A2A Cherokee is here!

Another masterpiece from A2A! :applause:

Only A2A gives you a feeling of what it means to own and operate a real airplane :)

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Greetings
Tim
 
To anyone interested, Michael at A2A helped me find out that the "Force VC walls" option in Steve's fixer was responsible for not showing my shadows as it assumed the windows were opaque. Unticking that fixed it. Very good service by A2A, even for an issue not related directly with their product. :applause:
 
Dimus said:
To anyone interested, Michael at A2A helped me find out that the "Force VC walls" option in Steve's fixer was responsible for not showing my shadows as it assumed the windows were opaque. Unticking that fixed it. Very good service by A2A, even for an issue not related directly with their product. :applause:
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There is absolutely no doubt that the people at A2A care about their customers, they put out great products and back it with great after sales service.
 
Pepere said:
How are the FPS hits?
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The Cherokee performs surprisingly well for me. I thought the FPS hit would be worse than it is... certainly better than any of the recent Carenado releases. Seems A2A dumps much of the background work on the system, thus relieving FSX of alot of work. And it all shows in a wonderful simulation.

HTH

Greg
 
Interesting direction for A2A to divert to. If this would have been the F104 release there would have been twenty pages here instead of two.
 
TeiscoDelRay said:
Interesting direction for A2A to divert to. If this would have been the F104 release there would have been twenty pages here instead of two.
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I understand that - I used to think GA was 'boring' until a succession of great GA models like the FR Super Cub and Lionheart's Piper Pacer taught me otherwise. As for this Cherokee, the level of immersion it generates from having to learn to do everything properly is just off the scale. Real-life pilots (especially jet jockeys) might find it tame, and those who just want to fire up and fly can do it much cheaper, but this big-piston warbird fan is hooked!
 
TeiscoDelRay said:
Interesting direction for A2A to divert to. If this would have been the F104 release there would have been twenty pages here instead of two.
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Some of us discussed this point in another thread and to be honest, while the part of the Sim Community that we represent has been the offshoot recipients of these latest "real as it can possibly get" GA aircraft, my feeling is that they are really being produced to capture a share of the P3D/Flight School Training Community. It's too obvious really. . .I mean I like GA aircraft and 90% of flying is done in some type of GA airplane, but to the extent that these current models are being modeled. . . .They are perfect for the student pilot who can literally perform his "walkaround" sitting at the computer and see every detail that he'll see on the tarmac and the realism factor beyond the engine start will allow the student pilot to experience just about every scenario possible prior to his/her first flight. A2A has progressed so far beyond the norm with it's system modeling that to think that isn't their end goal would be foolish. Military aircraft are the ones that get the most pages in a thread when they're released. . .but the fact that P3D now has a relatively stable platform to work with in V2.2 and the ever expanding GA modeling that A2A has moved towards. . . .just makes sense for them to go after that market.
 
I only have five GA types ever on my PCs, 2 are A2A happen to be a Cessna and the other a Piper, I have only done very few hours in both in the real world and preferred the Piper so it was a no brainer .. only been on the PC lest than 18 hours .. superb ! :encouragement:
 
Yeah I understand the feeling here. The thrill of a warbird or jet fighter is hard to match. Falcon is right, this is an obvious gold mine for A2A, participating in the GA training market. Imagine how well an accu-simmed GA twin would sell, considering the extremely high cost of MEL training and hour building. When you step in a twin, you do not want to spend money 'learning' stuff that can be learned in a simulator. You want to spend the time putting what you learned and memorized to practice.

There is a lot of benefit too, for many of us, owning and operating an airplane is out of our current financial situations. A2A has brought us two wonderful GA products that let us really live the life of the 'virtual' aircraft owner. We get to practice caring for and operating an airplane at a near check-ride level. I have a feeling the next A2A release will be the complex GA single such as the Comanche or V35. This makes sense in the owner/operator and training progression.

I have put 25 hours on the Cherokee so far, and am enjoying it alot. Sure, I don't want to go 120kts all my sim life lol. There are plenty of excellent warbirds and high performance GAs around to fill that need.

Cheers
TJ
 
pilottj said:
I have a feeling the next A2A release will be the complex GA single such as the Comanche or V35. This makes sense in the owner/operator and training progression. TJ
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My favorite GA airplane is a commander TC115. I think it looks great and bob Hoover showed us how to fly one. Anyway, if I could cast a vote for the next accusim GA plane, that would be the one.
 
falcon409 said:
Some of us discussed this point in another thread and to be honest, while the part of the Sim Community that we represent has been the offshoot recipients of these latest "real as it can possibly get" GA aircraft, my feeling is that they are really being produced to capture a share of the P3D/Flight School Training Community. It's too obvious really. . .I mean I like GA aircraft and 90% of flying is done in some type of GA airplane, but to the extent that these current models are being modeled. . . .They are perfect for the student pilot who can literally perform his "walkaround" sitting at the computer and see every detail that he'll see on the tarmac and the realism factor beyond the engine start will allow the student pilot to experience just about every scenario possible prior to his/her first flight. A2A has progressed so far beyond the norm with it's system modeling that to think that isn't their end goal would be foolish. Military aircraft are the ones that get the most pages in a thread when they're released. . .but the fact that P3D now has a relatively stable platform to work with in V2.2 and the ever expanding GA modeling that A2A has moved towards. . . .just makes sense for them to go after that market.
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I look at it this way: While I'm glad to be an 'offshoot recipient' of such possible efforts by A2A to capture a share of the flight school training market, I would also be more than happy to see such efforts by them pay off extremely well. That way, when they do get maybe get around to producing that F-104, they'll have a ton of resources to throw at getting it absolutely perfect.

And to be honest, if they were to do a F-104 to the same level of realism that they've done the 172 and now the Cherokee, they could seriously just have all my money. Take it!
 
JimmyRFR said:
...if they were to do a F-104 to the same level of realism that they've done the 172 and now the Cherokee, they could seriously just have all my money. Take it!
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$50 for a seemingly simple GA airplane may seem steep to some folks, but I just finished one of my most enjoyable flights in many years of simming. KDLS to KGPI, everything below me by Orbx, everything around me by ASN, and the cherry on top was the Cherokee. If A2A continues making airplanes like this I'll give 'em my first born!

Greg
 
Just to expand a bit here, we (A2A) go after our passion and the effort finds a market. We never intended to go after the commercial flight simulation market, but when we began development of the C172 Trainer, the market came to us. This market does not control us, we have full control and our passion remains the driver. Our passion for warbids and military aircraft hasn't changed.

For the past two years we've been operating a Piper Comanche, which has really put us back actively into the center of aircraft ownership. The goal of the Comanche was too:
- Maintain the airplane hands on and study every aspect of the airplane
- Improve flight training
- Transport: 90% of our research destinations are small / medium sized airports

Now, during the research of the C172 Trainer, we ended up taking 15+ test flights during development as questions arose. You simply cannot recall with any precision much about any airplane, even if you fly it daily. Sure, you remember perhaps cruise speeds, climb rates, etc., but you don't remember exactly how does the airplane accelerate? What is the propeller efficiency at various altitudes and power settings? How exactly does the nose settle after a slight kick of the rudder?

For the Cherokee, that number was cut in 1/2, but the things we needed were now very small specific things. Now, we have an A2A flight test schedule that, we can capture 98% of what we need in a single 75 minute flight.

So, think about all of this knowledge we have acquired in just 24 months. While we have full access to F-104's, they are quite costly to run and we have to make literally every second count, with zero chance for errors. Owning a Comanche means, there is nobody we have to answer too, to try all kinds of odd tests.

All of this knowledge gets applied directly to all future planes as they all adhere to the same laws of physics. Now when we do an uncommon airplane, we can spend all of our resources on just the differences and simulate those differences.

Regarding jets, we're sending Lewis up in a T-33 at Oshkosh this July. This is an intro flight, but when we do our T-33 test flights later this year, we will put it through our new A2A flight test schedule, that took us about 25 test flights in various GA planes to build. The end result is a much better T-33.

We will also be announcing a new, smaller Warbird in development sometime soon I believe. If everything is in line, perhaps at this year's Air Venture in Oshkosh. But to echo what has been said here, here's a skype message from Dudley Henriques about a week before we launched the Cherokee:

[5/20/2014 6:42:58 PM] Scott - A2A: [Tuesday, May 20, 2014 6:02 PM] Dudley Henriques:
"This Cherokee is so good I find myself flying it instead of the Mustang.....and that's saying something about the quality"

Even after six months of constant development, I find myself just flying the Cherokee 180 in the pattern over and over again. This is probably the equivalent of 3 years of active customer use. It's stays interesting in the same way flying a real plane in the pattern does.



Scott.
 
Last night while I was working the pattern in the A2A Cherokee I thought back to when I was a boy in rural NC. I had a passion for aviation but very few resources to learn about it.
This was before personal computers and flight simulation for entertainment.
I read the Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on flight many times over including the drawing of a red Piper Cherokee and the forces of flight and I thought that Cherokee looked mighty cool.
Now as I flew the downwind in my virtual Cherokee, high and fast as usual, I pulled back a fist full of thrust thinking "drag, gravity, do your thing" and smiled at the memory. Pretty cool.
 
That is pretty cool. Yes, it's amazing the power computers have developed to so faithfully simulate experiences, which, for many of us, take us back a long time. We are lucky. Well done, A2A. And thanks.
 
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