This one was a surprise… Watched for today’s releases disappointed to discover only eight files for the second week in a row, despite the current backlog with Wilga, etc.
But I saw one from Bill (@LyonHaart001) at Lionheart, who made the wonderful Quickie as well as a bunch of planes I loved on FSX/P3D: The Pasped Skylark W-1.
This was a heck of rare bird: Only one was built in 1935. It’s still airworthy today, though! As a lover of the 1930s “art deco” era of plane design, of rare aircraft, and since I know Bill makes good stuff, I picked it up since it was just $14.95. Definitely worth every penny!
The model looks great inside and out! There are modern radios and a transponder hidden in the glove compartment, if you’d like a little ATC with your classic flying. Handling feels on the numbers for a plane of its era.
Lots of great-looking color schemes, though oddly, the plane’s current white scheme/registration isn’t represented (there’s an approximation, but blue instead of black). Doors open, you can fly with the canopy open or closed, and you can open the battery compartment behind the engine when you’re on the ground.
All-in-all, a really nice plane for the price. My only complaint is that, though you can fly with the canopy open just like in the real plane, the audio doesn’t change when you open it. In my own experience flying a plane with the canopy open (Beech T-34), the engine doesn’t get that much louder (despite what sim fans think they want to hear), but the wind sure does. Would love to see Bill address this in a future update. That and the real-world livery are all I’d want to see added.
If you like cruising around VFR in 30’s airplanes, this is a great buy for the buck.
Lovely plane at a lovely price.
Only issue I have it that the whiskey compass spins like crazy when doing even a slightly sharp bank and the altimeter needle goes crazy every 1000 feet.
I think all of Bill’s addons are FSX ports (edit to say, they’re not actual ports, he’s rebuilt them to MSFS standards, I just mean they are all planes he already did in FSX) and while they do look very nice in MSFS, he does not know how to use Wwise or tweak those XML files yet to accommodate sound attenuation, it seems (he has admitted the former, not sure on the latter). Edit to correct myself, the sounds on this one are not default Asobo sounds, they are legacy sounds from the original addon I believe. While that means they are not Wwise sounds, it does mean they are also not copy/paste sounds from something you’ve already heard in another aircraft, so that’s nice! They are recordings of a Warner engine, and sound pretty decent from the YouTube video below this comment.
It was a nice surprise to see it in the Marketplace today. I had his Skylark in FSX, but the flight model in MSFS seems to be a lot more fun, and there are a couple of nice new features, like the fuel truck or the float version. I really like the new blue and white paintscheme but was also surprised, that the real black and white paintscheme is no longer included.
Here is a short video of it around Fantasy of Flight:
A first look on the Skylark, the story behind it is almost as cool as the aircraft itself. Check the link in the video for a great article from 1984 about it.
I bought it today as well, but won’t have time to fly it until tomorrow at the earliest. It’s just so cool looking!
I’m going to guess it’s the polar opposite of the Wilga (hideous design with a great flight model). If it flies with any sense of realism, it will be a regular flyer, otherwise I’ll just use it as a prop for photos, much like the Beech 18 and the DC-3.
The external sound is fantastic, but the sound from within the cockpit (canopy open or closed) is rather lackluster. Interesting toggles for ALT hold and HDG hold. What does the GAS toggle do? The tank selector is inop and I didn’t notice any changes when toggling that.
Only frame of reference I have is their Q200 Quickie. Not exactly super high quality but has something about it that just makes you like it.
This one seems to be a competitor to GeeBee R3. That’s a heavyweight division
