I love flying low and slow and have a wide collection of GA Aircraft in my virtual hangar. With huge advances in eye candy that FSX has brought us, I am finding myself using FSX for VFR flights in GA aircraft and FS9 for long flights in the heavies. When Just Flight offered me the chance of reviewing their newest GA addition, I jumped at the chance. This add-on costs just £14.99/$29.99/€22.95 and comes as an 83mb download from the JustFlight website. Considering the size of some of the add-ons available for download, this is a relatively small download. Those users with broadband connections will probably have it downloaded in less than 15 minutes.

As usual with Just Flight download products, installation is very easy and totally automated. Once the add-on has gone through the on-line authentication process, it installs itself. The package comes with a short 12 page PDF manual which is very informative and easy to follow thanks to the many annotated images. It is worth just reading through the manual which shouldn’t take too much of your time, cockpit layout will be very familiar if you spend most of your time in light aircraft. If you are a regular flyer with GA aircraft you will get to grips with this one in no time at all, for those of you who are more at home in the heavies it make take a little longer to get accustomed to the Archer as it very responsive and has a very light feel to it, so keep those control inputs gentle!

Upon walking around the aircraft the lines are very smooth and I couldn’t find any jagged edges. So despite the cheap purchase price, a lot of care and effort has been put into making this aircraft look like it is worth much more. The soundest accompanying the Archer seems to give off the impression that you are in a light aircraft, I’ve never been in an Archer so can’t say how accurate the engine sounds are, but they do sound very nice.When the aircraft is shut down and the parking break applied, the pilot is removed from the cockpit, the wheels chocked and your flight bag and headset placed on the wing, so as you approach the aircraft for the flight there is a little more realism to it.

As you explore inside the aircraft you will notice that you have some passengers with you for the ride. If you don’t like the look of them, just click on them and they will disappear from the VC.
On the ground the Archer handles very easily and as long as you keep the speed to sensible levels, is fun to taxi around the airport. I liked the addition of the wheel mounting moving about when I rolled over bumps on the tarmac. It looked like the suspension was taking a real pounding. On take-off roll the power seems to come on slowly at first, but then rapidly picks up and you are gently lifted away into the skies. As you leave the runway the Archer is very easy to trim to keep you climbing at the rate you want, I found that climbing out between 500-700fpm gave a good level of speed and climb rate. After take off have a look at the wheels as you are climbing out, they continue spinning for a short while after take-off. A nice little addition I thought. For most of the flights I flew while testing the aircraft I chose an altitude of 3000-5000ft as I thought this gave a good height to take in some of the fantastic eye candy that FSX has to offer. At this height the Archer cruised along quickly at 120kts, which meant that longer flights could be completed in a reasonable amount of time compared to flying them in the default C172, and were a lot more enjoyable than flying them in the default aircraft! I found that this aircraft was much better to practice my skills in than the default aircraft, it was much more stable and more fun to fly, and the instruments updated themselves very quickly and smoothly without too much of a hit on the all important frame rates.

 Throughout most of my time flying in FS9 I would use the 2D panel most often, but when Just Flight Flying Club package came along, that was all changed and I was converted to the VC from there on in such was the quality of the cockpit. This attention to detail has been kept up here with the Archer III, the virtual cockpit is superb and it is very easy to complete a whole flight from the VC without having to return to the 2D panel. All the instruments are very easy to read, the most difficult being the radio stack because it can be quite tricky to hit the correct buttons when the aircraft is bobbing around in flight. Thankfully though all the main instruments can be enlarged by clicking on the relevant icons in the bottom left of the panel. The view from the virtual cockpit is fantastic; you have a very wide field of vision which is great for flying the aircraft and sightseeing also. The 2D panel doesn’t give you as wide a field of view as the VC but it is still possible to complete flights from within it should you wish to do so, but its quality is nowhere near as good as the VC. I have found that this is becoming a trait amongst the add-on aircraft for FSX that more time and attention seems to be put into the VC rather than the 2D cockpit (this may not be the case but it is how it seems to me). With FSX being more geared towards using the VC over the 2D cockpit it is easy to see why this may be happening. But with the Archer the quality of the VC more than makes up for the quality which it lacks in the 2D panel. I would have liked to have seen a custom GPS system for this add-on which would have finished it off nicely, but there is only the default GPS included. This isn’t such a bad thing as users will be familiar with its operation which means that they can get into the skies that little bit quicker.

If you choose to fly at night in the Archer, the panel lighting is great. The instrument are lit up clearly without being too bright so that you attention is taken away from what is outside. I prefer to do my VFR flying during the day, but the few flights I undertook at night were easily completed thanks to the way that the panel is lit up. When it comes to the time to descend I found that by reducing the throttle to 50% I could easily maintain a descent rate of 500fpm at 110kts without the need to apply any trim until I decided it was time to level off. The Archer is very easy to manoeuvre during descent and won’t rapidly loose or gain height during the turns unless you make it do so.

I did have a grumble about this add-on at first; compared to other GA aircraft I have flown in FS the flaps seem to have a huge effect on the pitch of the aircraft. On take off when you retract the flaps the nose drops quite a lot more than I would expect, and when deploying the flaps on approach, the aircraft violently pitches upwards requiring lots of nose down trim to keep her level. After consulting with the development team at JustFlight, one of whom has trained on an Archer in real life, they have assured me that the pitching up and down when deploying and retracting the flaps is true to life. So my grumble quickly dissolved as once again Just Flight have made the Archer very realistic, which is what we are all looking for. Even though setting the Archer up for the final approach can be a little tricky, once you have her fully configured for landing, the descent down to the runway is trouble free and she settles down nicely onto the runway for a smooth landing.

On the whole I really enjoyed reviewing this package, and yet again JustFlight have proved that they are one of the best developers in the business with this complete package. The attention to detail is there for all to see, and the very good price makes the Archer III even more appealing. If you enjoy medium-long cross country VFR flights then this is a great aircraft to make those flights in. With it’s great handling and relatively quick cruising speed the Archer eats up the miles in no time, and is so much better than the default GA aircraft. This package will act as a good step up from the default aircraft into the payware realm for pilots who enjoy their flying but don’t want it to be too complicated, it is a very easy aircraft to fly and lots of fun at the same time. The package is compatible with both FS9 and FSX, as well as being compatible with Windows Vista. This could well become one of JustFlight’s best sellers, and would fully deserve it too!

Happy Touring,
PAY8156

http://www.justflight.com/product.asp?pid=259