Should I get the Black Square King Air or the Flysimware C414AW Chancellor?

Hi all,

So as the title suggests I am debating between purchasing either of these two. The goal is to simulate having a charter company up in Alaska flying up and down remote towns. Since these two aircraft have such incredible reviews I really want to use one of them for my purpose.

What I like about the 414 is that the exterior model got some love and I can open doors and do all those kind of things. That really adds to the immersion.

What I like about the King Air is the incredible system depth and that it can actually haul a bit more than the 414. I think itā€™s a bit more realistic to use a king air as a charter service than the 414.

I am looking for recommendations and tips! Thanks all!

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All the Black Squareā€™s are great tbh but there is really not many aircraft in the sim that have as much detail and features as the 414. The EFB alone is stunning, ability to add individual passengers and so on. the flight model is also amazing good.

There is a reason why it is no.1 in the Top 10 Aircraft list. :slight_smile:

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Firstly - just my opinion and not a pilot. Agree to much of what the previous post has said - the Black Squares are great - but the 414 edges it for me. Its had a lot of updates recently a sign of the developers desire to provide the best possible experience. Its a great plane to fly, the systems are great and its got a nice old feel to it (not that I know how old it is)

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Same with the above statements. I own all the black square addons and they are great but the 414 is just that extra mile (or two).

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I would think that the 414ā€™s ability to open the cargo bay doors and the wing lockers and load baggage through the EFB would really help you with your simulated charter ops. Pax visible as well.

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The 414 is nr 1 for a reason. It just has everything you would want from a twin aircraft in this sim.

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Heck i would get the 414 for the sounds :loud_sound: alone, butā€¦with that said, i believe you will enjoy the King Air more for your charter duties in Alaska.

  • The 414 flight model gets raved about a lot here and deservingly soā€¦butā€¦ the King Airā€™s flight model also has improved massively with updates and itā€™s absolutely a treat to hand fly.

  • Youā€™re going to get there faster in the King Air. Weā€™re talking jet speeds here :rocket:.

  • The deep cabin temperature simulation systems in the King Air will certainly keep you on your toes around Alaska and youā€™re going to be busy in the cockpit trust me, hawk-eyeing for anything to go wrong :eyes:.

Thatā€™s my take.

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Thank you! That is very interesting. I do enjoy the cabin temperature aspect a lot!

Also thanks to the rest! I will give it a few responses but right now I feel like I should get the King Air and then very very shortly after the 414 as wellā€¦ It seems they are both too good to pass on. They both seem to fit in my charter company idea!

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In the 414 there are also various ways to cool or heat the cabin. You can follow the temperature on the EFB.

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Iā€™ve found the 414 flight model to be a bit iffy sometimes to be honest not in terms of realism since I have no idea how it should fly but surely a large twin would be more stable than a single engine bug smasher in windy conditions. Last time I took it up with a stiff crosswind for some circuit practice I was being thrown all over the place. Maybe just my poor flying abilities at play here.

The king air flies much more stable and is by far a more enjoyable experience to hand fly.

In terms of systems the king air has a far deeper systems model with random failures and the like. The 414 has almost everything operable but not that deeply simulated if that matters to you at all.

Visuals wise the 414 is spectacular and the sounds are great, the king air is just defaults which are good but not amazing. There is an ftsim soundpack available but I found that way too loud and when you land the engine noticeably revs up for some reason which isnā€™t heard with the default soundset.

Also a small thing I really hate about the 414 is how they havenā€™t been able to implement hot swappable avionics like so many others (freeware projects included) and instead weirdly tie the avionics choice down to the livery which clutters the list up pointlessly.

Oh and the update cadence is ridiculous for this thing, I havenā€™t updated in a few weeks but heā€™s already released around 5-6 updates to the planeā€¦

Given itā€™s in the community folder, you can edit the aircraft.cfg and remove the [FLTSIM.n] sections you donā€™t use. Just donā€™t forget to renumber them, in order.

I remove and reorder FLTSIM sections all the time to get my favorite livery to the front of the list.

(Itā€™s trickier if your favorite livery is its own package. In that case you have to make sure the SimObjects\Airplanes\whateverthenamehereis directory is first in the list. I usually put a 0_ at the front of the name, and edit the layout.json appropriately, or you can use the MSFSLayoutGenerator.exe program to fix it)

Yes, agreed - and ironically this is often a result of the aircraft being set up too stable in the cfg ( or at least the ā€œstabilityā€ settings being used instead of mechanical stability ). If you ignore the SDK a bit ( several people Iā€™ve talked to agree thereā€™s something amiss in the area ) & set it up with more inertia it suddenly feels better - small changes though and the basic aircraft performance is unchanged. Thatā€™s why I went back to recommending it because itā€™s nearly very good out of the box.

Itā€™s not really the same sort of aircraft as a King Air 350 though, one is a larger GA aircraft & the other is basically a small regional airliner. I fly the KA a lot more for no particular reason than itā€™s more unique, I think.

Have you already bought the THE BEST OF THE BEST, the Flysimware C414? Even the deicing boots are animated!
Congratulations you donĀ“t need to buy anything else because anything else is inferior compared to the awesome C414.

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Iā€™ll go against the grain and say go with the King Air simply because of the aircraft release stability. The C414 dev just canā€™t stop messing with it and continually breaks stuff, fixes, breaks and sometimes on an almost daily basis. Itā€™s a very nice aircraft but they need to learn how to introduce change in a more professional manner. Yes you can use an older version and I do but if you donā€™t have that ability often you are left with a broken aircraft.

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Even though I love the 414 nothing beats the Black Square King Air. Itā€™s my absolute favourite aircraft in the sim because itā€™s like a mini airliner that can do SIDs and STARs but you donā€™t have to deal with all the annoying FMC programming, pushback and other complicated procedures before you get up and start flying.

Since Iā€˜m also not as happy with the C414ā€˜s flight behavior when hand flying as I used to be with previous versions ā€¦ which values concerning inertia did you change and how much? I experimented with downscaling elevator effectiveness from its current value of 1 down ti the 0.3 which were used in older versions. This makes it react a bit less twitchy for my taste ā€¦ but itā€™s not quite there yet. So any ideas are welcome :grin:

Iā€™d go for the 414 as well. Itā€™s my favourite GA plane, and has been for some time.

The only thing I would say is missing is the systems failure you see in some planes with that weather radar.

The 414 has what I belief is a unique weather radar, which can alternately be switched to terrain mapping, but does not offer a failures sub-menu.

Itā€™s really nice to fly, and has good ground handling.

I would choose the black square B350 over the 414.

Both are great. Almost never fly the 414 and the blacksquare b350 is one of mine favorites. I feel i have to pay more attention to the systems, startup and shutdown in the 350. Not doing it right will come back to me next time i start up the plane. Plus it offers different navigation options.

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The 414 does offer different options for glass cockpits, theyā€™re not switchable on the fly like the Black Square ones but theyā€™re in different liveries. I personally prefer the GNS530 (easier to read) but the 750s are available.

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