I also have no issues trimming out this delightful little 172. It does fly a bit lighter than other 172s we have and especially vs the various 182s but that’s to be expected. It gives me the feel-good of the 172C I used to fly and it gets a recommendation from me for sure.
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Well, I wasn’t going to, but I did bite the bullet and pick up this little plane… here are my thoughts…
Let me preface this by saying that I am 172 pilot (working on my instructor rating), and have flown this exact model many times, both for training and cross country adventures. The real-world aircraft is a delight to fly and always gives me a both a sense of nostalgia and like Im driving a classic car.
While the model is well done, and I will not repeat was others have said about the external and internal modeling, I found sitting in VR gave me a quick smile thinking back to flying JHG (unfortunately the engine needed an overhaul and I have been unable to fly it recently).
The flight model on the other hand…. Needs some serious improvments:
Takeoff roll — I’m not sure if this is a Caranado thing (same thing in the 210), but the aircraft pulls to the right and requires left rudder to control…. This is wrong and counter to both physics and real left turning tendencies of clockwise (pilots view) rotating propellers (Torque and Slipstream).
Takeoff — While caranado again fails to provide any documentation, I do have a copy of the 172 POH that I fly, and Vr seemed about right.
Climbout — Vy should be around 80 miles, with a nose up attitude about level with the horizon, but I found that I needed to quite nose high to hit that airspeed.
Level off and straight and level flight — Leveling off was as expected, Attitude, Power, Trim, of course trimming in the sim has its own quirks, but overall maintaining alt once trimmed worked as expected. I did not configure for Range and Endurance as I was more interested in testing some other maneuvers. I may follow up at a later date.
Turns — turns were as expected, and even noticed some adverse yaw due to aileron drag, although I need to really get a good test of that.
Slow flight — Entering slow flight was as expected, which was a nice surprise, and I was able to maintain my altitude with power and speed with pitch. Recovery, IMHO a little too rapid and didn’t require as much forward pressure on the controls as I would have expected in the actual aircraft.
Stalls — This is where things started to fall apart…. Has anyone been able to hear the Stall Horn? Either way without the stall horn, no mater how coordinated I was in the stall, I (like everyone else) experienced the over exaggerated nose drop…. WOW, not real at all, needed to immdiated conduct a spin recovery. Tried this a few times, and I am so disappointed.
Spins — entry into the spin was unplanned for the first few…. Once planed, I let the aircraft get into a fully developed spin before recovering, recovery was not as rapid as it should have been, and in the real aircraft, just letting go of the controls will stop the autorotation.
Slips — both side and forward slips were as expected, although I didn’t see any errors in the ASI as a result of the slip.
Best Glide — At 80 mph, with a decent rate of about 700fpm, is about what you should get in a 172.
Approach and Landing — I planned my approach at 70 mph (IAW the POH) and pulled the power once landing was assured, unfortunately the SIM does not do Ground Effect very well, so the landing was a little rougher than normal, but this is a sim thing. Hover ever, the crosswind landing I did next, felt as if I needed to overcorrect, which resulted in a little bit of a wheelbarrow.
Overall, for the price you get a fairly decent aircraft. I need to do some more flight with my POH in had, to see how close to the numbers it is, but so far this is a nice little cruiser if your looking for some nostalgic flying, and something other than the modern 172. The stall characteristics of this mode, means you need to really careful when approaching the stall speed, and unfortunately I was hoping to use this as my “sim instructional trainer” but I won’t be able to given the current state. I did not test how it feels for forced or precautionary approaches, how it recovers in a spiral drive, or do chandels, or lazy 8s this time around (due to the stall/spin issue). One last item, I really hope someone can figure out how to get Echo19 sound pack installed, because the stock sounds are kinda meh…
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Thanks for your in-depth review. I must agree that the sound package leaves a lot to be desired. It sounds very similar to the one Carenado used for their C170b.
If you do also have the C170b, how do you think its flight model compares to the C172 (1950s edition)?
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From caranado I only have this 172 and the 210N
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Thank you so much for the detailed review! I don’t even own this plane yet, but I love reading reviews from real pilots. I really hope this post gets noticed by the right people at Carenado.
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Bought it and am having a lot of fun with it. I have quite a bit of time in newer 172s IRL but never flown this model. It needs some work on the flight model, mostly at lower speeds and there are a few bugs but it is well worth the price in my opinion. It should just get better as they fix the minor issues.
I may have found a bug. When I use my keybind that sets the ideal mixture, the mixture lever gets stuck and cannot be adjusted.
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Yes, ‘Set Best Mixture’ will continouosly set the best mixture. If you change the mixture it will immediately go back to best mixture.
Didn’t find any other binding that stops it.
I’ll never understand why Asobo switched the direction of trim control from their old version…. SMH
I guess they decided it was “wrong” to begin with, and needed to be “fixed” (in the meantime screwing up lots of planes for an arbitrary decision of what’s “correct” for a control assignment that should be set and forget).
Anyone know what the change log is for the update indicated in today’s Thursday Dev Update?
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In 2020, they had this version history button in the Marketplace. In 2024 they removed this for some unfathomable reason. At least, I certainly can’t find it.
Carenado do have a Version History tab on their product page, I had a quick look, but it doesn’t seem they’ve updated that (yet)
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I can tell you what they haven’t fixed though … The weird tire texture flickering while taxiing is still there.
EDIT: an hour later. It sure is a lovely little plane though. I just like the classic looks, and I enjoy flying it. Just a few more nip and tucks and it’ll be great.
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Has anyone tried stalls since the update, I hope they fixed the horrendous wing drop and incipient spin during the stall…. I posted y thoughts earlier in this forum about this little plane…
In general I quite enjoy flying it, even more so than the stock Asobo 172R…. But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix the stalling characteristics, and maybe get a better sound package, the engine should be a 145HP Continental O-300-A 6-cylinder…
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Still not in 2020 with yesterday’s MP update.
Is there no Polls&Feedback thread for the update this time?
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It’s in 2020 now.
Amazing modelling as we’d come to expect with Carenado.
I’ve got is for MSFS2020 (As I’m solely still on 2020 as I’ve got it running well at the moment” However, I’ve got 2 key issues in that;
a) The autopilot doesn’t work, even when you switch it on, it doesn’t fire it up and key bind won’t get it to work either.
b) The compass doesn’t spin/work
anyone else got these issues, or if there is a resolution? Could be a known issue, if thats the case it’s all good and probably expect an update.
If you happen to have the GTN750 addon, the AP works fine when started with that.
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Compass and Autopilot work great for me. The AP has a master switch to the right of the GPS. It’ll light up white and then you just select a mode (ie HDG) to fully turn it on. Granted I’m in 24 so it’s not impossible some stuff works in 24 and is bugged in 20
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Having the same issue. AND the OBS of the CI is fixed on North.. not moving either.
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