DC Designs PT-17 Stearman is Out

Bought it today and I'm really liking it. It feels like flying a Stearman, and the VR experience is pretty amazing. I'm sure Dean will tweak the details, as he has with his previous releases.

I just have one suggestion: The flight model feels good on takeoff and in the air (the slow maneuvers I was able to do reflected Stearman displays I've seen at airshows), but on landing, it feels way too hard to bleed off speed. A big, draggy biplane should start slowing down when you pull the throttle way back, even when descending, and if you look at my screenshot I nearly went into the drink since I had a heck of a time getting the speed below 85.

From a pilot report:
The Stearman drag bleeds the speed off nicely for an over-the-threshold-speed of 85 MPH. Touchdown is 70-75 MPH. Throttle fully closed will normally cause a slight skip whereas a skosh of power will squeak it on every time.
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I just wasn't getting any speed bleed once I got down around 85 mph. JUST made the stop!

Microsoft Flight Simulator 6_8_2021 5_56_06 PM.jpg
 
this looks great, probably going to pull out my wallet for this one, as I love planes from that era. I live about 30 minutes from where there's a yearly Stearman fly-in (www.stearmanflyin.com) and have been many times. Love seeing these old birds fly over that time of year.

- dcc
 
Honestly people, I think that the criticism of Dean's work here is more than a bit harsh, if not to say impolite.
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I couldn't agree more. This isn't PMDG or Carenado. It's a small developer (one man show?) that is releasing something that appears very nice overall. I'd buy it myself, but I prefer something that can carry a few more passengers. If it's not for you, don't buy it. If you have a suggestion, please find a polite way to offer it. I really don't want to get out my wet asbestos blanket - it's been in storage for so long it probably stinks to High Heaven by now!
 
heywooood said:
I don't want the moon on a stick - just a reasonable facsimile of one of the most iconic biplanes ever built.
I tried to take into account the relatively low price however insofar as the Stearman model 75 has no real technical attributes to model - no glass displays, no weather radar, no deep study engine management, I figure the price point is also about that.
But as I said in the other forum - among aviation enthusiasts you would be hard pressed to find a more familiar airplane than the Stearman 75 -
PT-13 with the Lycoming, PT-17 with the Continental, and PT-18 with the Jacobs motor - and the dusters and Super Stearman with the Wasp Jr 450hp.
You chose to model ONE. The PT-17, and there are a slew of problems with the visual model. All of them may in fact be easy to correct one by one - I hope so.
But it doesn't help to hear you say it doesn't matter to get it right for a few folks, (while deriding them) and say what you're doing is ok because the masses don't know the difference.
The history matters. The people behind the Stearman matter. Please try to represent that history and that airplane accurately or don't do it at all.
This IS just a flight sim - a flying game... but the Stearman 75 isn't just an airplane.
Is it the xBox thing that is making FSX P3D and Xplane developers have this attitude about MSFS? That they can't take it seriously?
A1R had no problem taking a simple airplane design in the Ryan STA, and making it properly - accurate down to the last detail..and for a reasonable price.
Maybe the new sim NEEDS new developers.
And FWIW - I never disparaged this model or your work on it. I only pointed out those things that were not accurate representations of the actual airplane - because it matters
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With full respect for you as an aviation enthusiast and your opinion concerning MSFS aircraft, I must disagree with most of your post. MSFS, I am afraid, is nothing more than a fancy arcade game. Asobo will talk about 1000 points of contact in their flight modeling. To me that is hyperbole that does little to provide a better aircraft flight model simulation. As you stated, this is a X-Box game designed to appeal to and satisfy the teenage gamers of the world. Anything else, as we say in South Louisiana, is lagniappe. I just recently retired as a beta tester for Milviz. They in my opinion make some of the most accurate flight sim aircraft available. I have flown the actual military simulator for two of their aircraft. One, the T-38A, I flew for real in pilot training. No FSX/P3D/MSFS aircraft model approaches the real aircraft feel. I will admit that MSFS has managed to make the visual model almost life like. Some of the screenshots I have seen here and elsewhere are hard to distinguish from the real aircraft.

However, I am not big on perfect detail and historical accuracy in historical aircraft flight sim models. Nor, am I knowledgeable to a great degree. So I will not have your immense knowledge of the Stearman, or any other aircraft. As you stated, most gamers will care less about the visual accuracy of the model. I can't speak for Dean's thoughts and feelings on this. I have, however, on more than one occasion seen him write that he builds fun airplanes, not necessarily accurate ones. So, no one can accuse him of trying to pass off smothered chicken for Peking Duck. He and I have had more than one private conversation on flight models and what is "enough" system wise in his "fun" airplanes. I have come to accept what he provides, knowing full well that others might build a more complex study type aircraft with more robust and accurate systems.

I think that both you and I will have to wait and see if GAS builds a MSFS version of the Stearman. If they do, I will buy it. I trust that it will be more accurate both flight model and visual wise. In the meanwhile I will fly the DC version on my sight-seeing jaunts which BTW, is the only kind of flying I do in MSFS. It is like a 3D Google Earth.
 
Tom Clayton said:
I couldn't agree more. This isn't PMDG or Carenado. It's a small developer (one man show?) that is releasing something that appears very nice overall. I'd buy it myself, but I prefer something that can carry a few more passengers. If it's not for you, don't buy it. If you have a suggestion, please find a polite way to offer it. I really don't want to get out my wet asbestos blanket - it's been in storage for so long it probably stinks to High Heaven by now!
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again "And FWIW - I never disparaged this model or your work on it. I only pointed out those things that were not accurate representations of the actual airplane - because it matters"

 
The Stearman isn't a 'study level' airplane - it is a simple looking biplane. But it has notable characteristics. Just like any airplane it has certain things about it that MAKE it a Stearman.
The PT-17 has one big specific characteristic - that big round thing on the front of it. It is supposed to be of a certain type, manufactured to a certain spec and it looks a certain way.
It was made by Continental and every one of those engines looked like the Continental R670-5 radial engine.

I have purchased this model. I like this model. I take nothing away from Dean or anyone at DC - but this model has some flaws and the biggest one is right out front and center.
I could list a dozen more but Dean has said many of those would be addressed, including the motor. The elevators, the struts and cabanes, the windscreens (already corrected on his end), the lower wing hand holds, and now I just noticed the forward bracing wires on the stabilizer do not line up- top to bottom
a0ge5FY.jpg


All of these things are little things - that's why I don't see why they wouldn't be fixed if mentioned. So I mentioned them - politely and was responded to by Dean in kind on the other forum.
Then I see here on this board that he considers much of this 'wanting the moon on a stick' instead of helpful feedback - and you all wanting to ban the guy who sees the the emperor ain't got no pants..

c'mon man
We can talk about a proper Stearman - cant we? This is a discussion board right?
 
Hey guys, we're all friends here. Let's step back and look at the big picture.

* This is a $15 airplane. I love that it's priced far more reasonably than the $40-60 add-ons so prevalent in flight sims. But it's less than the cost of taking your kid to McDonald's.

* That said, we're enthusiasts, and a lot of the enjoyment comes from planes being convincing in the sim. If you've flown real planes, you know that the sim experience, no matter whether you're playing on a 19-inch monitor or in VR with a buttkicker and 6DOF rig, is still a fraction of the reality of real flying, so you're never going to get full realism. What you get is a convincing experience that lets you get lost in the fantasy. And really noticeable issues, like props spinning the wrong way or a control surface that's misshapen, can take a hardcore sim fan out of the experience. So it's natural to want those things to be fixed to help the immersion.

* That said, DC Designs has repeated stated that it's going to fix those things. The canopy glass, the shape issues, the prop, etc. are all going to be addressed in updates, and if you have other DC Designs planes, you know that Dean's promises are good. So, nothing to complain about here.

* If there are other features you want -- survey-sim level details, multiple engine variants, etc. -- that aren't here, it's not a failing that they weren't included. It's just that this isn't a survey sim product. It's a $15 representation of a single Stearman model. If Dean has created a product aimed at an audience that's not you, that's not a crime, that's not a bad thing. It may be disappointing, but it's just reality.

* Nobody is saying that there's not an audience for a package with multiple engine variants and a higher level of detail. But there IS likely a bigger audience for a $15 single plane than a $60 survey package. That's not a slight on hardcore aviation fans or anything to do with a coming Xbox version. That's reality. There's a wider market for less expensive add-ons and more accessible add-ons. If every plane had Accusim-level system detail and cost $60-$90, this hobby would die.

* The accusations of MSFS or its add-ons being dumbed down for an Xbox audience are just ridiculous. MSFS has issues because it's new, it's ambitious, and it's a much younger codebase than the moldy old code that makes P3D still perform like a dog on a $4,000 computer despite 2007-level visuals. Asobo's addressing the gaps over time, and the Xbox version is going to give them more resources for the PC version if it does well. It's also going to expand the market for flight sims, which is a good thing for us. Step back from the conspiracy theories and just look at the realities of expensive sim development. If MSFS has brought in XX% new users who aren't hardcore FSX/P3D/X-Plane fans coming over, that is good for us because it's going to pay for future development and keeping the servers running.

Guys, it's a big market. Dean's Stearman is fun, it's going to get tweaked to address the issues, and if there's a market for a survey-level Stearman, his $15 lighter-weight plane isn't going to kill it.

As to complaints and bringing up issues and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, may I remind you that Golden Age Simulations was going to bring over their excellent P3D Stearman to MSFS and the variants on P3D may well have addressed the very things you're complaining about, but the hostile, insulting feedback from their first MSFS product had them throw up their arms and go back to FSX/P3D because they didn't want to put all that effort into a product to be met with a barrage of negativity and complaints. So now we've lost GAS and we've lost the Stearman that would have addressed your gripes.

Constructive feedback is great and useful. Negativity and insensitivity has lost us quite a few great developers, commercial and freeware, over the years, from Piglet and Mike Stone in the old days to GAS now. So please consider that along with the big picture when you're interacting online.
 
I'm going to respond to this for two reasons
1) I was a beta tester for GAS and worked on the Stearman project as well as the Kinner Sport - what was said about GAS being thieves and the other ugly nature of those comments was abhorrent and NOTHING at all like the feedback I have given Dean. I'm actually quite perturbed that you would equate my comments with those.
2) As I said before there is nothing 'study level' in what I am seeing as 3D modeling issues.

Yes Dean has said he was going to fix them and our conversation was congenial - it was only when I came in here to see what the release reaction was on this forum that I saw him remark about 'asking for the moon'
And to be fair to me - I am not the only one who has noticed these issues. The thing I find most striking though is that this is a flight sim forum where folks are often sticklers for accuracy and fidelity.
The Stearman model 75 is a simple biplane - no more 'study level' than the Ryan STA - yet one is highly accurate while keeping the price about the same as the other..
 
Just to clarify, I wasn't accusing anyone here of the level of vitriol some threw at GAS. But there was also just a lot of general whining about textures, etc. in a very negative way on a number of forums and almost no credit for creating a rare, cool plane with some innovative features and a superb flight model. It was a comment about tonality vs constructive commentary.

Anyway, Dean's fixing it, he made one comment that might have rubbed some the wrong way but that doesn't affect the Stearman's shape or flight model so maybe it can be disagreed with and moved on from... Not sure why we're still discussing this. :)
 
John, Denny and others have hit the nail on the head here - they and others understand why I do what I do and how I do it. If I were building just for me, I'd want every rivet to have the right stamp and date marking on it. But this is about building aircraft to make a living, not massaging my ego, and 70% of the sim market want fun / entertainment level aircraft that are representative of their type and simply don't need detail to the nth degree. In these tough economic times, prices need to be reachable by all. The Stearman represents that balance between price, detail, development time and target market. Stearman purists won't like it, but it doesn't matter - they just don't represent a large enough share of the market to matter. Considering the non-functional junk that some devs are putting out in cash-grabs for $20+, I'd have thought one might look at a $15 aircraft like the Stearman, with proper support and a communicative dev, in a different light, but sadly it seems not. It's the "I want what I want, and if you don't deliver it then it's garbage no matter what others might want" attitude that I don't like. It's not that folks are being offensive in any way, just that some don't want to understand that it's not designed for them.

The Stearman is right for it's market, and for every customer unhappy about a cable in the wrong place, there are 50 who are happily flying about enjoying the aircraft for what it is. They're my market, the silent majority who aren't on forums like this, who don't "engage" with the community of do surveys - they just enjoy flight simming in their favourite aircraft.

Having said all of that, I do listen to as many as I can - pretty much everything mentioned here is to be fixed in the first update as it's all really quite easy to do. It often takes a product launch to get a feel for what the community wants beyond the perceived target market. I did this with the F-15s, and it worked well.
 
Then don’t call it a Stearman PT-17 if you don’t want to put in the effort.
call it a 15$ biplane for people who don’t care.
Seriously - why ARE we still talking about this ?
 
DennyA said:
* This is a $15 airplane. I love that it's priced far more reasonably than the $40-60 add-ons so prevalent in flight sims. But it's less than the cost of taking your kid to McDonald's....
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If you look at it, this is the market for MSFS models, the models are much cheaper than was for P3D and this is nothing new and just an exception. From our (users) point of view it is very good, for develepers I think also - ok the price is lowest but the sales are higher (+ new users for the future). The average "XBOX user" won't pay $ 30 for DLC. :biggrin-new: On the other hand, these prices are often offered by completely new companies and people who are just starting to make models in MSFS (in a COVID situation where many people have lost their jobs or have financial problems, that's ok too). The competition here will simply be much bigger than it was, so from our, user's side its good too. Caudron 430 is an good example of this, 10Eu (and it was on sale at beginnig 8.5Eu) and the quality of 3D shape is impressive also:



As for the rest - it's nothing new. The group of flight simulator lovers is the most complaining group on the market :loyal: especially since it concerns the history of aviation and well-documented machines, which everyone has in their minds since childhood. You have to be prepared for this and simply take into account the opinions of the community, which after all has nothing wrong in mind, but only points to oversight. This is called constructive criticism if it is not exaggerated and if it's well documented. Have a good day!
 
@heywood Because it is a PT-17 Stearman, no matter how much you dislike it. This isn't about the quality of the airplane now - it's about a failure to understand that what you want isn't the only deal on the table, and is in fact the smallest deal available from a developer's perspective - common problem in flight sim. I'm going to move from this now, as I have improvements to make with no effort required apparently.
 
It's a wonder we have any developers left with the attitude of some of the people on here, I think Deans model of one of aviation's most iconic aircraft Concorde was a extremely brave and daunting task.
I don't own it, not because it's a bad model but I already have the Fslabs version and don't need another one in my collection. I also have the PSS Concorde and Koch media Concorde as well. I might get Deans Concorde to complete my collection but for the time being I have other priorities.
 
Hopefully something easy to fix (whilst removing the armoured glass?) - if flown in heavy cloud and rain (real weather, Scotland, this morning :) ) there is a strange flickering reflection of the canopy framing present in the front and RH panes of cockpit glass of the front cockpit, when viewed from the rear seat.

Anyone know the purpose of the large 'ammo-box' labelled Database on the floor of the rear cockpit?
Sorry if this is nit-picking, but with the term database being invented in the 60's maybe it could be relabelled?
 
keithb77 said:
Hopefully something easy to fix (whilst removing the armoured glass?) - if flown in heavy cloud and rain (real weather, Scotland, this morning :) ) there is a strange flickering reflection of the canopy framing present in the front and RH panes of cockpit glass of the front cockpit, when viewed from the rear seat.

Anyone know the purpose of the large 'ammo-box' labelled Database on the floor of the rear cockpit?
Sorry if this is nit-picking, but with the term database being invented in the 60's maybe it could be relabelled?
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The rain issue is already fixed - the glass wasn't scaled correctly in the LOD01 cockpit model, so an individual drop of rain caused a big refraction in the glass.

The Database marking is from a real Stearman from WW2 - can't tell if the label was placed there in more modern times or not to be honest. Will find out.

ETA: Hah! It should be Data Case - will change it :)
 
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The 'data case' was one of those items installed in every WWII-era American aircraft, somewhere. Some were wood and some were metal. If not located in the cockpit, it would be situated elsewhere in the fuselage that could be accessed. On some Stearmans, if it is missing from the cockpit, it is because it is attached to the inside of the baggage compartment door instead.

On the incredibly authentic Wings of North Air Museum's N2S-1 Stearman (BuNo. 3347, N50061), they have the modern radios hidden inside the data case so that, when it is closed up when on display, you would never be able to tell that anything is different from the way it was during WWII (save for the temporary portable GPS mount too). This is one of five Stearmans known to survive today that were flown by US President George Bush Sr., during his Navy primary flight training at NAS Minneapolis, in January/February 1943. Even the triangle of black tape over the fuel pressure reading on the engine gauge is accurate to factory/original wartime. When this one was originally restored, completed several years ago, it didn't have an electric starter or radios at all, as it was done exactly as it would have been in 1942/43. Since that time, they have added the radios and an electric starter for ease of operation (when I took these photos, it was in the process of having those items added).





 
OK, just installed and took it for a quick ride around Orcas Island.
Enjoyed every minute of it and, even if still requiring full attention, I managed to land it on the first try (something I never got to do with the Waco).
Thanks Dean, MSFS was incomplete without a Stearman.
Now, for when the Concorde? :wink:
 
I have a question for you knowledgeable types. The red handle below the throttle that says "Controls Lock" it the Tips, what does it do? I moved it and the controls didn't seem different. I could still move them.
 
jmig said:
I have a question for you knowledgeable types. The red handle below the throttle that says "Controls Lock" it the Tips, what does it do? I moved it and the controls didn't seem different. I could still move them.
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It's there for future updates as the Stearman had a control lock: there is no control lock function at this time in MSFS, but I wanted it ready and animated with its own sound so that when the time comes, its function can be fulfilled :)
 
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