Your Current TOP 10 Aircraft

Always do your research on the individual threads for a plane before buying. I bought the Arrow III/IV based on the list and only later found out it they have a wonky auto-pilot. I never fly them.

1 Like

Mainly because it wasnā€™t good on initial release and quite expensive so it is still fighting against that first bad reviews-opinions.

And history is about to repeat itself.

My first top 10 of the year - delayed by a week of covid (felt like being run down by a train). These are my favourites and my storiesā€¦.

  1. FSW C414. Another reviewer of this aircraft really put it better than Iā€™ve ever managed in two words - ā€œAccomplishedā€ and a ā€œPleasureā€ to fly. Exactly. If I could only have one aircraft to fly in the sim this would be it for meā€¦ A real masterpiece

  2. Asobo CJ4 (AAU beta). Feels like flying a real ā€œpocket rocketā€, takes the standard CJ4 and brings it alive with all of the WT expertise and real world pilot inputs. The proline avionics are beautifully modelled and this aircraft has been transformed beyond all recognition with the update. At least it has been unless youā€™ve already experienced the WT modsā€¦|

  3. FFX VisonJet G2|. A stellar prodiut - modern personal jet brought to MSFS by the FFX team, and this one is a real gem to fly. Lots of lovely touches including ANC headphones complement an assured flight model and very capable automatics. All beautifully done - another one thatā€™s a pleasure to flyā€¦

  4. BBS Islander. Islander and Trislander aircraft were a big part of my early life on Jersey. When Aurigny Air Services started up their inter island services I would often watch and hear them, the introduction of the Trislander aircraft was a revolution and G- JOEY became a personality. BBS gave us the wonderful Islander aircraft first, then developed a study level Trislander with thrilling sounds and immersive feel. BBS upgraded the Islander to a study level aircraft, free to existing Islander owners. For BBS to give me the thrill of flying these amazing island hoppers, both modelled exquisitely and to such a high level of detail is just brilliant and I fly these two a lot. They are keepers and Iā€™m going to be very keen to see what BBS can do with the SH 330/360 aircraft we also saw a lot of in the Channel Islands.

  5. BBS Trislander - as above ( and you donā€™t have to ask, it will be JOEY)

  6. Asobo/Milviz DH2c. Suddenly we have a beautiful bush plane that feels so realistic and with a very immersive and aged cockpit. Wonderful bush plane and flies so well too. I know a lot of people like the Wilga now but it will take an awful lot to drag me away from flying the Beaver right now. This one wants to make me want to fake an American accent and smoke a Marlboro ā€˜ when Iā€™m flying it. Gorgeous anniversary surprise

  7. Asobo inibuilds A310. Iā€™m not really the biggest airliner fan but to get this onto the Xbox. Wow. Stunning systems detail and a very authentic feel. If Iā€™m flying an airliner this is the one Iā€™m taking out. The work that must have gone into this. What an achievement for the development team who deserve congratulations. Bar raised. By a lot.

  8. Asobo Carenado Beech 18. This was very much a slow burn aircraft for me. At first I found it impossible to land and eventually uninstalled it, frustrated. But I read a lot and navigated past the extensive Carenado trolling community to pick up a lot of info on the Beech 18 IRL and itā€™s vices. The flight model is actually very authentic and accurate for a tail dragger in MSFS. Having read and learned from the more enlightened members of the forum, I stopped trying to fight it on landing - inevitable bounces - and instead flew it until it wanted to settle. The bounces stopped for the most part but I would still end up drifting off the runway even with the tail wheel locked. Then I learned the ā€œrudder danceā€ from people on the forum. Works for any big taildragger you need to wheel land. I can fly the Beech now and itā€™s a real pleasure to be able to do so. Iā€™ve really started to love flying this aircraft. Itā€™s a real Pilotsā€™ plane, just as in real life - of course, as such I can only ever be a pretender - but once airborne a real delight to hand fly or shoot a precision approach in. Every now and again she will still bite you on landing - as soon as you show a touch of complacency or familiarity ā€¦. And this was well known to those who flew the Twin Beech. The panel, interior and exterior are all beautifully modelled - this is an underrated and exemplary aircraft- I would like a couple of freighter layouts though. It is a way more accomplished offering than the DC3 which has too many rough edges to be a contender for me

  9. Orbx PAC750 XSTOL. This does everything for me that the Kodiak 100 did for me when it was first released. Itā€™s an outstanding flight model, analogue avionics rather than the glass of the Kodiak, primitive AP but is a dependable load lifter and STOL performer. A joy to fly and fascinating to have a low wing STOL aircraft from the Southern Hemisphere. Itā€™s grown on me, the longer the Kodiak has been hangared and itā€™s now a keeper -very hard to displace, set your pitch and power and put her down exactly on the spot you want every time. A real workhorse and a treat to fly.|

  10. Carenado PC 12. If you get past all the hysterical trolling of Carenado, youā€™ll find they make some very decent aircraft. This is one of them. Lots of detail, as youā€™d expect, what feels like a pretty good flight model - Iā€™ve enjoyed flying this for a while now with only a couple of the reported issues, all easily worked round to be honest. no flight stoppers and itā€™s got better with a recent update. Keeper for me.

Enjoy your flying allā€¦

9 Likes

A lot of that is a conflict between state saving and the AP itself. You can sometimes get it to behave by switching off the avionics for a short time and then powering up again.

An ongoing internet issue.

People search for reviews of products and often the most hits are the flurry of initial reviews from first release. This means a good product can suffer from a poor release, and a bad product can benefit from all the positive reviews that appeared before issues became obvious.

1 Like

Thanks for the update / additions and the awesome descriptions!

This can be arranged :wink:
(It neednā€™t be the Beaver you stop flying though. They are very different).

Great description on this one. Iā€™m gonna take her up for a trip right now after reading that - thanks!

Glad to see another pilot seeing the virtues of the PAC MAN. This alone proves increasing to 10 was a solid decision otherwise youā€™d have never mentioned this one.

I will, thanks! Gonna settle the Beech 18 down on some runways :wink:

I just wish people would stop praising the Vision Jet! Spent Ā£65 on helicopters today!!

5 Likes

The Vision Jet is very good.

A jet for GA lovers.

The G3000 is an easy and rewarding system to learn.

The opposite of a helicopter. When you finally learn to fly to your destination with hands off except for takeoff and landing, it is SUCH a rewarding feeling.

What you learn carries over to all other G3000 and 5000 planes. Like, that Longitude Beta is really cool now.

No hurries.
:smiling_imp:

1 Like

Yeah, restraint - will get it one day! When it goes on sale lol

Anyway, I did the next leg of my 414 trans-continental trip and most of that was on APā€¦ kind of donā€™t see the point really. Itā€™s not my thing - I fly to FLY. On that trip I was just on my phone and looked at the cool mountains from time to time :slight_smile: OK for a change of pace (and that 414 is just so good) but yeah, I could have done more with that 2 hours lol. Determined to complete the task I set myself though even if it takes me yearsā€¦

5 Likes

I hear you. I am going around the world in a Kodiak and that does most of the work for me!

A different kind of flying. Look at phone. Entertain cats. And watch a LOT of, ā€œHow to fly (whatever plane I wish to learn)ā€ videos on YouTube. Oh! And audiobooks!

But I tend to end a flying session with an hour of helicopters, bush planes, warbirds, and/or biplanes.

3 Likes

Based on all the very positive comments on the Wilga here you know thereā€™s not a chance of me passing it up when it comes through MPā€¦ :slight_smile:

3 Likes

i`m not the biggest fan tubeliners either. But this and the DC-6 are something special. When the connie came out it clearly wasnt finished and the lesser product of the two. After version 2 release of the connie and the 2.2 release yesterday. The connie is just impressive and at least on par with the DC-6. Want to fly easy, medium or realistic? do you want a flight engineer, a copllot or even a pliot to do the work for you? and much features, and still more to come.

It is such a challenge to fly this thing and the best thing. A reverse with a thrilling sound that makes me want to fly in reverse.


4 Likes

The Early Access business model has some pitfalls and the Redwing Lockheed is a good example of that. The initial interest focused on the released that was very much a work in progress and since the product has matured it has been difficult to rekindle interest. However, respected sim YouTuber Into the Blue revisited the Redwings Constellation in the fall and made a very positive assessment of how far the project has progressed.

4 Likes

I feel you are right in you assesment about the early acces model and the difficulty to rekindle interest later. I bought the L1049 when it came out because i wanted to support the development. Flew it once and waited many months and updates to try it again.

2 Likes

POLL RESULTS ā€” MINI-UPDATE??

So the poll results are in. Only around 30% want a weekly update. I think this is what they call a democracy.

Judging from this, the plan will be to only publish the result once per month in future so it remains a surprise.

But, as this is a new start, and to make @PHJAAP happy (and as this weekend is a similar % of the month it makes sense (!! :slight_smile: ) here is a mini-update with the current state of the Top 50 votes (ignore the heading!) after 7 days and 34 participants!

This is just a simple tally of votes (ordered by newest if there was a tie) so we can see what has happened so far (and chat about it). It will be combined into the January totals at the end of the month with the full report. I wonā€™t publish again so it will still be a surprise in 3 weeks (unless nobody else votes lol).

Thanks to everyone that voted and started down this new road (or should that be ā€œflight corridorā€) with us!

Four new entries:

  1. Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis by Microsoft / Blue Mesh
  2. PowerSTOL by V.G.P
  3. PAC P-750 XSTOL by Orbx
  4. Grumman G-21A Goose by Microsoft / iniBuilds

I purchased the CowanSim Bell 206 helicopter and shortly afterwards some comments appeared on the forum saying the the FlyInside one was a lot better handling. Temptation got the better of me (as it usually does) so off I went to buy that one as well. Yeah, Iā€™m a fool. What can I say.

I was hesitant about the FI one as Iā€™d read that frame rate was worse and my system is living on the edge as it is but actually I find the Cowan one is more prone to stuttering in the same scenery / situations!

I wanted a step up from the Cabri and I probably should have waited and got only one but itā€™s quite interesting to compare them and Iā€™ll see how they develop in updates. Iā€™d have to agree that the FlyInside option is currently better behaved. But they are so different itā€™s a bit confusing that they are both meant to be ā€œrealisticā€ for the 206. Clearly they canā€™t both be. Anyway both are exactly what I was hoping as they are definitely a step up in difficulty (but not as hellish as the 47G :D) but I need more time in them both. Preferring the FI so far but am sure both will get improvements. They both look good, sound good and fly noticeably faster than the Cabri. They are a lot more edgy in hover (like trying to balance a ping pong ball on a sharpened pencil) so I think itā€™s a pretty perfect next step for me to learn.

I managed to get back in the cockpit of the 414 to continue my Mexico crossing. First time I used the Honeycomb with it and got to say itā€™s majestic. I used AP for the bulk of the trip (~2 hours) which I donā€™t normally do. That plane is solid! Right now the Wilga is calling though. CU in the skies M8ā€™s!!

13 Likes

Yeah same here. Iā€™m crossing Pakistan right now on my way over to India. Still on track for those 100 hours in the air within the next three months that you put up to me as a challenge!

1 Like

Hahah awesome! I just hit number 1 spot of my Hobbs with her!

rnk hhhh:mm-------------------------------------------------------
001 0022:12 = PZL-104 Wilga 35/80 Series [Got Friends]

@WellREDBarron Try and land your Vision Jet down here m8?!

This is a really nice addon for the Willy. 160 Amazon bush strips, mostly just POI marked (no ICAO) but a lot are really close together so itā€™s fun just landing, go to next one, landing - some are really quite tricky, not flat, narrow, and pretty short.

3 Likes

Speaking of which: what would you consider more reasonable for comparison, Hobbs or Hours? I.e. which one is closer to the hours of flight time that pilots usually mean? Hobbs consistently shows more than hours, e.g. Iā€™m at 116 hours for the Tiger Moth and 17 hours for the Wilga within Hobbs, but at 102 hours and 15 hours respectively in Hours.

Cool addon with the Amazon strips! Will check this out when I make my way over to South America.

If you use time compression (sim rate) hours get borked.

Oh, weird - it SHOULD be the other way around I thought but good question. Looking at mine, they are a bit jumbled too. (I normally only view Hobbs personally).
@Funghie / @MojaveHigh2379 please correct me if I am wrong, but HOBBS is actual flight time (wheels off the ground) where HOURS is ā€œengine runningā€ including taxiing, just sitting in cockpit parked up etc when not ā€œpausedā€. Or the other way around?!

So IMO Hours should be higher but looks like I am wrong - I have usually lower except the Cabri which is much higher Hours here in my top 5 (hidden below). Hmm.

Screenshot

NOTE: You can check the manual in the app (Menu > Info > View Manual) which says about it. But I think MSFS is not really counting all this stuff accurately. Things can confuse it if you pause / crash / land and take off again / restart flight etc

Hmm, I donā€™t use time compression. I think I used it once when I had to go to bed but still had some flight time left - but that was only for half an hour or so and only 2x or 4x speed. It shouldnā€™t mess up my hours in general.

Unless the sim rate is persistent and I accidentally never set it back to 1x - as far as I know I canā€™t see what the sim rate actually is so I donā€™t know how to verify that.