Emerald Scenery Design | Pietenpol Air Camper

Rotornut44 · August 28, 2026, 4:45pm

Taylorcraft and Piet share share some core systems since Got Gravel worked on both, though the Taylorcraft has Jonx’s entire advanced physics system behind it as well. So, the Piet is kinda like a sampler of the Taylor in a way. Obviously Mykrode did the Taylor model as well, though 270inc does the paint for their team.

I think it will be worth the wait for those who have been interested in it! I have been lucky enough to have access to it since it could first fly in the sim. It has come a long ways.

As far as our next release… lips sealed for now.

Pilotfirst9999 · August 28, 2026, 5:49pm

Genoa

ExplorerJB · August 29, 2026, 2:08am

It’s really only spicy the first flight or two because you don’t know what to expect out of it, and I think in the sim we sometimes become accustomed to aircraft that sometimes feel a bit lifeless on takeoff roll, so when we get one that does require our attention it takes a couple flights before it comes naturally. Nothing too unpredictable or crazy though. I really like how it feels on both takeoff and landing.

DRSims2399 · August 30, 2026, 11:40am

Just picked this up and absolutely love it.

One question, is there a way to hide the radio completely?

Rotornut44 · September 2, 2026, 1:46am

No, there is no way to fully hide the radio since it is mostly out of the way as is.

Update Progress

This week I have been working on what will be the first update for the Piet. (I am doing this in parallel with the update for the 1500R Sport as well.)

We have been collecting feedback since release, and will continue to do so up until the update is ready for testing. This update will mostly focus on QoL and bug fixing, and already has a decent change log forming!

Most notably, we have:

Added keybind support for Smoke, Primer, Fuel Valve, and Panel Lights.
This allows you to use all of the appropriate default sim bindings for these, retaining support for the multiplayer smoke as well.
Added a Wind Volume control to the Blueprint.
This is a persistent slider and will allow you to increase or decrease the wind audio to your liking. Some wanted much louder wind for a better open cockpit feel, while others with more sensitive hearing have preferred lower audio, so we feel like this is the best of both worlds. We just let you choose!
Fixed mail bags not displaying with a cargo weight over 34 lbs.
This one bugged us even before release, but we finally pinned down the issue, and now the mail bags will show up in career!
Fixed radio in legacy interactions mode.
The radio was mostly broken when using legacy interactions since that mode doesn’t allow you to right click. We did keep the right click functionality, but also introduced the ability to left click, which allows it to function.

These are just a sample of some of the bigger changes, but the list is currently up to 15 items!

We are still exploring options on if we can improve the hand-prop feature in legacy interactions mode. This comes down to the cylinder compression code itself, and how the template behaves with mouse interactions while in legacy mode. So, the solution is not very simple and so far has had repercussions with how the interaction functions in the intended “Lock” mode as well - which is not ideal. Though, we still continue to investigate…

As I had briefly mentioned above, this update is also being done in parallel with the 1500R, which is getting a lot of fixes and QoL changes backported that we have collected throughout development of the Piet, as well as during this first update period.

Both updates should drop sometime this month, but no sure release date is planned. These will just come when we are happy with them!

PS5 Release Pending

In other news, I’m also happy to report that we concluded testing and signed off on the Piet for PS5 this past Sunday. Release is currently pending and we expect that it will not be too much longer of a wait!

BrettMercier · September 2, 2026, 2:30pm

Well, the air camper flew a bit under my radar, but I finally gave it a spin with the free trial (that’s the one advantage I have to concede to the MS marketplace!).

■■■■, it is a beautiful, fun plane! I was looking for a 2024 native that would be similar to the Tiger Moth or Stearman in feel, and this is it! The Air Camper is now officially my favorite low and slow exploring machine.

Glad to hear you are working on updates, especially the wind noise slider.

In terms of future improvements, I’m personally always hungry for more engine & fluids realism, potential failures and state persistence, but I understand that might not be in scope for this project.

Edit: oh and one bug to report on my side, if I restart a flight with the non-cargo variant, the copilot disappear and is replaced by air mail bags. Not a huge issue but maybe something that can be fixed!

Rotornut44 · September 11, 2026, 10:26pm

Pietenpol Air Camper v1.1.0 Rolling Out Now!

Community feedback is a very important part of our project releases, and that’s why we have been carefully monitoring all of the different flightsim spaces and gathering feedback these last several weeks since the Piet’s release.

In this time, we have seen a lot of good feedback and are overjoyed to see that the experience has been very positive for everyone! We worked hard to get the project to that state, and it feels great knowing that all of that meticulous polish paid off.

However, that is not where this story ends, and with this first update I have been focused on as many fixes and quality of life improvements as I could find – within reason.

Wind Volume Control

One of the biggest changes in this update by far was the addition of a wind volume control slider to the Blueprint options.

This slider, as it says, allows you to adjust the open cockpit wind intensity to your liking. This setting is persistent and defaults to a value that is close to the levels currently in v1.0.0.

During our initial release of the 1500R Sport, we had louder open cockpit wind noise, however we got a handful of users telling us that they had more sensitive hearing and the wind made for a less than ideal experience for them. At the same time, we also had the other side telling us that they wanted it louder for a more authentic experience!

At the time we opted to meet a bit in the middle and just lower the wind sounds to a more comfortable level – and that is how we proceeded with the initial release of the Pietenpol.

However, seeing some requests for louder open cockpit wind once again, it got us thinking that the best solution would be to just let you have control and tune it to your own liking!

Legacy Interactions Improvements

While checking out a lot of the Youtube and Twitch release coverage of the Piet, we realized just how many of you were still using the legacy interactions mode to get rid of the blue highlights in the sim.

This did pose an issue, as the “Lock” and “Legacy” interaction systems behave differently in many cases. It not just that it removes blue highlights, but how you interact with some things changes completely, including how mouse and scroll wheel velocities are calculated.

This lead to a few issues on the Piet, such as the hand start option being very hard to use on some screen resolutions. The radio was also pretty much unusable as it relied on a lot of right mouse click and right mouse click and hold to do things like swapping frequencies and turning the transponder on.

This has all been improved now in v1.1.0. For the radio, we added left click support in addition to retaining the right click support for “Lock” users. This simple change allows the radio to be fully functional in “Legacy” interactions mode. While we were at it, we also did a heavy cleanup pass on the code and fixed some additional issues with tooltips, as well as fixed animations and sound triggers for the 1-4 soft-key buttons. This gives everything a much better feel and audible feedback.

Alongside the “Legacy” improvements for the radio, we also worked on getting the prop hand start to be a bit easier to use. To overcome the limitations we had to increase the velocity passed onto the prop during a mouse interaction. This overcame the limitations while using the legacy interaction mode, however it did come with a bit of an unavoidable trade off for “Lock” users – and that is the loss of a bit of the compression feel.

While the trade-off it a bit disappointing, the team agreed that we would rather have everyone be able to use the function.

Ultimately, we really hope Asobo considers adding an option to remove the blue highlights in the future. This has been a request for quite some time and is needed even more now with Legacy not functioning the same for those of us who have moved on to using the modern 2024 EX1 templates.

Additional Fixes & Improvements

Overall, we addressed over two-dozen items in v1.1.0. Many of which we are also actively working on back-porting to the 1500R.

While not all of these fixes and improvements are large enough to warrant dedicating an entire section to, they all come together to make for a much more polished Piet that we hope you all will continue to enjoy!

Added click spot to show EFB Tablet.
Added keybind support for: SMOKE OFF, SMOKE ON, SMOKE SET, SMOKE TOGGLE, ENGINE PRIMER, TOGGLE PRIMERS, TOGGLE PRIMER 1, FUEL VALVE OFF, FUEL VALVE ON, SET FUEL VALVE, SET ENGINE 1 FUEL VALVE, TOGGLE ALL FUEL VALVES, TOGGLE ENGINE 1 FUEL VALVE, TOGGLE FUEL VALVE, ANTI_ICE_OFF, ANTI_ICE_ON, ANTI_ICE_SET, ANTI_ICE_SET_ENG1, ANTI_ICE_TOGGLE, ANTI_ICE_TOGGLE_ENG1, PANEL LIGHTS OFF, & PANEL LIGHTS ON.
Added stall buffet sound.
Added wind volume control to blueprint (persistent).
Adjusted mix of wind sounds and increased max volume.
Carb Heat is now mapped to the Spoiler Axis (L:CarbHeat is still usable for external mapping).
Carb Heat tooltip value now displays a percentage vs. Off/On.
Carb icing will now reset when on the ground with the engine off, when using slew, or when Engine Realism is toggled off.
Fixed broken tooltip on radio focus button.
Fixed control sticks not animating in multiplayer.
Fixed Magneto mouse drag interaction inverted (dragging left turned switch right).
Fixed mail bags not displaying when cargo weight exceeds 34 lbs.
Fixed primer tooltip value sometimes not showing “Ready” with Engine Realism turned off.
Fixed pulled UVs causing AO issues on LOD1 of pilot’s panel.
Fixed radio select interactions in Legacy interaction mode (added ability to left click to select).
Fixed sounds and improved interaction feedback for radio buttons 1-4.
Fixed tooltip description for blueprint Remove Covers option not displaying when engine is running.
Fixed VR hand controller support not working.
Improved hand-prop click and drag while in legacy interactions mode.
Improved “Lock” tooltips for Doors, Wing Hatch, Fuel Cap, Oil Cap, Cowling Doors, Cowling Pins, EFB Toggles, & Hand Prop interaction.
Improved low speed crosswind handling.
Improved panel light switch interactions: Increased surface area & added mouse wheel support.
Radio screen now integrated with EFB brightness settings.
Updated ELEVATOR TRIM PCT simvar to ELEVATOR TRIM PCT EX1, as it was depreciated.

v1.1.0 Available Now!

The Pietenpol Air Camper v1.1.0 update is now available from the Emerald Scenery Design website (you must be logged in to visit the download section), as well as ORBX. It has also been signed off for release on Marketplace, and will likely be available there early next week!

Update on PS5 Ingestion: v1.0.0 for PS5 has been signed off for some time, but has not yet been released. v1.1.0 has been submitted for testing, but will likely not come out until after v1.0.0 arrives.