’m assuming it might be using stock Asobo sounds.

I took a brief flight with it. Visually it’s quite nice. The sounds seem anemic but acceptable. It has a cockpit and the modeling and texturing is quite nice, all the gauges seem to work though I’m not sure what some of them represent which brings me to my biggest gripe, there’s no manual included which would help with a plane that’s labeled in French. As for the flight model I don’t really know much about the real life counterpart so I can’t do a fair comparison, but it does fly nice and can’t really taxi due to the tail skid, so that’s accurate. There’s a clipboard with some visual options but I didn’t really mess with them. Overall I’d say I’m happy with it and don’t regret buying it.

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There is a manual on the Sim Ops area of the CS website:
https://captainsim.net/products/i005/sops/

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Perfect, thanks!

Thanks for reporting back! It’ll stay on my “to buy list” or really my “to buy when it’s supported in FS2024” list which is what my to-buy list will become as soon as FS2024 is out :slight_smile:

So I just purchased it. Model is great! Detail is great in the cockpit and in systems. Sounds? Sounds pretty much just like Rhinebeck’s Spad VII, which is powered by a “modern 150 HP Lycoming 0-320-E2D engine”.

I’ve only flown it a couple of minutes, but, what I did seemed fine to me (RWP here, but of the Piper/Cessna variety).

Biggest issues I have is the trailing edge of the wings, it’s wayy too thick. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for so many modelers. Maybe it’s a rendering issue with textures so close to each other if it were to come to a point? Also, would be nice to be able to whip it around in the grass as you can see in the video below.

A couple of images of Rhinebeck’s Spad VII replica at the American Heritage museum in September 2022, we got to see it fly…

Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase.

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@FlyingsCool5650 very nice video and pictures. I always had a soft spot for the Spad fighters, I think they are among the prettiest WWI fighters.

The Hispano Suiza 8 engine has quite a unique sound. There is one original Spad XIII flying in France with its original engine, restored and operated by the Memorial Flight. Here are a couple of videos of it:

This video also includes quite a few onboard shots:

As far as I know there is only one other airworthy Spad XIII with an original Hisso engine. It’s a perfect reproduction that was build for Javier Arango, who had a huge collection of WWI planes based in California. He sadly had a fatal accident in his Nieuport 28 in 2017 and I don’t know what happened to his collection (apart from his Camel and Bleriot that got donated to the Smithsonian.


I think the CaptainSim Spad uses the OX-5 soundset of the Curtiss Jenny. It’s not perfect, but I think for a ~13 USD plane it’s close enough =)

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Here is a quick video I made with the Captain Sim SPAD doing some aerobatics. Hopefully it can serve as a first impression and give an idea of the flight model:

I think it has a lot of potential. Overall, it looks fantastic, just the wings are a bit to thick. The flight model is enjoyable but could use a bit of tweaking. I think the aircraft should be more unstable overall, especially in yaw. At the moment it doesn’t require a lot of rudder use. I also think that the elevator could use a bit of adjusting. When compared to the Rise of Flight version of the Spad or looking at the few contemporary aircraft that perform aerobatics today the elevator doesn’t seem to be very effective. For the loops in this video, I had to use full back elevator, in comparison in Rise of Flight that would cause an accelerated stall.

The engine also could use quite a bit of tweaking, depending on the version of the Hispano-Suiza 8 engine the max rpm should be at 1900-2300 rpm, the sim version is currently at around 1500-1700 rpm. The oil temperature also seems to rise way too quickly, even at a power setting of around 70-75% and fully opened cowl flaps, the temperature will climb into the red.

So, overall, I would say the Spad has a lot of potential, with tweaks to the flight model and engine behavior it could be fantastic. As it is now, it’s a fun and especially for the price nice addition to the sim.

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At one point the Collings were hoping to aquire the Arango collection. They had a museum wing all designed for it. Unfortunately the deal fell through.

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Thanks for the info! That would have been a great acquisition and would have made sure these awesome aircraft were made accessible to the public. I really hope they end up somewhere where they will be kept airworthy and shared with the public.

I’ll ask. We’re already on to the next museum layout, including over 60 aircraft from 1909 to the present (and a full size Vin Fizz Wright flyer replica). And that’s just what’ll be on the floor. And including a replica of a WWII English Pub serving beer and wine (with the Green Man’s WWII era bar as its centerpiece), a portion of Biggin Hill’s ready shack, possibly a Watch Office (British WWII Control Tower) replica or real thing, and many other artifacts. This is on top of their current museum. They’ll be looking for donations shortly… In fact I believe they just acquired a SPAD (to keep this on topic), they weren’t sure they’d get one…

The provenance on their collection is pretty astounding.
Yes that’s an active (very private) runway page south of the building, running next to the Assabet river. The page west building and page north building are the current museum. The page south wing is what’s currently proposed (although Rob keeps changing it, lol)

So, yes, I created a scenery around their current museum and this is where I fly the SPAD.

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Awesome, thank you for the great infos! I’ve been following the Collings Foundation for many years so it’s awesome to get so many interesting insides =) The proposed plan looks fantastic! I really hope I’ll be able to visit the museum one day.

Fantastic news on the SPAD! Do you know if it’ll be restored to flight by Mikael Carlson too? His craftman- and airmanship are second to none, he is a true aviator. I got to see him many times with his Fokker Dr.I, D.VII and Bleriots and his displays are always the highlight of the show. I was quite shocked to see his accident with the Nieuport, he rebuild for the Foundation, last year. The impact looked quite hard and the first videos were published before his condition was made public. Really glad he got away unhurt.