The L-39 is a good looking jet with a very nice cockpit. Since my favorite are the MiG-19 and MiG-21, the eastern-style-ish cockpit presented no issues. Easy to fly and control. But I found it “wiggly” when trying to line up gun and rocket shots.
This I liked right away…and yes, at least once I forgot I was attached and tried to taxi off with it still plugged in…got to love that “Hey! What do you think you’re doing ?!”
…and then there was this. I tend to balloon the flare in this jet…this was my first attempt and quite frankly, if they had just built the runway to be a bit longer…
The L-39 can be set up for a really lovely final - dirty up, full flaps and raise the seat for visibility. You can use a high throttle setting and air brake combo for speed control - the engine has quite a long spool time.
Trimmed for that configuration and the right speed, she is really benign with good visibility over the nose, you can set her down on a dime.
Edit: oh - your long landing was with the C101! Sorry - yes, I’ve done that too. In saying that, I was dead certain the C101 takes longer to stop…and then I compared the two and there isn’t much difference, in fact I think I managed to stop the C101 with less runway than the L-39.
The engine spool up time in the L-39 is the most dangerous thing about that plane. I crashed or nearly crashed it on landing several times until I switched to using the air brakes to slow down.
Then you haven’t flown the MiG-15 much. Engine spool will ruin your day and make off with your wife. It’s that slow. And if you’re rough with the throttle it’ll burn you up just out of spite.
I flew some modules for the first time yesterday evening: each just a short quick flight, at most 15 minutes.
FW190A-8 first: the engine has a lot of character and a nice sound, but the rest, including handling, feels very similar to its younger taller sister.
I-16 second: Almost as slow as the Christen Eagle, but with a lovely gurgling, slow-reacting, big engine with a lot of character. Turning feels like a Spitfire, but without the instability.
Then onto the @schurem praised MiG-15: Incredible! Between the fear of bashing my head into the glass, the claustrophobia due to the cockpit, the doubt whether the engine is going to listen at all to your command and then eventually the fear of loss of control and transsonic flight into the ground, mixed with the euphoria of flying such a tiny and powerful plane.
And I haven’t even used its 37mm cannon in anger!
I will most likely get this one.
And the last one on my bucket list was @Hangar200 's MiG-19: Great cockpit atmosphere, oozes space age, flies like a rocket with some surprising sustained G for its era. Lots of stick and rudder character, great stall buffet feeling. Lots of fun, but also looks a lot more complex than the -15. I probably won’t get this as there are too many aircraft that I prioritize over this in brain space allocation. But it does have me looking forward to aircraft from that period that I do have a soft enough spot in my heart for, such as the F-8 Crusader. And if those disappoint, I’ll be looking at this Soviet rocket ship again…
The Yak was surprisingly fun to fly. It’s a bummer that multi crew isn’t fleshed out yet. There are no pilot models like in the F-14 and we had some issues with engine starving on one client while on the other it was still running. Also the damage model isn’t really there yet. We failed the cold and dark challenge by missing the leftmost “water tab” to enable hydralics for the starter.
The L-39 was a little disappointing for be tbh. It is a great looking jet but it felt a little meh to me. I can’t really pin it down to certain features. I could live with the lack of power but it felt somehow wobbly on the ground and in the air. Another fail on the cold and dark challenge. I opened the throttle before I mashed the TURBO button
I am not an L39 fan and although the C101 is intriguing, I found the Sea Eagle disappointing (then I read that never really had this capability) - it is a definite “Maybe Buy”
Some really nice basic Soviet style systems which you all know I enjoyed working. I really like it and it is on my “Buy List”
Then the F-86. I had “flown” the MILVIZ F-86 for FSX with the TACPACK add on, so I was familiar with the cockpit. It was one of my favorite military FSX aircraft. Perhaps that is why I have some frustrations with this mod. I can’t seem to get the seat hight in position to properly see the gunsight and cockpit. It seems too nimble. I brought it up vertical, lost all airspeed and had to force it into a stall to drop a wing as it seemed perfectly willing to tail slide…then no hint of a spin when I recovered.
Anyway, I did manage an air-to-air kill on my first flight…it does ram well.
Same here (during this trial period). When I compared the pilot model, viewed from outside, to my view position inside, it looked correct, but had to bend over to see much of the gunsight. Chalked it up to unfamiliarity initially. Then the internal sound bug reared its ugly head. Sending this one back probably.
PS: I hear there’s some euro-built air frame that apparently, er, doesn’t eat meat? May try that one next.
PS2: Awww, the Viggen isn’t part of the free preview!
Do you guys have the ‘Auto Seat Height Adjustment’ setting set? It raises the seat on takeoff/landing and lowers it during flight. If it is off, you may have to do that manually … but I also seem to remember resetting my head position in an awkward place just so that if I sat naturally, my head was in the correct place (can’t remember if that was for the F-86 or A-10 though).
A heads up in case you’re looking at picking up some stuff but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, there are a couple (at least two that I’ve found) of YouTube guys who were given promo codes by Wags to pass along to their viewers. They’ll give an additional 5% off (the videos say 10%, but it’s actually 5% when I did it). It says that the codes only work once, but I managed to use the same one twice when I split out one module so I could use the bonus points from the others.
I took the opportunity to give the Mi-8 a try. A very nice helo to fly and very stable and easy to hover. Great for sling-loading too. If you want a beginner helicopter, this should be the one.
But the cockpit, they went full Russian on the ergonomics!
I have to admit I flew the main wheel touchdown from the external view though, because I couldn’t see a thing of the chimney from the cockpit Very easy to hover from the externals too…
For those from outside the States…Santa Claus (Father Christmas) traditionally does into your house by dropping down the chimney…so the Hip is hovering over the chimney…like its delivering Santa…yeah…not that funny…
I installed the F-5, Harrier, and FW190-A8 yesterday. Just hopped in to see if they work but haven’t flown any of them yet.
Nice cockpits though, all of them.
