Today I am reviewing the Piper Arrow IV 'T' from Carenado for FSX. Another big thank you goes to all those at Carenado for there kind donation of their aircraft for review on this site - Also if you would like to request any aircraft please contact me via the posting at the bottom.
BackGround Information
As you may or may not know the Piper Arrow is part of the long line of the Piper Cherokee series and is based upon the orginal Cherokee design however with some major adjustments. The Piper Arrow has a longer fuselage, larger engine and includes the T tail design hence the T in its name the other information is just basically how the Piper Cherokee started out. However despite this being a totally different airframe Piper decided to name it under the PA28 Family and therefore a new PA28 was born.
What's in the package?
This aircraft comes with 3 different liveries as standard with more to be downloaded on online sharing sites such as Avsim or Flightsim.com. Because I was given the link via email the package that comes from the Carenado site is a zip file that contatins the installer.exe file and the installation procedures, in the installer a checklist,normal procedures and emergencies documents have been added to the package in small printable files.
Initial Impresions
After looking into the Arrow online - I was expecting alot from this model. The best thing about it was the retractable gear and the T tail not featured on any other Piper aircraft, so I was particualrry excited to see this in the Carenado package. After opening up the aircraft for my flight to Carsile, I am greated with an old looking cockpit which you expect to see in most of the Carenado packages that get relaeaed, a not new but well looked after thought springs to mind.
However, looking outside is were the real beauty of this aircraft is, as I am running FSX at about 60 FPS with this aircraft it is very smooth just to pan around the aircraft. As you can see below I have loaded up the Blue and Gold livery as this is like the aircraft that I fly in real life. The exteral model is nothing but detail all the way from the nose and propeller to the T tail desgin on the back. Everything seems to be in place compared to picutes that I have found online. As a initial impression I am very impressed again with this Carenado package.
External Model
As this is most important part of this aircraft I thought I would start with this - this time around. This is only due to the fact that the VC is very similar to the Saratoga cockpit and the Archer cockpit as it is part of the PA28 family this isnt a suprise.
Starting off at the front of this aircraft - looking nose on this is a very nice looking aircraft, the air intake's are both sides of the spinners like on the PA28 and the engine cowling is similar length to that of the Archer and Warrior aircraft. It seems like every single rivet is it's right place along this aircraft. The amazing part is when you zoom right in nothing seems to get pixelated.
Moving along the fuselage is where the bee's knees is the extended fuselage is what external makes a difference from the original PA28. The fuselage was original extended by 5 inches and then further on this model it is a real beauty to look out - It is not as long as the Saratoga however still quite long for an aircraft of its type. Moving now onto the T of the aircraft the T - Tail.
The T tail on this aircraft has only ever been seen on the Piper Tomahawk and that is it - They do make an Arrow without the T tail variant but personally I prefer the T tail just beacause it just looks different compared to other aircraft. The way Carenado have designed this aircraft is truly amazing every animation is smooth, and responds well to yoke input as you would expect from and aircraft with pulleys and wires connected the control surfaces.
Virtual Cockpit
The virtual cockpit for its time of realease is really quite impressive - I am very happy to say that this is one of the best designed cockpits for FSX - It is very simple and easy to use in an VFR condition and yet complex and more challenging when you are flying IFR. However, I do think that there are some places of this aircraft that may have been slighty rushed to be finished and been taken from other aircraft in the Carenado line up for example some of the markings are blurry from zoomed out and zoomed in isnt much better. However if you are to look on Carenado's latest releases you will find more clarity within the cockpit. Anyways, the main analouge instruments are there and there is also the default FSX GPS on the Passengers side along with coupled MCP panel in the bottom left hand corned which works perfectly after testing.
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| Main View from the Runway 27 at Gloucster |
After spending about 20 hours in the air in this cockpit - I can safely say it just works for me there is nothing there that doesent work and all the external switches correspond to that of the lights on the outside of the plane. Overall for the cockpit although it is clear that some of it may be rushed I would rate the cockpit 4.3 out of 5 just for simplisity when using the aircraft.
Flight Characteristics
Today's flight is going to take us from Gloucstershire Airport to Carsille. This flight is going to be flown IFR in good weather conditions and give the user a tutorial on how to use the autopilot before taking off. The flight plan I have used is just a FSX defualt one.
