One more day… Going to do some “reverse trainer” flying in the Shrike F-86 today to get current in slow-spooling 50’s jet engines.
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They know a thing or two doing military jets 
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It’s out now.
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Out where?
iniBuilds store.
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Thank you.
You’re welcome.
I was super-hyped by this, and after a couple of short flights I’m both excited by what’s great and super-hopeful Inibuilds addresses a couple of disappointments.
The Great:
- Overall, flies like a T-33 should! Handling and performance feel right for a jet of this era.
- The visuals on the model are right on. Detail inside and out is great
- Sounds are “chef’s kiss.” Wonderful.
- Pretty good manual
- Classic instrument pack is nicely simulated; haven’t tried the modern cockpit yet.
The Not-So-Great
- No natural metal paint schemes! Even the Thunderbirds jet is gray, when they in fact had a natural metal scheme. 1950’s jets look so good in bare aluminum, how did we not get a stock USAF or RCAF bare metal scheme?
- Reports from knowledgable repainters are that there’s mirroring on the tail surfaces and wings that will complicate creating repaints. Given the selection of liveries Inibuilds chose, I really hope they update this to make it workable for livery creators.
- Some issues with stall speed and spoilers, but apparently a fix is in the works for that. Engine spoolup seems to be a bit quick compared to the pirep above, but haven’t done extensive testing.
I’m excited to have a detailed T-33, so I hate to harp on the liveries, but they’re almost all special schemes, and with the mirroring issues I don’t want to be stuck with just those.
Actual Thunderbirds T-33 (not one of the warbirds still flying in the beautiful scheme):
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You’ve got to be kidding me… Mirroring, what, have we gone back to FS2004?
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The Thunderbirds livery in the package looks to be the contemporary one from the Jet Warbird Training Center in Santa Fe, which is painted white. It’s the one Barry Schiff flew for his AOPA article (link in my post above).
Agree it’d be great to have a period bare-metal version - along with a bunch of other period repaints. Shame they seem to have made that harder than it should be.
I haven’t had a chance to buy it yet - about to do that and then will try to report back.
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Nope, this one’s gray.
On the Ini forum a moderator said a paintkit is coming. Hopefully along with that they’ll address the mirroring issues, and we’ll get the community going on period-accurate service liveries!
(I’m not a livery artist, but the comment from someone who is one over on Sim Outhouse was “the wings, vertical/horizontal stab are mirrored.”)
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@Editer I fully agree with your review. For the most part the T-33 is fantastic, and certainly the best one we’ve ever gotten in any sim.
Great to hear that Inibuilds is already working on a patch to fix the stall speed and spoiler drag.
I 1000% agree with you on the natural metal paint schemes. I think the best looking T-33s are bare metal ones and it’s a real shame none are represented yet. Especially considering Inibuilds is also responsible for the Do-31 which has one of the most convincing natural metal looks I’ve seen in the sim so far.
Regarding the Thunderbirds scheme, the aircraft represented by Inibuilds is N514RH, which is painted and not polished/bare metal.
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It’s a plane I’m very interested in but you’re not getting me again ini. We need someone else to make a T-33
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Yep, and from the pics I could find, it looks like the Thunderbirds had both natural metal and silver schemes.
But the stock package is really gray, doesn’t feel silver at all.
Not to keep harping on this. I’m really enjoying the plane – it’s a 50’s jet fan’s dream overall and I highly recommend it to fans of this era of flying.
I mean, ignoring the silver-vs-gray, this is pretty spot-on!
I’ll just cross my fingers that the paintkit comes pretty quickly and the community can fill the livery gaps. 
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Fantastic comparison shots! You’re right the sim version isn’t really silver.
I fully agree about it being a 50’s jet fan’s dream! My three favorite jets are the F-104, F-86 and T-33 and I’m super happy to now have fantastic representations of all three of them in MSFS. I think with the stall speed fixed it’ll be a superb addon.
Yeah, I also hope for a few nice repaints by the community =)
Are the speed figures right in the released plane?
In the pre-release Jaydee reported there might have been a confusion between knots and mph because the plane was stalling below 120kts when it should be stalling below 120mph.
Did they fix this or do we have a completely different jet than the real one?
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The speeds seem to be as reported by JayDee. In approach configuration, it’s most comfortable at about 150kts and about 70% throttle, give or take.
Under 120, the stall is quite vicious and so far seems to be unrecoverable. I’m trying to apply POH stall recovery procedures, but without success. Entirely possible I’m just not used to the airplane. It does seem to be a handful.
Sounds and atmospherics are wonderful. But either flight behaviors are a bit off, or it’s going to take some getting used to.
Interested to hear what others are experiencing.
An additional note - I’m grateful for the classic cockpit because I can’t read the type on the modern display. But… does anyone know if there’s a shortcut for tuning the nav radios? The standard procedure is a bit hard to deal with, to put it mildly.
EDIT: It may be that I was carrying too much fuel. I usually start my tests with the default 50%. In this case I went with 100%. Probably a mistake. Will siphon some off and see how that goes.
I really don’t know what to make of this plane.
I would love to have a T-33 it is an amazing plane.
but…
If they really have the wrong figures for stall speeds and confused kts with mph that’s a huge mistake and the plane is not nearly what it should be.
And it is nice they provide two cockpits but I’ve been quickly browsing all the T-33 vids I could find and neither cockpit resembles any plane I’ve seen.
I would love to know in which plane was the old cockpit based, I’m quite sure the “modern” cockpit is just a concoction by inibuilds, all the T-33 with some kind of glass panels seem to have an Aspen instrument or something really similar to that.
So I don’t know what I’m getting, wrong performance figures and imaginary cockpits…
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You’re really hung up on this cockpit thing. They’re not based on any one particular real-world example. They’re just ‘a cockpit’; one is meant to look of the era, the other to look modern.
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I’m pretty sure this project will get the updates it needs as and when the developer can get to it. Probably already in the works.
I expect to buy it as soon as I see the paint kit released and a few natural metal squadron liveries available.
IniBuilds will take care of it.
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