An Addon Like No Other! | A2A Comanche 250 | Full Review | Microsoft Flight Simulator

foreign [Music] everyone and welcome back to the channel in today's video we're going to be taking a look at a very exciting 10 of events with a2a having just released their first aircraft for Microsoft flight simulator for many of you I'm sure that HOA will need absolutely no introduction for those of you though who are perhaps unfamiliar with HOA they really are masters of their craft creating historically some of the best aircraft that we've seen available within flight simulation a2a are essentially to GA aircraft and warbirds what pmdgr to study level Jets though I would actually go as far as to say that HOA really go above and beyond any other developer that I've come across they have a very special ability to create not only a very highly detailed highly accurate model but also bringing an aircraft that really feels like a living breathing piece of machinery as usual we're going to be carrying out a full review of the product here today and there is plenty for us to cover on the face of it the HOA Comanche 250 may just look like any other single engine GA aircraft available within the SIM ilarly though as we go through our flight here today you'll start to see very quickly that that is anything but the case as you can probably tell I've long been a fan of a2a and their product so I'm very excited now to see one of their aircraft available within Microsoft flight simulator as always though I will be aiming to give you a full accurate and unbiased review of the product for our flight today we are currently on the ground at Hudson Valley Regional Airport and we're going to be taking the Comanche on a fairly short Regional hop over towards Block Island just off the coast of Rhode Island the cruise time for our flight today is going to be around 40 minutes we're going to be carrying out a full flight all the way through from a cold and dark start right through to shutdown and additionally as well today with the a2a aircraft just being that little bit more special we're also going to be carrying out the full walk around we'll run through some maintenance procedures as well and also during the cruise we'll run through the extensive onboard tablet one quick note to point out before we begin the HOA Comanche does make use of extensive external programming from the Sim so for example The Sounds the aircraft flight model all run externally as a result that did play a little bit of Havoc with my typical recording tools so any peculiarities that you see during the external shots of the aircraft those can simply be placed down to the Comanche not playing very well with the recording tool that I typically use anyway guys I really hope you enjoyed the video certainly a very special one lined up for you here today as always if you do please consider giving it a like and subscribing to the channel we've just pulled the aircraft from the hangar so first things first let's go through the maintenance log so we are now in the cockpit of the Comanche and as I say first thing we'll do is take a look at the maintenance page of the onboard tablet firstly in terms of the airframe you can see we can add or remove the tip tanks we're going to be running with the tip tanks for our flight today there are also various other aircraft equipment options available and as with any a2a product these are not just visual niceties you will actually see Associated effects so for example if you fit the fairings you'll see a slight increase in the aircraft's performance from the maintenance tab we also have the option to overhaul the aircraft before we consider that though we can inspect the state of our Comanche and as you can see the aircraft systems generally given a clean bill of health not too surprising there as we are running a brand new pa24 Comanche 250 you can see we've got less than an hour currently on the airframe the only issue worthy of consideration at the moment we currently have a low battery voltage so that may make starting the aircraft a little bit trickier and once again wear and tear is modeled on an a2a aircraft so all of the various systems you see here may be subject to failure the same is true of our 250 horsepower Lycoming 0540 the engine is modeled in absolutely superb detail we'll talk more about that during the flight again the realism and the accuracy of this a2a aircraft really unparalleled within the Sim not only is the oil system modeled but we can also choose different grades of oil based on the outside operating temperature according to HOA the level of detail is such that each individual cylinder of the engine has been modeled including the combustion process once again for me a2a are the only add-on developer that I've come across that really make the aircraft feel like a living breathing organic piece of machinery once again if we inspect our engine you can see there all of the components green across the board so everything working correctly you can see there as well we've even tested the compression of all six cylinders as with everything else that is modeled it will affect engine power output if you have lower compression on a cylinder but again we've only got 0.81 hours on our brand new engine so everything looking good here for the flight today we've taken care of the tech log now we know the aircraft's in a satisfactory state to fly so what's the next thing we'll be doing on a realistic flight here we'd be going for a walk around and with the a2a Comanche we can make our way around the externals of the aircraft making sure that the Comanche is fit to fly okay so just having exited the cockpit we are now ready for the walk around and as you can see here starting with the right hand flap we've currently got the flap set fully down and we can physically move those flaps make sure that the linkage is working correctly that the flaps are fixed in position not much give there at the moment as you can see if we were flying an older aircraft expecting to see a little bit more give there and typically that is modeled on an a2a product checking the overall condition of the wing here as well everything looking pretty satisfactory so let's move on to the right hand later on okay so now down at the right hand aileron and once again everything looking good in terms of condition as before we can physically move to flight control make sure it's working in the correct sense we'd also visibly check the linkages there as well and again everything looking satisfactory we can move around to the wingtip right so we're now down at the wingtip tank and this for me really typifies what a quality product the a2a Comanche actually is firstly there a beautiful shot of the aircraft but just listen to The Sounds look at the attention to detail here as we check the fuel level on our wingtip tank so firstly opening up the cover and opening up the plug there for the tank itself basically checking there the tank is empty at the moment a little bit hard to tell perhaps but there would be a visible difference there if we had the aircraft fueled up making sure that we replace cap once again and the cover further to that we also need to check we don't have any water in the fuel system the engine doesn't tend to run too well on water we should still have a little bit of fuel here in the tip tanks did you have any water it'd be a noticeably different color here versus the fuel the blue I have gas onto the Leading Edge of the right hand Wing here just checking the condition of the landing lights typically we'd have the lights on here for the walk around I just chose to leave those off today just to save on the battery we're obviously going to be taking a little bit more of an extended look at the aircraft and now down to the underside of the right hand Wing again just checking the overall condition and whilst we're down here we can remove the tie down as well okay so now checking the contents of our main fuel tank here on the right hand wing once again we'll open up the cover move the cap again excellent animation excellent sounds and you might just about be able to make out this time we do have a different Zone color you can see there the blue of the afghas and the tanks are fully topped off so we've got the main tanks pretty much full here for our flight today just a little bit of fuel in the tip tanks closing up the cover once again and now checking the right hand main landing gear once again just checking the overall condition of Tire the brake lines also down here as well we can remove the chocks onto the front of the beautiful Comanche 250 just checking the prop blades the prop spinner and the engine intake making sure that everything's clear once again everything looking to be in visibly good condition so let's move on to the left hand side of the aircraft okay so down now to the engine cowling we'll check our oil quantity by opening up the cover unscrewing the oil probe might be a little bit tricky to make out in the video but we've got just below nine quarts of oil and looking at the color of the oil there as well the all in condition and once again all of that is modeled on the aircraft the oil will not only deplete but also deteriorate over time you will periodically need to carry out an oil change and there's a feedback system there as well as the all deteriorates if you're running an engine with poor oil quality then you'll see those components of the engine start to deteriorate more rapidly as well it's again really nice level of detail from a to a anyway for our flight today the oil is looking good that the all-probe can go back in once again and closing out the cover down now then to our left main fuel tank and once again we can just check the quantity should be a little bit easier to see with this one again you can just about see there the blue hue that we've got there from the Avgas just topping off the tanks and making sure that's closed and locked once again and on the left hand Wing we can remove the tie down remove the Pito cover and ordinarily here as well we check the still warning we should be able to hear that on the cockpit on the left hand tip tank same checks as before so once again opening up the cover visibly checking the tip tanks there the fuel gauges on most aircraft are notoriously inaccurate so visually checking the fuel definitely the best way to go get the tip down pretty much empty closing up the cover once again and just checking the condition here of the tip tank and the left hand nav light picking the left hand side of the fuse large we'll check the tail picking the antennas there as well and I'm not sure whether or not that's supposed to be the static Port but checking that of course that that's visibly clear any obstructions down now at the back then of the Comanche and once again we'll remove our tie down we'll check the horizontal stabilizer making sure that's full and free now we can check the linkage there as well and lastly before we get back in the cockpit we'll just get the aircraft loaded up so coming down to the baggage compartments we can open that up just the turbos here today but nevertheless quite a lot of luggage for our trip down to Block Island apparently our passenger doesn't travel lightly you can see there as well the aircraft's squatting down on the Elios as we load it up really nice level of attention to detail so all of our bags on board we close out the baggage compartments and make our way back to the cockpit so welcome then to the beautiful and highly detailed cockpit of the a2a Comanche 250 on the ground at Hudson Valley Regional as we've discussed just the one passenger here we're going to be heading over to Block Island so first things first we'll get the aircraft door closed up and just making sure that is secured and latched here at the top the flight control lock has been removed just slowed that down in the left-hand storage compartment obviously we just carried out our walk around so running through the before start checks pre-flight inspection has been completed the passenger briefing is complete seat belts are secure parking brake is set the part Breakers modeled correctly as well you do have to depress the brakes first there before you take the parking brake on carburetor Heats is set cold fuel selector as we discussed there during the walk around we're going to be running off the main tanks here today so selecting both through to the main tanks circuit breakers as you can see there we've actually got a circuit breaker already tripped for the starter motor we'll reset that for now but the circuit breakers nice little demonstration there are fully modeled they can be tripped the second Breakers are checked avionics Master is off the door is close and latched the star checks the throttle will just crack a quarter of an inch open mixture will set through to fully rich and the prop is set through to fully forwards master switch can go on we'll get the Beacon Light On and fuel pump can go on here as well just checking there we do have positive fuel pressure and the fuel pump can come off once again we'll plant the engine three times again everything is modeled on the aircraft so you can over Prime and under Prime it's a lot easier to deal with under priming so we'll just go with three for now and locking that up once again making sure that the prop area is clear you may notice as well it's getting a little bit hazier in here that's not a tricky eyes a2a to actually model the canopy and indeed the aircraft here fogging up we've got two people here sitting breathing in and out at least virtually modeled and no ventilation currently on the Comanche we'll take care of that in a moment we'll open up the DV window give everyone a shout clear prop the max can go through to both and we can hit the starter foreign doesn't necessarily always catch immediately but nevertheless there we're pretty lucky but excellent modeling the engine overall edgeware the only developer I've come across that really make an aircraft feel alive really does feel like a working piece of machinery anyway I'd look at a thousand RPM the oil pressure has come up there into the green and once again just confirming the fuel pump is selected off mixture will leave as is for now and just checking our engine temperatures and pressures everything looking good save for the taxi checks see everyone's Master can go on radio's Navionics we'll set up in just a moment of time we'll just continue on for now as the Garmin there initializes they're just waiting on the tours test complete transponder is set to standby watch instruments tars System test okay I checked the Q H is set we've got zero six five there on the HSI there are six five there on the compass laps are retracted just officially checked the operation here at the flaps peaceful flaps and same there on the right hand side so flaps are checked and again just confirmed they are retracted primer is in unlocked and a gear indication we have the gear selector down with the green lights release parking brake on for now and coming down to the g10xr units we'll start setting up the flight plan over towards Block Island [Music] just working our way through our messages [Music] so coming down to flight plan we are departing out of Hudson Valley Regional we're going to be tracking initially and bound towards the Kingston VOR which is India Gulf November and we have Kingston after that we're going to be tracking the Waypoint Mooney Mike Oscar Oscar November India then it'll be on to the Hartford VOR just Hotel foxtrot Delta after that be the Groton VOR golf Oscar November and then on towards the Sandy Point viewer which is located on Block Island and that's Sierra Echo Yankee lastly block home state itself that's kilo Bravo India Delta and we have Block Island so just running through the flight plan there Hudson Valley out towards Kingston Waypoint Mooney Hartford Groton Sandy Point and then Block Island itself looks like we have an update here on the G10 XR we'll take care of that later on to the map display for now you can see the initial course outbounds are a six three so we'll set that up here on the HSI Runway two four equipment is there a six three we're going to be parting off runway zero six so we'll set the heading bug here as well and we can shoot up the VOR so we'll come back to Flight Plan go Kingston Waypoint info and frequency one when seven decimal six we'll set that in the active and we'll go back to map so you can see we are picking up the Kingston VR there we also have an engine management and fuel computer you can see currently that wants us to fill in the data I haven't played around with that too much yet you can actually automatically set it up as well by the tablet which is a really nice function we're just going to clear that for now we'll leave things as is so you can see we're currently here on the main GA print we're going to taxi out the southeast and then along the main taxiway here for Runway is there a six so off the brakes about a thousand RPM here the Comanche rolling very nicely obviously we'll take things nice and slow here as we come out of the flight line to take a little bit more power aircraft taxis very nicely indeed it does everything very nicely you'll certainly get a feeling for that drop flights so close that's fine just need to be across that I'll call before Ultra in way too far in the commentary definitely one of those aircraft that just feels right it has a certain feeling of weight and power to it of course my ga standards the aircraft is a little bit of a thoroughbred and you certainly fill that with the a2a Comanche 250. just coming up slightly on the power here to get us up the hill and approaching the threshold Runway zero six each other you're not going to worry about the winter there's not really anything to speak of so onto the brakes let's discuss you do have to depress the brakes fully before you can set the parking brake and again just coming back up on the throttle leaving the engine idling at 1000 RPM to avoid spark plug fouling so if the run-up the part break is set seat belts then shoulder harnesses are secure doors and windows are closed you do get a change of sound there as well with the DV window open which is very nice flight controls oh freaking correct the fuel quantities are checked we've got about 30 scans there in each main tank and for the aux tanks they're about a quarter full only around five gallons in each of those mixture is set fully Rich the fuel selectors are both set on the fullest tank the run-up will come up to 2000 RPM again lovely little bit of vibration there the visual effects on the aircraft as well very good much above the average standard in the SIM S 2000 RPM temperatures and pressures are checked no need to lean the mixture we'll cycle the prop we need to do that three times probably a little bit aggressive there on the first attempt so just making sure the governor's working also cycling small through the system check the magnetos they're firstly onto the left mag you can see there we've got about 110 RPM drop Max is 125. we're looking for no more than 50 rpm difference between the two and more than any other aircraft in the Sim you really do need to be checking these sorts of things on the nature aircraft again everything is modeled in very high detail so max to check making sure we go back to both carpets they're just pulling the car Peaks playing about a 200 RPM drop there with the carpet that's working correctly and the suction showing just above four units apparently according to the checklist we really want to see above five there but plus or minus two inches so coming back to a thousand RPM once again temperatures and pressures are looking good that's cylinder temperature nicely up into the green now initially we'll just come all the way through to idle number two foreign RPM I'm gonna leave things there too long don't want to kill the engine so back up to a thousand that's the run up check is complete the before takeoff checks the fuel pump go on once again the fuel selectors are both on the fullest tanks cupboard heat is that cold flaps will leave up for the takeoff we've got plenty of Runway trim is set neutral The Heading indicator we'll set that again once you come onto the runway but 150 versus one five zero transponder can go through to Alps Wing 1800 engine temperatures and pressures so fuel pressure up in the green all pressure up in the green same with the old temp And the cylinder head temperatures take on it's over there for the Peter heat while down there and lastly we'll get the landing light on here as well does he before take off Chuck is complete okay on final part brake and come off and we'll get ourselves into position here on Runway zero six make sure there is additional traffic 10 o'clock in about two miles one thousand seven hundred uh the percentage for the option yourself okay so we're all set here on Runway zero six just confirming the flaps are selected up off the brakes we want full power for the takeoff and just look at the visual effects listen as well to the sounds included with the aircraft as we depart really nice from a2a looking to rotate around 85 miles an hour and needing quite a bit of right Rudder here to keep the aircraft straight during the takeoff but the rudder feels excellent feels very weighty aircraft actually just lifting off slightly ahead of time there of its own Accords that's with neutral trim currently sets anyway do you have a positive climb we'll tap the brakes gear can come up [Music] [Music] [Music] and just maintaining full power here till we're up to a thousand feet cleared out of the terrain so we'll start getting the nose down we're looking to make a cruise climb here at 120 miles an hour and tracking about towards the Kingston VOR so coming slightly left here on the heading ourselves a line there on the CDI bar come back down to a climb power setting we'll go with 25 inches and 2500 rpm [Music] um plunger power sets been good in terms of our tracking just letting that speed build up The Climb checks power is set again the on Route climb speed 100 to 120 miles an hour we're gonna go for 120 temperatures and pressures looking good just using a little bit right butter here still at the moment to keep that ball centered up on the 10 slip indicator I believe the mixture as is for now we're still in the upper around 2000 feet and interestingly not included there in the checklist but the gear is that lights are out flaps are up take a TBR approaching the Kingsford VR I'm going to be turning right in just a couple of seconds onto a course of 108 so we'll set the CDI bar onto a course of 108. there's 108 we'll slow the heading back around here as well the aircraft seems quite comfortable here sitting at around 100 110 miles now here in the climb we're getting about 700 feet per minute rate of climb out of the Comanche and just come up through 3000 feet so we'll just start to lean out the mixture a little bit here as we climb you can see that we actually get a percentage of our horsepower output there on the engine management computer so 76 cents just keep leaning 2109 looks like that's about the maximum we're gonna get at the moment there's 77 cents aircraft is an absolute Joy To Hand fly we didn't get much of a chance to talk about it during the takeoff but again on the right of the aircraft feels excellent the Comanche definitely makes use of a lot of external programming certainly for example the sounds are externally programmed there's a little bit of bug there for me at the moment there's supposed to be a program that auto runs in the background but that doesn't actually start up for me so I have to execute that manually otherwise there are no sounds on the aircraft internally and similarly there must be quite a bit of external flight modeling going on here as the Comanche really doesn't fly like many other GA aircraft that I've come across in the SIM flex your 507 in good work to Medina during that takeoff had about half full deflection on the rudder out to the right just to keep it straight with that pull from the engine typically in the Sim that would have a spearing off out towards the right but here the Comanche it's very easy to track down Center Line and the same street here at the moment the aircraft definitely has a feeling of weight on the flight controls the controls feel very tight here as well every two six eight dollars particularly though they don't feel directly linked to my simplified controls what I mean by that they don't feel overly Snappy overly sensitive digital nature so really nice flight model very impressed overall we're just going to continue flying here manually up to 5000 feet then we'll get the Comanche level off we'll test out the autopilots did you want in a chess County certainly I've had no issues with the autopilot so far on the couple of test flights they're just approaching five thousands pitching down 2109 turn left TV nicely established on course there now looking at the HSI 3626 Julia affiliate protein is 284. an up table I was completely honest the Comanche initially for me wasn't all that exciting I was certainly very excited by virtually the fact it's an a2a product but it's not an aircraft that I specifically have all that much interest in but I'm very quickly falling in love with this airplane it's a really really excellent effort from a to a 716. okay so nicely trimmed out we'll come back to 22 inches on the manifold pressure and 2300 RPM of the cruise let's get that nose down back towards 5000 feet and you can see as well the Comanche really likes to hack along even at this fairly modest power setting would probably get nearly 160 170 miles an hour out of the aircraft so the autopilot can go in we're going to heading hold initially unless we need to select the autopilot Master on four three two probably in the fully protractor 2984. we'll just wait for the autopilot there to run through its my test okay now indicating ready let me just push and then rotate the rotary select here coming to heading and we're going to out hold it here as well that's located down on the yoke and you can see there you go very nicely tracking our heading and similarly certainly will maintain altitude so the CDI bar currently in GPS modes and we are on the CDI so we're coming to track and the Clancy will now track the flight plan here based off the gtn XI input data turns off fuel state around 20 25 years guns now on each main tank cylinder head temperature there looking good all pressure and temperatures both in the green another nice little demonstration here the autopilot only has a certain amount of authority so if we actually put the aircraft here out trim you can see we're getting a warning there that we do need to trim those down okay flexia 507 uh I don't know if it'll be better for you or not but uh you can go direct delro if that works out better for you for the world and sure enough if we get ourselves trimmed out once again the warning disappears so I'm sure it's been pretty obvious at this point but the level of attention to detail in the aircraft is absolutely excellent you can see there even the some bars are just vibrating lightly one of the very few aircraft I can think of on the Sim that really has any sort of visual effects like that it's something I've been saying for a long time in many reviews that we really need to see from products and certainly the a2a Comanche here is just a whole other level above most other products that we see in the SIM yeah I'll tell you what you get the weather you let me know what approach you want there it's apply heading three four zero below for you here in a minute over 41's here Charlie Tilly departure I then climbing maintain uh let's see you can climb in maintain nine or a thousand once your Charlie reader context destroys the chest counted the October 284 and you could just keep that left turn heading of zero nine zero [Music] so now that we are nicely established here in the cruise we're doing about 165 miles an hour I thought it'd be a good opportunity here to take a very quick look through the entire efb firstly the homepage not a whole lot to say there really that just shows the current loading status of the aircraft again the Comanche does make use of quite a lot of external sounds flight modeling so you'll see that loading up as you load in the aircraft but the flight info fairly basic there much of what you'd expect you can see the outside environmental conditions so q h 1016 we're above 16k is visibility 11 degrees Celsius or 80 no precipitation we've got the wind we've also got the crosswind and the current Tailwind components in terms of the aircraft you can see we currently got an endurance around 3 hours 24. what time over towards block Island's only around 40 minutes 0 speed 178 miles an hour ground speed is 184 so again that slight Tailwind just giving us a nice High crew speed over towards destination we've also got our range about 546 nautical miles with our current fuel state and also a few speeds there placarded in terms of the aircraft's operational limitations 4 000. cabin temperature is also modeled and you can see currently 12 degrees so getting a little bit cold in the cabin might as well take some cabin Heats and again all of that is modeled you can see the temperature is now increasing so hopefully we'll be feeling a little bit more comfortable in just a moment's time we also have a full set of checklists included in the tablet so I'm using a paper checklist here today no integrated Sim checklist at the moment as best I can tell we also have a full set of emergency checklists and again these really May well come in handy the aircraft will fail things will break things will wear and you might just find yourself with the engine failing on you in the middle of the cruise at which point you will need to pull out the appropriate checklist in terms of control is a whole load of options there we have our miscellaneous that really pertains to the external equipment that we saw during the walk around you can basically operate the aircraft to buy the tablet as well as via the cockpit controls so you can see here we can turn on the various electrical systems as well as various lights we've also got the option to switch out between various avionics setups so no GPS at all we can have a gns 430 530 a stack with both we can also use the PMS 750 or the TDS gtn 750xi we're using the gtn 750xi today it's worth noting that is a payware module in terms of the autopilot again you can also operate that here via the tablets we can also auto start and call dark the aircraft very useful option there is again the aircraft can be a little bit tricky to get started so if you do just want to go flying or you're perhaps not up to starting the aircraft realistically yet you do have the option just to auto start in terms of the options we can simulate gyro drift there's also Gyros sounds cockpit persistence which means of course all of your settings will be saved just reset our heading back there could also choose whether or not we have visible passengers of course today we've chosen top 12 visible co-pilot we can also have visible passengers down the back not going to demonstrate that just now I think adding another 140 kilos of Weights probably gonna upset the aircraft a little bit yeah exactly five if you want to go direct to a facto now you can also choose whether or not you have persistent State on per Livery or per the entire set of aircraft we've got Pearl Livery here obviously a little bit more realistic and realistic parking breaker there as well so again you will need to depress the pedals before you pull the parking brake without the option turned off I think you just have to activate the parking brake as you would most other aircraft in the SIM no suggest the tablet volume the warning volume and the master volume of the aircraft we have a set of advanced options very nice to see here you can choose 8.33 kilohertz spacing on the com radios the default com radios on the 250 are fairly old school you can choose whether or not your Hardware bindings in the Sim operate the three-way gear switch I've got it selected so that at the moment my Hardware bindings just actuate up and down and I can move it to the off position thereafter you can switch out the prop lever currently we've got a more modern prop lever there you can go for a more old-school one another option that I really like you can actually adjust the speeds here of the various trims so rather trim and elevator trim speeds you can adjust the elevator Force there as well which is great so you do have some capacity to adjust the flight model to suit your own feeling and needs within the SIM first aircraft I've seen as well where we actually have specific VR options so we can choose whether or not we want the turbulence to display appropriately on flat screen or in VR that's a nice touch and we can also choose how much the turbulence actually affects the aircraft you can see we're just getting the occasional light bump here at the moment [Music] you can also choose the wear rate on the Comanche So currently we've got normal you can bump that right up to 10 and same with the failure rate you can choose whether or not that's realistic or you can go for 100 if you want some sort of fun and guaranteed failure during your flights on the fuel load page much as you'd expect there we have the various aircraft whites we can choose to add or remove passengers as well as baggage obviously we loaded up all our baggage there on the ground at Hudson Regional it's worth noting at the moment I haven't been able to remove the pilot model I tried turning the weight down I've tried clicking there as well currently the pilot model doesn't seem to be an option in terms of removal which is a shame I like to have that removed the external shots on the ground I suspect that's a little bit of a bug I suspect they'll be taken care of Adelaide's date it may be that I've missed something there you can choose between metric and imperial units and it is worth noting as well we do have to set the aircraft up by the tablet The Sims inbuilt feel and load menu doesn't actually work correctly with the Comanche so we can also adjust our fuel loading there's also a couple of presets and you can select here as well to update the digital engine monitor as we discussed on the ground so if we hit that that will enter the appropriate fuel quantities the flight computer we've also got our CFG currently we're smack in the middle there in terms of our often forward limits maintenance we already had a look out there on the ground so we won't go through the engine and the airframe pages again engine analyzer is a really nice little touch we saw that during the introduction that essentially just shows you the modeling here of the engine and again a2a go into extreme depths when it comes to these sorts of things it might not be clear on the face of it but apparently each individual cylinder is modeled the carb there as you can see is modeled we've currently got a car bear temperature of 10 degrees each Magneto is modeled everything in very high detail modeled quite accurately and that really pays off as I say no other aircraft in the SIM for me and indeed any other SIM that I've flown really has that feeling of being alive and a working piece from Machinery as much as you tend to see with an a2a aircraft same for the electrical system there you can see the alternator currently charging the battery and supplying the aircraft systems and as well we've got a little indication here of all of our various circuit breakers they're coming down to that starter circuit breaker again you can see it hasn't popped this time I can't I don't really have anybody in your way whatever you need to do last page there as well is the walk around page obviously we took a look at that earlier it is what I think as well you can do a complete overhaul or as we saw during the introduction we click on inspection one thing I did like about the older a2a products is you couldn't inspect the aircraft in the air only on the ground which is obviously a little bit more realistic but they're on inspection you can see the various aircraft components battery now fully charged up and everything looking to be in good condition at the moment [Music] and again same there with the engine we can replace each individual component as we say wish that's a brief overview of the tablet itself looks like we're just over Waypoint Mooney Now tracking bound towards the Hartford VOR it's about another 20 minutes here in the cruise we should be approaching the coastline fairly shortly I think you can just see that I'll start one o'clock so we'll just continue here up at 5000 feet 165 miles an hour and we'll come back about 10 minutes before arrival into Block Island and we can commence our descent number six eight uh Delta fly heading of one zero zero I'll get you high here in just a second so uh they just proceed on course for now and expect to see the problem okay so we're just approaching the Eastern Coastline we've got Rhode Island out towards the east and about 10 minutes now to run here till Block Island you can see that there just off the nose so we'll get the Comanche coming down first we'll just set up the course bar once again so one two eight inbounds um Central up that heading bug we'll come back into heading now on the autopilots those heading holds in terms of the altitude will take the out hold out and we'll start reducing our power we'll come back to 15 inches here for The Descent and as before we do that nice and slowly we treat the engine nicely then we're going to see less wear and tear lower failure rate overall we also want to avoid shock calling the engine so we'll keep a good eye here on our cylinder head temperatures that's 15 inches the aircraft now just entering into a descent we'll go for around 500 feet per minute in terms of The Descent checklist the prop is set through to cruise RPM manifold pressure is set 15 inches hit speed and we'll just keep enriching the mixture here as we descend ing about 20 miles to run again you can see Block Island off the nose we've got the Block Island we are tuned up there as well 117 decimal Eights everything tracking nicely we'll just take a quick look at block islands if we come to Flight Plan and we'll go for charts in terms of the airport itself it's from the ground chart here just take the approach and then at least we can see the runway Direction so you can see we've got Runway one zero two eight we're just gonna come over at the field we'll probably come back round for left hand downwind onto Runway two eights so once again the Comanche handling very nicely there during the cruise the autopilot works very well your developer doesn't tend to like any sort of time acceleration it will work but it will tend to progressively get more erratic as you go just increasing that mixture once again come all the way through to fully rich now which is approaching 4 000 feet in terms of the engine management computer you can see we've got about 3 hours 50 endurance obviously that's not really accurate at the moment we're not up a cruise speed one feature which did amuse me we're showing 5.4 USD there I'm wondering whether or not that's giving you your fuel cost for the flight thus far I think that would have been reset when we reset things via the tablet nice little touch of that is the case so certain head temperature now just on the lower end there of the green band once again we'll keep good on things but obviously we need to keep the aircraft descending here as well just coming through four thousands look at our damage X done now there's nothing else to do so brakes are checked and off undercarriage will hold pictures Rich fuel pump is all in terms of our fuel quantities about 20 us guns now each main tank box tanks are indicating same as before but instruments got one three zero there on the come first one three zero on the HSI again gyro drift can be modeled but we've turned that off currently for the flight today just sets hang lights are on harnesses secure and probably worth taking the carpet as well here as we descend we really ought to have done that at the top of descent we're coming to you VOR now on the CDI again that's based off the Block Island VOR or the Sandy Point blr I think it's the name of the actual station itself let's check again there on the flight plan Sandy points now over the numbers obviously they don't need to fly the VR approach today we've got lovely beautiful conditions over on the islands yeah I'm just coming down through 3000 feet so about another six minutes here in The Descent it's about another 11 miles to run we're currently dig about two and a half miles a minute over the grounds it's about another four minutes here till we hit the islands we should be pretty spot on there in terms of our profile obviously we don't want to arrive I've had the field at ground level so I wanted to arrive at a thousand feet and then as I say We'll enter in for a left-hand pattern we're not really using the VOR here so we can actually set that now onto our Runway course just help us visualize where the runway is what we're looking for and planning our approach so you can see the moment we're going to be turning right back in towards Runway two eights and then we'll enter in for a left-hand pattern again according to the forecast not much wind around today Block Island and you can see that as well looking in the water conditions pretty much a Mill Pond just off the coastline there's two and a half thousands unfortunately one of the hardest things to show you with an a2a product and it's really one of the product strengths is just how finessed everything is in terms of that modeling and as the aircraft ages as you flight more and more I'm particularly if you fly aggressively you will see things as I say it starts to degrade for example you might start to see higher all temperatures there on subsequent flights the engine starts to wear they're getting very nice level of detail and I can't stress enough really the aircraft does feel like a working living piece of Machinery it really is a bit of an art form that a2a have managed to achieve that with a piece of digital software is ready before [Applause] unfortunately not the sunniest day here on the islands having flown all this way you would hope for a bit of sunshine Vision with the field now will take the autopilot out 7-2 trim the aircraft again we're slightly out of trim as we're adjusting the trim to demonstrate the autopilot caution earlier on yeah so I'll just continue that sense here on the dead side at the moment and we can start coming off the power here again now back to 15 inches we'll start slowing up so joining for a bit of a Midfield crosswinds there's the threshold for Runway two eights and just to demonstrate the change of noise here in the cruise with the DV window open we'll just open that up once again obviously things much louder now let's come over the field there's the Sandy Point viewer excellent sounds really excellent level of attention to detail in almost every respect from a to a number I don't want to sound like I'm getting carried away here with all my praise but it really is hard to fold the product [Music] I think it's pretty clear hopefully you can see for yourselves that the aircraft really is on another level from really what we see from most other developers in the SIM and that's not to disparage other products there are certainly many many other great products for the franchise at this point but really if you want a j aircraft this is it this is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of flight simulation so we've already got our Diamond checks out of the way we are below 150 miles an hour so we'll take the gear down here just check our balance slightly longer here on our downwinds okay we do have green lights really amazes me just how long the wing is actually on the Comanche it's almost looks a little bit like a glider they're coming off the power once again we'll take the carpets speed just coming back into the white Arc so we'll take a stage of flap s turning it onto base and this is where having that HSI setup really helps we can see we're on 90 degree Turners without even having to look at the runway although of course primarily here we want to be flying visually a little bit closer there on the turn so we'll just continue straight round onto final four whites on the Papi at the moment we'll take another stage of flap [Music] and in terms of our final checks pitch it's full fine undercover just down okay full flaps flaps are sets Landing clearance has been received the runway is clear and a little bit faster currently so all the way back to idle now on the power again cylinder head temperatures just within the green we want to be back around 95 miles an hour to come down Fine approach yeah unfortunately a little bit of a gray day here on Block Island 500 . let's check 500s we'll get rid of the car peeps just in case they go around a little bit higher still on the puppy easy enough to correct still trimming at the moment again the aircraft just feels really good on the controls very nice time fly feels stable it feels weighty feels responsive as well it's very easy to finesse your position very easy to predict what's going to happen though cutting the throttle the same in the flare aircraft handles absolutely beautifully in the flare really does have that GA feel to it let's touch down and we're not going to make that first exit so we'll just roll three to the second right okay so vacating in towards the apron we'll take the flaps up transponders back through each ground we'll go back through to standby and terms of the lights we'll get the fuel pump off main light off strobe and the PT can go off now we'll just bring ourselves back around here to park outside the terminal building this to me is just one of those absolutely super upswing experiences scenery once again amazing and absolutely the same for the aircraft you're number two foreign back up to 1000 RPM for the shutdown checks the checklist actually calls for idle here on the throttle electrical equipment off so autopilot Master off avionics Master off rest can stay as is for the time being prop is set free forward mixture three to idle cut off lovely sounds there would have been nice just to see a touch more vibration as we shut down ignition can go off master switch is off take the beacon off we'll set the control locks once again and we'll get the door opened up and we can go and enjoy Block Island so there you go guys I do hope you enjoyed our run over towards Block Island in the absolutely excellent a2a pa24 Comanche I promised you during the introduction that the aircraft was something pretty special I think hopefully I've demonstrated that to you with our flight here today the Comanche 250 despite on the face of it being a relatively simplistic aircraft really is A Cut Above almost every other aircraft that we've seen in the center date a2a and the accusim technology have really pushed the boundaries of what's possible within Microsoft flight simulator the Comanche is a very exciting addition to the Sim and it really pushes the platform ever further forward in terms of realism as usual we'll break down the product into some positives and negatives although as you can probably tell not too many negative points that I have for you here today my first negative with the product would be in terms of purchasing currently the aircraft is only available from the HOA website which is absolutely fine you do however only get a limited number of downloads 10 downloads per purchase I suspect that if push comes to shove a2a would reactivate the number of downloads available should you so require but I always find it a little bit upsetting when I purchase a product and then I'm told how many times or not I can download it The Livery selection for the aircraft is somewhat limited there's only four or five liveries from memory available not a huge deal of course and I'm sure we'll see many third-party deliveries for the Comanche available over on websites such as flights and Dot to but nevertheless it would have been nice to have a slightly wider selection I do really like the Livery that we featured here today but some of the other deliveries are fairly basic we talked already about the inability to remove the pilot model from the aircraft again it may be that I missed something I did try playing around with the tablet the way to balance menu both on the efb and within the SIM at the moment I couldn't figure out a way to remove the pilot but I suspect that may just be a little bit of a bug you can certainly remove both the co-pilot and the passengers no native in some checklist available with the aircraft again you do have checklists provided by the tablet but I know some of you like to follow through within the Sim it does also mean you can't use the in Sim checklist to find your way around the cockpit again a fairly minor issue as far as I'm concerned but it is worthy of pointing out again the Comanche also isn't very comfortable in terms of handling time acceleration at least with the autopilot in I found under time acceleration when riding through any turbulence the autopilot tended to over correct and you tended to end up in a bit of an oscillation that would get progressively worse I presume that's as a result of the aircraft's external flight modeling again to my mind not a major issue but for those of you who do want to get from A to B as quickly as possible then do just be cognizant of that fact you may have to manually fly one last slight negative from me with regards to the aircraft texturing overall of course the Comanche is very well done a very high level of attention to detail everything is textured pretty immaculately I would say that the texturing sits very much between the likes of just flights and Coronado so not right up there with the very best but certainly an exemplary effort the only thing that I would say there and I don't know whether or not it's a texturing issue or a PBR issue some of the texturing can tend to look a little bit quote unquote milky at times certainly under specific lighting conditions you may have noticed that during the flight in terms of what I like about the aircraft pretty much everything else minus a couple of small caveats that we just mentioned the texturing and modeling of the pa24 is absolutely excellent as with every aspect of the pa24 you can certainly tell that the product was a real labor of love in terms of the system's depth I think the flight itself really speaks volumes there the Comanche makes use of a2a's accusim Technology giving us a highly detailed highly accurate and again highly Dynamic highly organic version of the pa-24 I think it's fair to say that this is pretty much as close as you'll get to really feeling like you own your own aircraft without of course going out and buying the real deal the flight model is also pretty excellent HRA model most of the aircraft externally from the Sim and that really shows the Comanche handles very differently versus most default Microsoft flight simulator aircraft and flying the Comanche is a real Joy I haven't flown the type myself in the real world but again the controls feel very plausible the EPA 24 does have a certain level of weight to it the aircraft does feel like a fairly High Performance Machine both in terms of power and maneuverability but that being said it doesn't feel Snappy on the controls again doesn't feel overly sensitive it feels very good and certainly all of that external flight modeling the dataway have done outside of Microsoft flight simulator has really paid off these sounds on the aircraft are generally superb and I think that's one of a2a's real tricks up their sleeve they tend to use highly comprehensive highly accurate sound sets with their products so that really makes you feel immersed and actually as well makes the aircraft feel more realistic to be frank a2a tend to own a lot of the aircraft that they actually create and that really goes to show with the sound set everything there seems to be pretty spot-on there is supposed to be an auto executor program that runs alongside the aircraft when you fire it up for whatever reason at the moment that isn't working for me so I'm having to manually run the program and you do need the program running otherwise there are no internal sounds on the aircraft another major issue slight inconvenience though one other point with the sounds that we didn't touch under in the flight there is also headphone simulation modeled so you can plug in your virtual headphones The Sounds will be dialed out within the SIM in terms of additional features with the aircraft I think it goes without saying but the a2a Comanche is once again exemplary nice that we have all of the external equipment the extensive onboard tablet but also the comprehensive maintenance functionality the ability to carry out an accurate walk around these are again just things on another level that we're really not seeing from other developers but hopefully the pa24 will encourage other developers to follow suit and hopefully again this product will just continue to push the boundaries of what we're seeing available within Microsoft flight simulator lastly in terms of the FPS I was getting about 46 FPS in the Comanche versus around 54 in the default Cessna 152 so a pretty frame rate friendly option for the Sim exceptional really given the level of detail the level of depth I suspect a lot of that comes down to the external modeling so again a really nice way of running things in the Sim just spreading that load a little bit more evenly presumably over your CPU anyway in conclusion as I mentioned during the introduction HOA have long been one of my favorite developers within flight simulation I don't recall them ever really having dropped the ball they've made consistently excellent consistently high quality products which again go into a level of depth that we rarely see from other Developers I'm very happy to see a2a back in the game I'm sure that many of you are as well it's not often that I outright recommend a product but certainly if you are looking for GA aircraft with a Microsoft flight simulator this is as good as it gets anyway ladies and gents once again I do hope you enjoyed the video if you did then please consider giving it a like if you want to see more content from the channel then please consider subscribing as well if you'd like to help support the channel you can do so by becoming a channel member or Patron and on that note as always a very big thank you to my channel members and patrons full of your support I do hope that all of you are having a great day wherever you are take really good care and I will see you all again soon

Channel: Into the Blue Simulations

Views: 61,123

Keywords: Microsoft Flight Simulator, FS2020, Flight Simulator, Flight Simulation, Realism, Realistic, Flight Sim, 2020, MSFS, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, VFR, Real Pilot, Full Flight, Review, First Impressions, Tutorial, Startup, Cold and Dark, Sneak, Preview, Full Review, New, A2A, Piper, PA24, PA-24, PA 24, Comanche, Commanche, 250

Id: enaAX7C4KYM

Length: 62min 13sec (3733 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2023