Bad move. I get to taste the Piper Cheyenne by DA & Aerosoft.
There should be some kind of law against air abecedarians like me, who are barely confortable VFRing in a C172 and have got issues about sticking to the centerline, from getting near exceptional simulations of high-performance aircraft. Luckily there isn’t, and I can get my hands all over the Digital Aviation / Aerosoft Piper Cheyenne. It’s so good, wife knows I’m flying it because I begin to moan; she grumbles: “are you flying that Piper again?”
So, if it’s so great, why did I start the review saying it was a bad move? Well, the first reason is obviously the amount of time this baby is sucking from my life. It’s summer here, I should take the kayak out more, and I also got a blog to maintain, you know. And the other reason is the shame, of course.
You just can’t take-off in this superior add-on by applying full-throttle, like in the aforementioned C172. Would you use a Rolls-Royce Phantom as a bumping car? Upon first reading of the (very well written, concise) manual, I realised if I wanted to take off, fly, and land with the Cheyenne I had to exert myself further than succesfully performing a couple of circuits around my favourite airport. An aircraft like this can be flown for VFR, if you are a pedestrian (which I am), but it asks of you some three letters: IFR.
So far I’ve been completely avoiding IFR, believing my goal was to master VFR navigation (thanks Trevor Thom!) first. No need to rush it, right? To really enjoy this package, there is. So it’s not a bad thing after all; more like a boost in the educational journey, really. Another discipline this package teaches is management. Are you familiar with the FADEC system? I saw it in a real Twin Diamond about a month ago, and it’s the aeronautical equivalent of the automatic gearbox in a car, auto-magically managing fuel flow, mixture, RPMs, etc. But guess what? This Piper was made in the sixties, when FADECs were just being conceived, so gotta learn to do it like real pilots did: read the tables, compute your temps, your pressures, etc, or else. CTRL-E the default Piper Cub, man. Plan to reach Flight Levels? You’ll have to fully manage your pressurisation too, unless you want to blow your (and your virtual pax’s) mind. The GPS (Trimble Approach Plus) is very old-school too. No fancy graphics, the needle goes in the middle, thankyouverymuch.
If I am ever able to fly it properly perhaps one day I’ll get to perceive the subtlety of each of the flight models (of which you get four: I, IA, II, and IIXL). To know how it flies from a real pilot’s perspective, better read Mr Zane Gard Jr.’s review at AVSim.
And of course there’s the visual delight, the surreal ambiance achieved. The Dreamfleet Baron 58 has one of the most immersive VCs out there (it was released in 2005, remember) but this one surpasses it. I enjoy being in that cockpit so much, it feels so real. Every little button and lever can be operated and works. I am a VC freak, but purists will also rejoice, because the 2D panels are individual works of art. Me, it’s TrackIR and VC, thank you. Regarding fps, the boys at Digital Aviation seem to have done their work to the best of their abilities because the level of detail goes up to extraordinary heights with low impact on performance. Here I must compare it again with the DF Baron, in which the graphical strain could be painfully felt in VC mode. There’s also a super-detailed virtual cabin, but I confess after my initial flight I just disabled it from the menu, both to gain in performance, but more importantly because when you fly the Cheyenne there’s no time to look back at the cool upholstery.
You’re in danger of colliding with mountains if you drool too much over the external model. It’s so detailed it feels you are watching a GMax render instead of a live FS session. This works against the model having lots of liveries (you can count with your fingers how many there are at AVSim since its release) because of its complexity for repainters, but c’est la vie.
I could go on and on about the Piper Cheyenne, because I’m discovering more every day, as I put more time into it. In fact, I gotta go now, to fly the only twin I’ll ever need. You should too.
NOTE: The Native American featured in the cover of the article is a genuine, real Cheyenne, photographed by Edward S. Curtis for his book The North American Indian, circa 1900.
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