I do wish the engine sounds had a little more punch, or were just louder overall. I know that’s not easy to fix, and the rest of it is so good I won’t complain about it.
I’ve stepped back from FS24 to avoid headaches, but I know what I’m picking for my first real flight.
Yeah, it’s mostly startup, shutdown, idle, and beta. At high power it’s fine.
Man, what a great aircraft this is. I made a 4+ hour flight this morning from PAKT (Ketchikan, Alaska) down to KSEA. I flew the plane manually for the first 100 miles or so before engaging the basic AP unit in NAV mode, driven by the small Garmin system on the center console. This is probably the longest piston-engine flight I’ve made in MSFS (either '20 or '24) in at least a year or more.
Beautiful Pictures. For being a Ret. USCG I love the HU16. Ive practicing KCRP to KMOB, KPIE, KEYW, KOPF learning the Albatross. Gonna fly it to MUGM NAS. McCalla Field there before Leeward side hosted Amphib and Blimps. Although I feel naked flying her, no USCG Corpus Christi Skin, my last station and there was some photo’s showing the HU16 stationed at KNGP NAS Amphib Area.
@DrVenkman3876 Those are some gorgeous shots, and I can see you smashed quite a few bugs along the way, hehe.
Your course also took you right over the spot where this plane was made as well (the digital one), Victoria BC. 
@USCG19763803 I was really really hoping a license for the Coast Guard livery would come through in the end, but unfortunately no. It wouldn’t take much to convert the default livery though, which I am sure someone else will do at some point. I would do it myself, if I were allowed to anyway. 
Yes! hand flying this plane is very enjoyable!
Too my knowledge, No Official License is needed to paint a USCG Scheme in a Simulator Add on. It’s been that way since Fs9/Xplane/P3D to current versions. All of the US Armed Forces and USCG are always Proud of Simulator Developers and painters. Our Canadian Neighbors are lockstep with us in freeware paints and Default paints. All us Vets are a rather large crowd in the MSFS community. Trust no License needed for paints.
The USAF wouldn’t allow Miltech to include USAF liveries with the C-17, so maybe things have changed.
Pure 100% guess from me, I wonder if its because C-17 is still an active duty aircraft?
I need to fire up FS2020 and see if the Top Gun stuff includes USN liveries. I think it does but it’s not just DOD rules at play: it’s Microsoft’s Legal Department’s interpretation of those rules that matter for first-party aircraft.
A quick question for @Ramasurinen - is there a paint kit for this aircraft? I noticed there are very few liveries for any FS2024 aircraft yet on of Flightsim dot to, but that may be simply a lack of time.
@USCG19763803 Dr Venkman is correct, it’s Microsoft’s rules for first party planes that matters in the end, and all liveries, whether private, commercial, or military, need to be licensed.
@DrVenkman3876 There is no paint kit, yet. It’s on the wishlist but I have a lot of other items that need to be worked on first. I don’t think I’ll have time to look at that until the new year sometime.
Cheers.
As someone who doesn’t really want to register on dozens of Discord servers, I appreciate how active you are here. It’s nice to see 
GREAT NEWS on the black radome…we get a paintkit too, and this baby will be truly “off to the races” in terms of military use and repaints. I have been flying the other planes in 2024, and so far…NOTHING has come close to the Albatross!!! REALLY well done. Thank you. P.S. Guess I’ll go have a few beers and go watch my copy of “Flight From Ashiya” (1964)…The HU-16’s moment in Hollywood!
Hello. I am really enjoying this plane. Very well done and my congratulations to @Ramasurinen The new water physics makes these types of planes so much more enjoyable.
I have a question about putting throttles in reverse using my hardware controls. I have a Honeycomb Bravo. The only way I can put engines in reverse is by dragging mouse over the levers in the plane but I would rather do that from my hardware. I looked through manual but didn’t find a way of doing this.
If I remember correctly, you need to bind your throttles to the “0 - 100%” axis setting. Below 50% (I think) puts the prop levers into beta.
In my case, I am flying the Albatross with my VKB STECS throttle unit. I installed a hardware detent onto the axis at about 30%, then recalibrated the throttle unit using the VKBDevConfig software so that just past the detent is effectively Idle, and the rest of the movement range of my throttles are calibrated for the full power range. Pulling back past the detent puts the levers into beta and gives reverse thrust.
I don’t know if many other hardware throttle units have this kind of internal detent/calibration available, but it works wonderfully for stuff like this. In miljets (especially in something like DCS) you can use these programmable detents for Idle/Cut-Off triggers, afterburner gates for turbine engines, or whatever you’d like.
I wish the G1000s were not causing so many issues for everyone. I really want to take this aircraft on a full loop around North/South America/Caribbean. Unfortunately we can add this aircraft to the list of those on Xbox which are reliant on Microsoft’s avionics fix. I was able to do a great flight, but as soon as I switch on the navigators display it turned into a slideshow.
I like the liveries and interior better on the G111 than I do on the HU-16, although the steam gauges are so nice. That hot fix better be coming this week, I want to spend a lot of time in this beauty.
I “discovered” this aircraft yesterday and I am absolutely loving it! It might just be my new absolute favourite sim aircraft. Flying out of CAH2 Ocean Falls just now:
Do you get a reverse axis when you set this up? If I set my VPC throttle up the same way, the reverse part of the axis has to be interpreted as a button, so it’s full reverse or no reverse.
Does any of that make sense?
VPC’s software is kind of atrocious… it’s extremely complicated and doesn’t have any instructions.
Yes. By setting the detent at 30% in my VKB software, I have calibrated the remaining 70% of axis motion to cover the full (forward) range of the virtual cockpit throttle level movement, and the first 30% or so to cover the beta range. I can even modulate the amount of beta individually per engine.
The VKB configuration software is not super user-friendly but holy hell, it is DEEP. You can configure an axis as a button or trigger virtual button presses to register when an axis reaches or moves past a value, and set different virtual button presses on the way up or down the axis. You can set a toggle as a button or an axis. You can calibrate every axis individually in the device firmware (which is what I’ve done here) so that it matches whatever the sim is expecting. You can configure the analog thumbstick on the throttle to act as a mouse, or as a 4- or 5-way hat switch instead, or as two independent axes. Axes can have linear or logarithmic response if you’d rather, and set the resolution in bit-depth. It is a tinkerer’s dream.
Thanks a bunch, it seems very similar to my VPC throttle and software. Limitless customization, and no hand holding.
I’ll have to try 0-100% axis bindings instead. I don’t think this worked for me the way it does for you, but maybe I have to fiddle with the axes in software.
