Blackbox Simulation Cessna Bird dog V1.10 Released
Within 48 Hours of initial release we have listened to the customer concerns and issued Patch V1.10
This features the addition of
Working Pitot heat + Switch
Working Batt Switch
Working ALT Switch
Working Volt/Amp Switch
Working Start Button
Working Boost Pump + Switch
Improved MAG Switch
Fixed Transponder digits 3 & 4
And Moved Passenger feet 
We hope this improves your enjoyment of what we think is a cool little VFR Bird
@HerePorpoise437 - Iām really surprised to read this.
The aircraft costs 25 Euro and you already spent much more than that buying into the development project known as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020! BBS already issued an update to address many of the release issues just as Asobo did, with more to come.
Everyone is learning, things are changing fast. What BBS achieved is pretty amazing in my opinion. It has problems but Iām confident they will fix them and address or respond to the other concerns to explain why they are like they are.
If it were me I would not refund you because you knew (as I did from this forum and the community at large) that its impossible to release a perfect aircraft currently so to counter that BBS gave us three variants and a load of liveries in the price.
Its such a fun aircraft to fly but if you are looking for perfection you are currently in the wrong simulator.
I recommend checking this review before you buyā¦
You set up the argument on a false cause and then attack the straw man. I donāt expect āperfectā, but do expect at least a reasonable standard of interior texture work and features that other developers offer in the same price range (have you seen the Mooney?!?). Anyway, enjoy it, Iām glad you feel it was money well spent.
Which is exactly why no one should be allowed to release aircraft for MSFS right now. Or any addon for that matter (like the REX one). MSFS needs quality control badly: all those rushed releases and basic quick ports from FSX are hurting MSFSās future. New airplanes should be AT LEAST on par with DEFAULT planes and this one sure isnāt.
Besides, any addon you buy now may become obsolete or stop working with the next update. Itās far too early to start buying addons for MSFS. But of course thatās all imho. To each his own. My hangar is filled with a lot of aircraft I havenāt even touched yet and which look a hundred times better than this Dog so I wonāt be spending money on MSFS addons anytime soon. Way too early for that.
I have done tons of water landings and never over stressed (or even crashed) it on landing. The fact that he didnāt try to trouble shoot why that happened or even reported it to the developer leads me to conclude he set it up for effect and just left it there to trash the developer. Nice jobā¦
Thatās a lot of assumptions youāre making without asking him yourself. Iām not sure why youāre working so hard to defend the indefensible here. Thereās plenty more issues identified in the review.
When a product is released to the general public, itās generally expected said product is going to be somewhat ready to be reviewed. Maybe things have been different with flight sims but with msfs being a much more mainstream product, third party developers are going to have to up their game.
Hi Cirrus,
Its fair to assume that with all the hyperbole online nowadays.
That just isnāt true, however.
The reality is that I spent 5 hours trying to piece together cold/dark start, flight characteristics, stall, landing characteristics etc..
I had a well planned out review that was nothing but frustration for the full 5 hours. The culmination of those frustrating hours was me deciding to do a quick preview of the aircraft and letting my viewers know that we will have to revisit it in another full review.
Thats when I skipped straight to the floatplane to capture a landing (that was my first attempt) and ensured everything was in order.
Gear up, postiive AOA, 10 fpm or so vertical descent (glide you might say) and 62 mph approach or so. Its all in the video, no hyperbole, that is what happened.
When it did, I sighed, went downstairs to grab a ādrinkā (needed at this point) and when I returned forgot about the review as IMO there isnāt really anything to review. Its beta at best.
I can respect your opinion and discuss anything you like, but donāt accuse me of things that are untrue. You donāt know me.
Further to this, I was genuinely concerned about how the preview or whatever you may call it turned out, and did take some time to consider whether or not to post it.
Enough so that I felt it necessary to add the following statement to the description of the video which I stand by.
Statement:
Was looking forward to a new float plane in msfs 2020 and when the Cessna L-19 Bird Dog by BlackBox Simulations came along I was excited to find out that there were 3 variants included. Standard Cessna L-19 along with the Bush Plane Version of the L-19 with larger tires and an Amphibious or Float Plane Cessna L-19 with pontoons. How exciting.
Clearly, a generous portion of this review is in jest, but not unfairly in my opinion. The Cessna L-19 by BlackBox simulations was not ready to be released, is clearly a product that still needs a lot of development, and my out of character reaction to this is clearly captured within this video review of the Cessna after having frustratingly tried to test and review this product in a serious and methodical nature. It became humorous at one point with the number of issues and nature of them. This is that result.
Consumers of a premium product (priced at $40 cad) should not have to put up with this. I feel a certain amount of empathy for a small developer like BlackBox simulations over this and did consider not posting this and sleeping on it a bit first. I decided however that doing this (which would lead to me eventually tempering my opinions) would not be fair to my subscribers who Iāve tried to be honest within my reviews and opinions.
This is how I felt when using this product.
I donāt want to assume that the developer rushed this to release to take advantage of being the first to market to a community hungry for options, but I would guess this had an influence on their decision. It was the wrong decision, and ultimately although they may capture a small portion of suckers like myself who are quick to purchase, I donāt regret my decision if it helps inform other people to help make theirs.
I hope for their sake the quick sales make up for the long term damage to the lifetime simmers who may not ever look at their products again. It is a lot harder to repair these types of relationships than it is to destroy them.
I hope this can help some of my viewers to make an informed decision about this product. I buy em so you donāt have to.
Lastly, I will not update this review every time a single item is fixed. If you have a lot of interest in this product you will be able to easily follow this on a relevant forum.
If however, major changes to this model and its problems are corrected by the developer which I will follow as I now own this product, I will post a follow-up review that I would be more than happy to be glowing about.
For reference, Version 1.10 was reviewed on Sept. 29, 2020
If we are being completely honest, I didnāt mention half of the problems or errors I found for the sake of brevity in the video.
IMO, there was no reason to beat a dead horse.
My real hope here is that the developer can correct these issues and potentially even upgrade this product over time.
My opinion is that it is overpriced even if correct. That opinion is based on similar offerings at that price.
That doesnāt mean I wouldnāt buy it, but Iām not a good example. I own most FS/DCS/X-Plane add-ons.
grabs popcorn
Too bad about all the negative comments, obviously from people with little experience with new flight sims. New sims are always a beta (and Microsoft would have been wise to hype 2020 as a ācommunity betaā asking the community for help finding tweaks and bugs). But they hyped it as perfect and set the expectations thereā¦bad marketing move. Any new sim is a ācommunity betaā as some obviously are just now learning.
The Little Bird is great. It is my go to as a Bush simmer. The biggest plus is being able (finally) to land on land or water. (The Icon doesnāt do it for me, no braking on water). Sure there are some switches that donāt work yetā¦so try CTRL-E and go fly it. It is one of the first of these planes that flew correctly out-of-the-box. Yes, if Microsoft gives me back the Sensitivity Curves, I will tweak it a little, but it flies realistically. It lands correctly on the water and as a floater and it brakes (water drag) realistically and is maneuverable on the water.
I wish the mirror either worked or was left off, a wishlist thing. Iām working on the wake for it, trying all the P3D tricks we learned from P3D. I see Asobo has some wakes in the Effects folder so I am playing with those. If I hit on a combination that works, Iāll update this post. If anybody beats me to it I would appreciate your fix. There is a bit of a wake now but it skips badly, thatās what Iām tweaking to (maybe) fix.
Bottom line, a fine little plane. Blackbox has always been great about fixing things..so we will let them know what might be done better, then relax, enjoy what we have so far, and put in the fix when it comes. These planes and the sims they live in are NEVER DONE ā¦some people are still tweaking FSX! If you see something wrong, donāt ā ā ā ā ā about it, turn it into something positive by pointing it out so it can be fixed. Or try yourself to fix it and pass on a fix to the developers and other simmers. They call this simmer group a ācommunityā for a reason. With the X Box crowd, there are too many people in the bleachers!
UPDATE: Iāve tried all of the wake combinations in the /EFFECTS folder. Nothing seems to work.
Yeah, some people think they help the dev by saying only the good things and trying to hide the bad things, but in fact they hurt them.
After your review, I see there is a lot of potential on this bird, Iāll follow it to see if itās improved or discounted
Amen Doug.. a breath of fresh air on a day with a bad smell
I donāt remember Asobo ever saying the game was āperfectā, before release, and of course it isnāt. It has a myriad of problems and a lot of things are unfinished and they rightfully receive a lot of criticism for those issues from the community. I donāt really understand why you think a third party developer releasing an unfinished product would not warrant the same criticism.
Youāre right, releasing unfinished products that you are asking people to pay for is a terrible marketing move. Thatās why I think itās absurd to expect people to pay $40 for an addon and have to start it with a keyboard shortcut.
This is the sort of aircraft I would normally be interested in, but not as it currently stands. Still needs some serious work on the interior and a lot of bug fixes.
But I will wait and see if things improve over time.
Do you own it?
No, but if it improves sufficiently then I probably would.
I donāt think people have as much a problem with the current state of this add-on aircraft (as all the deficits can be fixed) as people have with the price of this release in its current state. For $40 CAD or 25 Euros this should be near perfect but instead it looks like an FSX port. I donāt mean to be obtuse but you cannot be charging these prices and not even have it look as good as the default aircraft from Asobo. It just screams ācash-grabā and laziness. What the developer should have done is delayed the release until the textures can be brought on par with the current generation and then release it.
I donāt think I have said anything unreasonable considering that the Carenado planes are cheaper and look impeccable with accurate interior representations.