Please use this thread to provide general feedback and impressions about this aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. For all bug reports, please create a new topic (or upvote an existing topic) in the Aircraft & Systems section of the forums. Please use the full bug report template when creating a new bug report.
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate the Flight Model and Aircraft Systems?
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On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate the Interior and Exterior Graphics?
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On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate the Audio and Aircraft Sounds?
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On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best), how do you rate your Overall Enjoyment of this aircraft?
I absolutely love this plane. I took the classic model up for a couple of flights earlier. It looks and sounds great and flies quite nice too.
First flight was up and down the Florida Keys starting and ending at Key West naval air field. Flew it by hand a bit then set up the AP and didn’t have any troubles with VS or ALT hold. Heading hold worked fine as well and I cruised up the keys. Went up to 12k feet to test out the supercharger too and it worked just as it should. The prop controls are two switches instead of levers and I bound a couple of momentary two way switches on my throttle to emulate it and it worked quite well. It turned to night as I was flying back and the cockpit lights look very nice and cosy, although I failed to turn the dome lights on because I didn’t read that bit of the manual until after The landing lights are also quite cool as you can tilt them up and down. Landed back on the airfield as I didn’t wanna land on the water in the dark. Overall a quite enjoyable flight.
I started up a flight at a seaplane base in San Francisco Bay to test out the water ops and the plane handles really nice on the water with the differential thrust. I had a bit of a steam around the bay looking at ships and whatnot. Took off and landed a few times as well and it was all good. I did get a weird bug where the spray was a bunch of random lines. I had that a couple of times with 2020 and I think it was due to not having some update installed, so maybe it’s a problem with the content streaming thing?
There’s a handy manual as well which covers a bunch of systems stuff like fuel managment and the like. I actually had to switch from float tanks out to drop tanks during my Florida Keys flight and it all worked as advertised.
I really like how the hatch in the nose can be opened and the hatches above the pilot and co-pilot as well. It’d be nice if the camera collision box could be extended a bit further out though so you could move the cockpit camera up a bit more like you’re poking your head out like you can do in Big Radials’ Goose.
The clipboard is handy as well but I wish there was an option there to set the plane to a cold and dark state like the Latecoere Local Legend has, and the iniBuilds airliners have the option in their tablet too. Microsobo still won’t let you start cold and dark on the water which I find quite annoying as I strongly prefer starting all my flights cold and dark. So an option on the clipboard would be very welcome.
I think this is my favourite of the default planes in 2024. The dev of this, Mike Johnson, also made the Savoia-Marchetti flying boat Local Legend a while back which was also really well done. Hope we see more of his work in the future.
Actually there is a complaint I have about this plane that I forgot to mention last night, the throttle axis goes straight into reverse thrust which I’m not a fan of. I went into reverse accidentally a few times when taxying about as it’s hard to tell. The levers kinda move inwards when you reach idle but that requires looking over at them to see if you’re idling or reversing. Maybe a large deadzone could be implemented or a loud clunking sound to let you know you’ve reached idle? Preferebly I’d just have 0% throttle be idle and then use the in game commands for toggling into reverse.
@Megadyptes7635 Thank you for the wonderful writeup and comments, glad you’re enjoying it!
Regarding the throttle range, you can change that in the controller settings if you like. If you bind your throttle to “Throttle 1 Axis (0-100%)” it will give the full range including the reverse portion. If you set your throttle to “Throttle 1 Axis” instead, it will go from idle to max power only, no reverse. Then you would need to bind some controls to either “Toggle throttle reverse thrust” or “Hold throttle reverse thrust” etc. Same for throttle #2 of course.
Yeah I bound the 0-100% axes instead of the regular one for some weird reason. Cheers, everything wroking fine now.
Also to anyone who hasn’t seen the thread in the Airplanes section: you actually can start this (and anything else) cold and dark on the water. Thanks to @Ramasurinen for pointing this out:
The water spray lines is not a “bug” per se, depending on your definition of a bug. IOW, it’s not (necessarily) an issue with the plane. It’s a missing effects file because of Asobo’s server issues in general not serving all files that are necessary (see images above on what it can look like).
Now, it’s possible that authors need to mark certain files as “necessary”, IOW, don’t not serve this file? In that case, then, yes, perhaps it could be mitigated by the author. But I don’t even know if such a function exists (it should). Of course, then again, the file is part of the base Asobo system, which puts the responsiblity back on Asobo to fix the issue… that many people are noting.
@FlyingsCool5650 There is no way I know of to mark files with any priority download status unfortunately. They’re kind of all required anyway though… or something’s going to stop working.
Any idea as to what to set for prop controls? None of the keybinds I’m finding show movement of the switches, however the light will either go on/off with certain inc/dec commands.
Shoot… I wasn’t aware of the distinction between the two bindings. I’d prefer having reverse thrust on the axis instead of having to toggle into it.
Is there a way to set a point on the throttle axis as idle? I know iniBuilds planes allow this, but is there a way to do that universally?
@Swagger8971984 Good catch, thanks. The switches should move with keybinds for Propeller 1 & 2’s pitch inc and dec. I’ll add that to the list for the second update.
@FndrStrat06 I’ve followed the default method (mostly) for engaging reverse, but the mechanism of reverse here is a bit different from turbine or jet aircraft. I’m not aware of how iniBuilds handles reverse / idle gates on their planes, but I will have a look. This is the first plane I’ve made with prop reversing, so I’m learning as well.
I haven’t actually flown the albatross yet. 50 hours in the sim so far and I’ve done only a few short hops in free flight in the Draco and the A-10.
I’m here in the official feedback thread because the Albatross is missing from career mode.
Give us some amphibious or seaplane cargo, passenger, or search and rescue missions.
There’s so many flying boats and seaplanes that MSFS added as local legends or famous flyers and you haven’t given us the times or places to use them. 2020 had no good stock seaplane bases without add ons.
Have the seaplane seed mission in Alaska, at the world’s busiest seaplane base.
In short, I think seaplanes and amphibs missing from career (other than firefighting) is a huge oversight.
Another question: How do I check the fuel level on the other tanks? I’m not seeing a selector switch for the fuel gauge and I don’t see alternate gauges elsewhere.
@NixonRedgrave The hatches being open is sort of intentional and also a bug. Basically the sim wasn’t respecting the door / window (interactive point) open/close positions stored in flight (.FLT) files. I set everything to be open for cold and dark starts, but it never worked and I forgot about it. In the most recent update they finally reinstated that functionality again, so the hatches are opening on C&D now. I’ll have a look at that for the second update.
There are no gauges or selectors to read the levels in the float and external tanks. That’s how the real plane is. Gauges show main tank fuel only.
Standard procedure is to leave the fuel selectors both on “Main” for all phases of flight, and as soon as you’re in a stable cruise climb, switch both of the fuel transfer pumps (overhead panel) from “OFF” to “Float tank → Main tank”.
Once the float tanks are empty a red “Aux Fuel” light will illuminate on the main panel to indicate the fuel lines are dry. If you have external tanks you then switch the transfer pump to “Drop tank → Main Tank”. If no external tanks are present you turn off the transfer pumps and consume the remaining main tank fuel.
Hope that helps! It’s covered in more detail in the manual.
Replying to an older post I know, but I don’t believe so.
I have a VKB STECS throttle unit, which has a set of interchangeable detent “arcs” you can install on the throttle. I put an detent at about the 30% point in the axis movement range, then used the VKB software to define that point as “50%” and flashed that setting to the device firmware. In the Albatross or any other prop aircraft that allows for 0 - 100% throttle ranges, I have about 70% of my physical throttle’s movement range for (forward) power; when I move the throttle back to the rest against the detent, I’m in idle; when I move it back past the detent, I’m into beta and reverse thrust. It works an absolute treat in the Albatross.
If you have a similarly-programmable throttle unit from some other manufacturer, the same kind of thing should work in terms of defining an idle/reverse transition point. If you don’t, I’m pretty sure at least some of the common “middleware” programs people like such as FSUIPC, Axes & Ohs, etc. should be able to do it.
I have Virpil gear, so I know that it’s technically programmable the way your VKB throttle is. Virpil’s software assumes you have a master’s in computer engineering though, it’s too complicated for me beyond the very basics.
I’m considering giving AAO a shot, but FS24 is also so, so, SO frustrating that I can’t really take it anymore hah
The landing lights are also quite cool as you can tilt them up and down. Landed back on the airfield as I didn’t wanna land on the water in the dark. Overall a quite enjoyable flight.
