Recommendations for a sightseeing aircraft

A while back I bought the Orbx Landmarks pack for Dubai. Now I want to go sightseeing! Is there a great aircraft for sightseeing out there, either stock or from the Marketplace (free or paid)?

Cant beat a Big Bubble Canopy

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Nice one with helicopter view
 flies like something between ICON-5 and C152

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(you can try it for free too
 click here for the original version as aquired by Orbx. With the dog :slight_smile: )

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If you’re a fan of old warbirds, the FlyingIron P-38L is an amazing sightseeing plane. Big canopy, VERY long range, and though it is powerful and maneuverable, it’s also very stable and sedate to fly in just about every phase - the twin engines negate any torque steering issues on takeoff, it’s got a excellent climb performance, and the plane comes with both an optional Garmon 400-series GPS as well as a in-cockpit tablet with a bunch of options for seeing the flight data, setting options, and a simple heading-altitude autopilot for longer flights.

The Volocity. It’s panned a lot, but as a low and slow air vehicle with a large front view, you can’t beat it.

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Volocity looks interesting. I’ll give that one a try this evening.

I have several posts of notes on how to operate it in this thread.

Volocity is nice, if you got the time for it
 slower than ultralight, you drop it somewhere high up ?

Volocity if you’re not tied to fixed wing.

If you prefer fixed wing, the VL-3 is a great plane for low level flight and can move nice and slow without stalling to get a good look at stuff out of it’s complete glass canopy. It lets you loiter over stuff you want to see in detail at low speed to really take it in.

If you want to add a little more “oomph” to it, the Rotax 915 mod for it gives it a nice top speed boost for getting between points of interest in a hurry, while maintaining the low speed performance and handling for sightseeing.

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None better than the good ol’ 152:

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My ‘low and slow’ favorite is the default Robin. Very docile. Easy to hand fly and great visibility. And if it matters, true to life performance.

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When it comes to flying low and slow with good visibility these come to mind. They are all freeware

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I like open cockpit biplanes like the Waco or Stearman - stable to fly and great views

103 Solo is my top pick, especially if you have a VR headset.

The two best options in reality are an open cockpit, or a J-3 Cub - style door. In MSFS:

Open cockpit: DCDesigns Stearman.

Cub-style door: Aviat Husky (unsure of the dev.)

you need a helicopter for best sightseeing in a city!
This one is awesome and free; 420,000 downloads so far can’t be wrong:

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My vote would go to the Whitaker MW6.
Fly to altitude to you want, trim to keep it stable, and you can fly it without it even touching the yoke/joystick using only rudder to steer.

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my recommendation is the Pipistrel Virus. great little plane.

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A helicopter sounds like a good idea. What’s the learning curve for one? Would an hour or two be enough to control one reasonably well?

I have the H135 (freeware) and H145 (pre release payware, same dev). If you are on PC that is. The H135 is a great place to start, but I have found the H145 to be a very enjoyable aircraft. I’ve only recently bought it, but it’s really easy to get to grips with the basics and nice and stable to fly. It’s also becoming my #1 sightseeing aircraft, no worries over runways or airports even, go land on a hill top instead. Some heliports available as freeware too. The H145 is to be recommended, its apparent the devs have sunk a ton of dedication & effort into it, it even has a swing out ‘tablet’ that integrates with other programs like little nav map. If you are unsure about helis the H135 would be a good place to start though. In wind they can be more of a challenge to precision land. The main challenge with them for me is slowing down to a controlled landing. It’s quite tricky to get zero speed in X and Y direction whilst doing a prefect soft landing on a precise target (roof top helipad say). They are fun aircraft though, easy to learn the basics (you will likely need a joystick though). I honestly can’t get enough of the H145 right now and I have other aircraft awaiting my attention. (pictured below at Prestwick, over Cumbrae, and at Porstmouth)



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