A G-BUCO inspired livery is now included!
Looking fabulous 
Gorgeous! Nice work, team!
Just beautiful. I built a small RC version of that exact colour scheme a number of years ago
Looking really good, any chance for a cockpit view sneak peak?
Made a short to showcase the 3D model and textures up close
Hope you guys enjoy this one as much as we have working on it. Initially I knew nothing about the Pietenpol but very quickly fell inlove with the parasol design. Huge thanks to our friend Red for sparking our passion for this vintage classic.
Beta Testing Begins
After a lot of hard work over the last several months, the Pietenpol Air Camper started beta testing this past Friday! We are now targeting a release sometime in August.
I have been grateful to work with an amazing team of testers who have been beating on the aircraft throughout most of it’s development. Now with this final pass, we hope to find as many remaining issues as possible before release!
Features Overview
The Pietenpol is a relatively simple aircraft when it comes to design, but has quite a bit going on under the cowl.
Thanks to the efforts of our newest team member: GotGravel, not only does the Piet fly nice, but it has a lot of physics-based features as well, which include:
- Hand-prop start interaction
- Fuel slosh
- Priming/Overpriming, including depriming with throttle
- Carburetor heat thermodynamics
- Prop drag & windmill resistance
- Negative thrust backfire SFX
- Slip drag SFX
- Camera motion effects
- Vibration & buffeting effects
- Gravity reactive doors
Some other non-standard features, which are not physics-based include:
- Hydroplaning/water skiing (Bush tires)
- A breakable prop
- Autostart preflight covers removal
- Generator-driven panel lights with low voltage dimming
Starter Sold Seperatly
Our rendition of the Pietenpol Air Camper does not have a starter. In order to start the engine, you must hand-prop it. Or if you are feeling lazy, you can of course use autostart, but what’s the fun in that?
Enter GotGravel, stage left.
I must admit that when we first decided on developing the Piet, I did not think about the fact that it did not have a starter, and thus realized we would need to figure out how to make that work. After a few weeks of attempting to come up with something myself, I decided to turn it over to GotGravel who developed the system we are using today!
The Piet can be started from both the interior or exterior via avatar mode. This includes being able to manipulate the throttle, mixture, mags, and primer without needing to jump back into the cockpit. Just don’t forget to leave the chocks in place!
Fuel And Fuel Accessories
The Piet is using 2024’s modern fuel system, which accounts for the volume of fuel remaining and length of the fuel lines. Also, being a carbureted engine, you will have fuel starvation under appropriate conditions (Like when you decide to flip the non-aerobatic rated airplane upside down).
The carburetor system itself is tied into our custom carb heat thermodynamics code, which takes into account ambient temperature and precipitation to simulate carb ice under appropriate conditions. This system is completely optional and can be disabled by unchecking Engine Realism in the blueprint options.
Priming the A65 engine is a fully optional setting as well, and can be disabled the same way if desired. It takes environmental conditions into account and simulates overpriming as well, becoming harder to prime the more strokes you do, with our sound effects also reflecting this feedback.
To clear an overprime, simply open the throttle fully and wait a few minutes.
Fuel slosh has also been simulated for the fuel rod, which will animate and rotate as you go over bumps or pitch and yaw the aircraft about.
More Physics Stuff
For the sake of not writing a novel, I want to briefly touch on some of the other physics features mentioned above.
Camera Motion and Vibration Effects
Vibrations in the Piet are fully dynamic taking into account RPM and airflow. This allows us to drive simple vibrations on things like gauge needles and the fuel rod, as well as more advanced features like control surface and windshield buffeting with prop wash.
Camera motion effects are also included and can currently be tuned using the vibration effects intensity slider on the blueprint. This adds some subtle reactive motion to the camera to help you not feel as bolted down to the seat.
Gravity Reactive Doors
Our Piet includes door modifications which helps the pilot and passenger get into or out of the cockpit without needing a few years of gymnastics. Obviously not a huge deal for sim flying, but its a great excuse to fly with the door(s) open. However, when one flies with the doors open, one expects some sort of reactive motion, and thus our doors respect gravity (and rough terrain).
Wwise Sound Design
To end off this dev update, I took some time today to do a little test flight showcasing the Piet’s sound design. Our testers have loved the sounds so far, and we hope you do as well! So, I’ll do less typing here and let the sounds speak for themselves.
As mentioned in the previous announcement: Our sounds have been created in-house using Wwise and feature authentic Continental A65 sounds recorded by community member and tester Av8trFord. All foley design and mixing has been done by Mykrode and myself.
This is looking and sounding fantastic, but I do have one question as the wording is confusing me: is GotGravel a standalone product customers need to buy (“starter sold separately”) or is it part of the Piet package?
My interpretation is that GotGravel is a developer who helped set up the ability to hand prop start this add-on.
“Starter Sold Separately” is just a joke headline. Nothing is actually being sold separately here.
GotGravel is one of the developers on our team. He has created the flight model and does the more advanced coding, such as the hand-prop and physics features.
The Piet has no starter, so you pull the prop by hand to start the engine. Auto-start is also supported, as is standard with most MSFS aircraft.
Looks very promising, thanks for the showcase.
One small question: On which airfield did you capture the video?
The video was recorded at my recently released Limberlost Ranch scenery:
https://emeraldscenerydesign.com/products/limberlost-ranch-msfs24/
I spy with my little eye… Emerald Pietenpol Air Camper - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 - Orbx (not out yet, but the product page has appeared on Orbx!)
I recently came into some money and I’m excitedly keeping an eye on the Xbox Marketplace for this to pop up.
This would be a lot of fun to take onto Vatsim, especially with the ICAO aircraft code being “CAMP.” I did have some difficulty with the mini-max 1500’s transponder mode not working with Vatsim, being stuck in ALT mode and not interacting with Vatsim’s transponder mode when switching between ALT and STANDBY. It looks like this has the same radio system, so if it would be possible to look into its compatibility, it would be much appreciated! I’m very excited for this release.
Does anyone know if this will be on the Marketplace?
In AVAngel’s latest video review, it was stated that it will be available on the In-Sim Marketplace for PC/Xbox as well as ESD’s Official Website and Orbx for PC.
They have also mentioned PS5 Ingestion, which usually takes additional time.
Most of that information has been gathered here:
It’s also a fantastic review and I highly recommend watching it 
Sorry for the radio silence y’all, but it’s for good reason! We are super close to release now and the last few weeks have been a mad dash to tie up some loose ends, continue testing, and debug some EFB loadout issues so we could file some reports with Asobo.
That finally concluded yesterday and we are pressing forward with signing off the Marketplace copy this afternoon. Release is scheduled for tomorrow on both our website and ORBX, and with any luck Marketplace for PC/Xbox could release same day as well.
There has been some speculation about PS5 going around. It is our hope to eventually get it onto PS5, however it is invite only, meaning we simply have to be patient and hope that Microsoft decides to onboard it. It has to pass Sony’s checks before we would even be notified of it’s eligibility, and then we are required to do our own testing. So it is not confirmed to be coming to the platform just yet. We just remain hopeful that it eventually will.
| Release Date | Friday (USA) / Saturday (Australia) |
| Price | $19.99 USD |
| Platforms | MSFS 2024 - PC / XBOX (PS5 not yet confirmed) |
| Stores | ESD / ORBX / Marketplace |
Screenshot courtesy of RedBjorn
