FLIGHT ONE: Greatest Airplanes - Acher

Just got this add-on from Justflight.com ..... It's a 1982 Piper Archer.... a little beauty.... I have loads of great add-on jets, some great light twin add-ons but was lacking in a really good quality (ie.... improvement on the default planes) small single engined plane.... a replacement for teh default Cessna 172 if you like.

Enter the Archer.... The model is gorgeous, lots of detail... the 2D panel is also superb, detailing the stitched leather around the dashboard... you can also tell that the plane is from 1982 and not 2004 which is nice.

Everything is modelled accurately, down to the "Single Axis" Century 21 AutoPilot system.... you see the default planes all have more or less the same AutoPilot, which isn't realistic in a small plane - the reality is that very few Cessna 172's have any AutoPilot, never mind one like the default, with full APPROACH mode !

So the Piper has the true to life system that exists in most light aircraft - it holds the Heading, or a NAV course, but you got to keep the ALTITUDE right yourself, using Trim (and by not falling asleep!).

The sound is also lovely in this sweet little add-on.

So this little plane that looks so basic on the face of it is actually teaching me a lot - perhaps for the first time, I'm really concentrating on my "trimming" .... and also all Approaches have to be done visually, no ILS in this plane !

Really good fun if (like me), you like things to be as realistic as possible, and of course if (like me), you're partial to a spin out in a "low and slow" to break up a hard day's flying 747s, 737s and A340s.