I usually pull the AP circuit breaker out during preflight checks to get rid of AP beeps and display;)
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I only did a quick flight to test it out. It did feel different. Not sure if it was more bouncy or not. Iâll have to check again. I basically did a couple of circuits / touch and gos then I did a quick test of the AP and an ILS landing to see how well it worked. It was very limited.
It definitely handled different. It feels better on landing IMHO - bearing in mind Iâm not actually a pilot, so I donât know which is more realistic. To my personal taste, I prefer the JPL mods landing characteristics. Iâll have a better idea once Iâve taken it out and given it a good test drive.
Thatâs the thing. I donât fly any of the modded airplane. I just donât think some guy and Notepad is better at designing aircraft than Asobo building it from the ground up. I think modders have a tendency to try and tweak to get the performance they think they should be getting. Iâd rather just fly the airplane as it is.
I tend to disagree. There are bad mods, but many mods and pay ware planes are carefully crafted by developers, designers, aerodynamic experts, real pilots, etc. Asobo is going to design it for the masses and ease of use. But Iâm fine with that, they should focus on the big picture - sim platform and SDK.
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Me too. Thatâs what I used to pay in the early 90s.
Youâre making some very big and sorely incorrect assumptions.
Many of the stock Asobo planes are actually quite poorly built when it comes to handling and performance (C152 and 172 are exceptions). Not to mention that many behaviours are also incorrect. Theyâre built for simplicity so that anyone can hop in, take off and enjoy flying. As much as they may claim to the contrary, they werenât built with realism and accuracy in mind outside of the visual aspect.
There are definitely some garbage planes / mods out there. But many of the highly recommended mods are built by people with actual experience - be it in aeronautics, real pilots, or people that have been modding various sims for many years. Even moreso than the team at Asobo, in fact, who had exactly zero experience in aeronautics before they started work on MSFS. These arenât just kids with Notepad tweaking numbers. Theyâre tweaking and tuning things to match the PoH, and in some cases, making sure that procedures have to be adhered to and a ton of other changes to make the flight experience more realistic. At least within the limitations of what the sim can allow.
Seriously, take out something like MixMugzâ TBM mod compared to the stock. Itâs night and day. Youâll never look at the stock plane the same afterwards. Ditto for both the Bonanza Improvement and Turbo Bonanza mods. Once youâve used them, you realize how bad the stock plane actually is. Same with the C208 improvement mod. And nowhere is this more apparent than flying the CJ4 and comparing it with the Working Title CJ4 mod. And of course, the JPL mod is getting very good reviews from the community as well.
Youâre free to do as you wish. If you think the stock planes are fine as-is, then thatâs your perogative. If youâre enjoying your sim experience, then who is anyone to try to convince you otherwise? However, I think if you hold that rigid opinion without trying it out for yourself, youâre doing yourself a great disservice. You should try them out for yourself and make an informed decision vs making a blanket statement and refusing to use mods due to a preconceived notion.
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The comment about âcloser to POH numbersâ tells me all I need to know. Ask any pilot if they get POH numbers from the planes they fly.
Iâm not going to belabor the point but suffice it to say Iâm a real world pilot and I donât need to rely on the opinions of others about how well these planes are designed and the value of the mods. Fact is, the reason most pilots on here who think the 152 and 172 are fine as they are (and theyâre correct) is because thatâs all theyâve flown. The number of TBM and Citation jet pilots on here is pretty limited.
The numbers you come across in these POHs are from brand spanking new airframes, engines and test pilots so I get that part however it really doesnât make their reference to fine tune them in the flight sim world invalid. Even A2A (a very well respected third-party developer) says you can fly their aircraft by the book.
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Youâre correct about the POH numbers, and I never said anything was invalid.
The more I fly the 152, the more Iâve grown to love it. The JPLogistics mod in particular has some nice touches that really add to the experience. Just being able to taxi with the windows open. As mentioned above, the engine noise is improved. But itâs harder to start the engine and I love that. The default aircraft are always way too easy to start. Pulling the mixture out on shut down, the engine fights to stay alive longer before slowly sputtering out. It feels way more real.
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Please forgive me then as I really donât understand what you mean by thisâŠ
Modders do tend to do a better job than what you find out of stock aircraft in a flight sim and even some existing third-party aircraft, sometimes a substantially better one and theyâre quite highly sought after.
For example the Nhadrian mod for the Carenado 152 in XP is much better than the stock Caernado one as is the JongePionier King Air C90 mod for the stock Laminar Research King Air C90.
SimCoders have their own lineup in their Reality Expansion Pack series, they even have a mod for the stock Laminar Research Cessna 172 and Baron 58. They just released another one for the Just Flight DR400 which makes me wonder if they will at some get to the Just Flight Cessna 152 as they have also made one for the Just Flight Piper Arrow. I would buy that very quickly given my satisfaction with their other products.
There are other ones out there but I wonât go on and on about it. The point to be made here is virtually everyone who is modding aircraft do it for the sake of bringing these aircraft to a much higher level of accuracy across the board. Many, many of those who do mod aircraft to offer to the flight sim community do have experience themselves.
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The best mod for a Carenado aircraft is to delete it.
My point is that if you mod an aircraft to nail POH numbers on a consistent basis, you have not made it more realistic, but rather less. And you introduce all kinds of variables, and frankly Iâm not interested in discovering where theyâve messed up. I own a 150, Iâve flown 172s, and the stock aircraft donât need to be improved. Itâs that simple. The stock 152 flies as honest as a real one.
I see all the time people asking questions about aircraft performance or odd characteristics, and you see theyâre using a modded aircraft. To each their own, but speaking from my actual experience, the 152 is just fine as it is. And I suspect much is the same of the other stock aircraft as well. My point is that Iâd rather take my chances with the people who built them from the ground up rather than take my chances with some random mod.
And not for nothing, but just tweaking numbers so your plane performs better takes the skill out of it as well. How many people who canât get book numbers at 7,000 feet ISA donât know what the red knob is for? Thatâs part of the fun of flying, knowing how to get your airplane to perform the way it should.
Again, to each their own.
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I also like to fly C-152, especial with theJPLogistics mod, it is one of the best aircraft in the Sim together with JF Warrior.
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I can summarize your reply with a simply replyâŠ
I suggest you take a look at the Reality Expansion Pack.
No disrespect here but youâre rather opinionated and I believe this is because you simply donât care to take a dive into what the community has to offer. This doesnât mean the community has no idea what theyâre doing. While it has been ages since Iâve flown a 152 (the last one I flew was a 1980 model up in Maine) I have flown a lot of the older model 172s (especially the N) and have a couple of hours in the S model. It would be a dream come true if SimCoders worked on stock Asobo aircraft.
Honestly use what you want. Iâm not here to make that call for you however youâre being awfully judgmental, there are a ton of people with real world experience that approach modded aircraft.
I fail to see how having an opinion makes one âopinionatedâ. You have an opinion as well and I do not attach a negative connotation to it. And as far as looking at what the community has to offer, I have an entire YouTube channel showing off the amazing content (airfields) the community has to offer. Again, to each their own.
Correct me if Iâm wrong here but did you not refer to those who mod aircraft as (Iâm paraphrasing) âKiddos with notepadâ the other day? If that isnât a negative connotation then I donât know what is.
Again, modded aircraft are highly sought after even from those with real world experience. I really donât see how getting numbers to be closer to POH / AIM values is less realistic when you even have developers such as A2A aiming for it.
Yes, in reality every aircraft has a story to tell even if itâs of the exact same model and are going to differ ever so slightly. In flight simulation getting them closer to a POH (more correctly an AIM as itâs not aircraft specific) is logical. Are stock aircraft way out of the ballpark? Yes and no, it depends the aircraft and what youâre looking at. In some areas the 152 has been greatly improved on with the mod. Do I think an AP is silly in a 152? Lol, yes however I still love the mod.
Iâm happy that youâre content with the stock 152, I really am but it really is sad that you think of modders in such a way, itâs condescending really. They have offered the flight sim community (MSFS, XP and P3D) time and time again with much better aircraft (objectively) and sometimes at no charge for us.
It seems to me that in the end youâre just not really familiar with this at all.
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Tired of arguing with you, thatâs clearly all youâre interested in doing. âKiddosâ was an autocorrect error for âmoddersâ. Goodbye.
Nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. Have a great day and hope you enjoy the new update! 
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I also tend to agree with @anon17491698. Iâm not interested in the moddersâ âcorrected valuesâ from the Pilotâs Operating Handbook either. Aircraft like the C152 have been in service for a very long time. Engines wear out over time and we can no longer expect POH values, just like in real life. But if you really want to have the feeling of a new engine, then of course these POH value mods are great. I donât need anything like that. I like the feeling of sitting in an old machine. ⊠With all its disadvantages (which also makes flying). Newer aircraft should be closer to the POH, of course, but they donât interest me personally.
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EDIT: Disregard.