Kitfox STi Review - 1 Huge Problem

Yesss! I was asking myself: What Trent Palmer thinks of this plane offer?
Nice to know a better one is coming.

Trent Palmer tried the X-plane version, and I’m not sure it’s the same flight model, looking at the files from this one it seems they took the Savage Cub as base. But looking at the performance, it matches the values from a Kitfox m7 STi from their web.

Also this one is a model 7, and he has a model 5. Anyway, I would like to know what he says about this model, if you feel the “flaperons” or not.

@CaptHawkeye50 Switching off engines with CTRL+SHIFT+E and adding some slip, you can stop the Kitfox quite quickly.
And then with CTRL+E it restarts quite fast, and that 915iS makes it take off really fast.

If you pass me the scenry for Arkanstol, I can try it with the Kitfox and tell you what’s my time.
Or we can try toguether on multiplayer …

another issue with the kitfox is in game the flaps are not the same spec as real life you only get 6 degrees in game when we should be able to get 13 to 20. this reason alone is why it harder to slow this plane down for short landings.

I thought that too, but then I tried to switch off the engine with CTRL+SHITF+E, and I could make very short landings.

In the extenal HUD, it says 6º for the flaps, but if you look at the animation, it looks like more than 6º, so I wonder it the bug is on the flags or in the external HUD.

BTW, Welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

i would rather have functioning flaps that actually do what they are supposed to then to have shut the plane down everytime i wanna make a short landing.

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I am not a fan of using keyboard shortcuts to do things that aren’t really realistic - I don’t think you’d shut off the engine prior to touchdown in the real thing.

Makes go arounds pretty tough.

If you have a problem, and for fixing it, you change something that is not the cause the problem, you’ll have 2 problems. So you must be sure what is the cause.

What I’m pursuing here is giving Big Tires the best posible feedback about the plane, by isolating issues and testing them separately.

Regarding the flaps, I’m not sure if we need more flaps, or if we need intermediate positions added, but keep the maximum.

What I was saying is the problem for landing is not the flaps, but the idle RPM, and asking you make a test to see how you feel it.

I’m not asking you to flight like that normally, I’m asking people to make that test once to make a diagnostic on what the problem really is.

I’m not taking about flying, I’m talking about testing software.

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do you know where i can watch for news of updates for the Palmer recommended kitfox?

As someone who is not going to buy this, since the two Zlins & X-Cub seems to be perfectly adequate for me, I can’t say that what I saw in the video impressed me, especially the fact that the control surfaces don’t seem to move at all that I could see from the limited exterior shots, not just when flaps are applied.

Some of the following points might just be due to the video resolution. There is something odd going on with the textures, especially the console, it seems to have a really heavy grunge material as a spec map. The strobing spinner would drive me nuts. As for the model itself, having only seen this thing in photographs online (of which there are many), the cockpit interior seems to be lacking any detail at all, no door latches, door struts, no screws or seams, no rounded edges to the sills, very low polygon interior to the wing roots and in general, no control mechanism coming into the cabin from the flaperons, no wiring, no harness, just no detail. This is made more glaring since at the start we see all the other cubs, and how busy they look.

It just doesn’t look finished, or more like an exterior model that has had a new console fitted & a higher res carpet texture.

That’s pretty much what it is. And the dev, apparently has zero intention of fixing the issues. In fact, I don’ t think I’ve read anything regarding a response from the dev.

I don’t think the dev created the model, but purchased it and slapped a panel and rudimentary interior in it. Shame, it could have been much more. I haven’t flown it after the third day I owned it. It’s a pain trying to land and destroys immersion. So, it went to the back of the pick list when I’m flying in MSFS.

This experience as well as the fact I’m still waiting on the Long-EZ patch in the MS Marketplace some 4 weeks later has moved me off the MS Marketplace. I want to paint it, but need the patched version as it has updated textures. MS is really dropping the ball on managing the Marketplace. No threshold of quality to be allowed to sell on the Marketplace, as well as waiting ages for updates. That’s two strikes out of three in my book. If I’ve got a lemon aircraft, then I should have access to the patch pronto! Not when MS gets around to it. Add to that, that the files are encrypted, locking you into a POS aircraft that the community can’t fix would be the third strike out of three.

This one has much better visibility !!!
It has the STOL capacity of the Savage Cub, but with G3X and autopilot.
If it gets fixed, it’s a must have have for low & slow flyers.

BTW, the flap animations and the winfshield issues were already fixed.
Still has to fix the IDLE problem, it’s a very big issue, and lots of small issues, but the plane has huge potential.

I think it would have to get a lot better than that to tempt me. I have MUCH better third party aircraft for other sims that are free. The utter lack of detail in that cockpit is a massive clue to the amount of work that went into this aircraft before release. If it was free, I would still wait for it to be fixed.

Except its STOL potential is killed off by it landing so terribly. That’s kind of an important deficiency. :wink:

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Yes, it’s broken, i was talking about the potential if it gets fixed

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They need to fix the flaperons (or more precisely the flaps). I read in real-world Kitfox owners’ forums that the flaps are supposed to drop to 22 degrees, but in the BT flightsim model they only drop 6 degrees. It is like trying to land a 747 with 5 degrees of flaps - it just won’t f’ing slow down. I’ve come over runway thresholds at 40 knots with full flaps and idle power and floated the entire length of the runway. It just keeps going. I think the only place it is useful would be in the mountains with steeply sloped airstrips where you can use gravity to slow you down.

If you want a real slow speed performer, the only option at the moment is the Shock Ultra. I’ve landed that thing on top of buildings. It’s a blast.

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Yes the Shock Ultra is the best for short landing but have you tried the new Savage Carbon from GotGravel? It performs really well too…
I bought the Kitfox by curiosity when it first came out, I wonder how this plane ended up in the market place (popularity of the plane itself?). Shock Ultra, X-cub with performance mod and Savage Carbon are way better !

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Yes, I have landed the Shock Ultra on several rooftops in NY … but the savage cub is enougth for the countryside, and this kitfox should be ok too once it gets fixed

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I really love Kitfox STI. Even playing with keyboard, its control is very accurate and sensitive. Switched off assistents for giro and rudder… do it yourself - rudder walk on takeoff - gives the best results.

Today I did encounter something very strange though, it seems Kitfox STI can takeoff backward. Fly up a slope and land, e.g. LS60 Rockfall … then let it roll back, gentle rudder left, leave full throttle on and reverse the elevator (down) will result in Kitfox lifting up when it goes backward… did not succeed in finishing my flight, but see what happened…

.

My explanation:

This is not a bug IMHO. While pause was still on, I figured that keeping the elevator up, rolling downward would tilt the airplane forward quickly and make it roll over its propellor into the ground. So after releasing the pause button, I quicky revert the elevator to down, to prevent that. I had not expected a lift off !

I guess the tailwheel went up slowly, tilting the plane to horizontal. The plane now catched upward air flow , because of the speed it had.The front wheels detached too and from the cockpit you can see it leaving the ground ! At that moment, airspeed would have been negative (30 knots or so!) and stall beeper went off continuously, also going forward in the end. Not enough speed. Out of countrol, turn over…