Aerosoft - Piper Cheyenne PA31

This is a review for the Aerosoft Piper Cheyenne, or the PA31-T. This twin turboprop aircraft was made by Piper in the 1960's as the Cheyenne and quickly became Piper's best-selling and most comfortable plane. Piper later came out with the IA, II, and IIXL models. It has a ceiling of 31,000 feet and cruise near 250 knots! It also uses some of the newest avionics in it's time, including weather radar, a non-visual GPS, and TCAS. I'm sure Aerosoft will have to work hard to meet the real-world standards. Let's see how the software came out.

  
Exterior Model:

The exterior model comes with a large amount of detail. Both the cargo and passenger entries can be opened and the steps are detailed down to the cable which pulls it up. The pitch of the propellers is modeled when the engines are off, which is a very nice touch. Also, the plane comes with 12 different textures in total and comes with the tail-number built in with a few different international tailsigns. The only problem which I found with this is that if you are American you will find a very limited choice on what to use if you want the US callsign (i.e. N at the front), but that is not really a problem. Also seen on the bottom and top are the multitudes of bumps and sticks coming from the weather, TCAS, and radio antennas. This was a nice addition as it is not really modeled in the default aircraft. One very nice touch to the aircraft that I really enjoyed are the wheel chocks and cones that appear when the engines are off and you are on the ground. They seem to give it that nice feel of realism. Also, when connected to the APU and stopped, a gray box appears with a wire going to the airplane, which is the power unit. These pieces of detail really add to the aircraft in a good way.

This section receives a 10 of 10

 

Flight Characteristics:

I found the flight characteristics of this airplane to be seemingly very realistic, and found the stalling speeds to be near close enough, rotation is approximately at 80 knots and slow flight is also realistically modeled. The aircraft, at cruising speed, is just responsive enough while not overdoing it. To put the controls in perspective, I found them to be approximately a cross between the default King Air 350 and the Beechcraft Baron 58. One other thing that I enjoyed is that when raising the throttles, the torque will go up quickly and you must be careful not to cross the redline on the gauges. Other than a few things, you should find the aircraft somewhat easy to fly if you are experienced in twin engine turboprops. Learning will also come quickly to an experienced twin-prop pilot, once he learns that the airplane has a significantly larger amount of power. It does seem to be a very forgiving airplane.

This section receives a 10 of 10

Cockpit/Virtual Cockpit

One thing that is very enjoyable about the 2D cockpit is that it is full of hotspots to click on and bring up new panels, without any key combination's. For example, click on the upper part of the screen and the overhead panel will come up, click on the lower part and an IFR panel will be shown. Also, you can access the copilot 2D cockpit and use the "Cabin Comfort Control", complete with Dehumidifier and windshield wipers. Also, the plane comes with multiple cabin views. Here, you can see the No Smoking and Seat-Belt signs illuminate and you can even fold up the tray tables. In fact, the cabin is quite luxurious . No detail was spared with modeling every gauge. There is a multitude of engine gauges on the right side, along with very realistic standard instruments. Another interesting aspect to control is the pressurization, which comes in the form of about three gauges, depending on which model you look at.

This section receives a 10 of 10

Sound

Sound is modeled well, though a few things were left out which I would liked to have seen. For example, there is no rolling sound during high-speed taxi, and flap sound is minimal. Other than this though, turboprops are basically a nice loud hum, as it should be. Also, there are very realistic cockpit sounds. One glitch that I noticed was that the door opening sound may keep repeating itself sometimes, though it is probably fixable.

This section receives a 7 of 10

Frame Rates
While flying in the virtual cockpit, the memory leak in FSX is greatly exaggerated. I have 4gbs of RAM, and still get it sometimes! However, if you never get the message "Your computer has run out of virtual memory...", then this should not be a problem for you. Though, I'll admit, it is more intensive than the default aircraft, it may be worth the 5-10 FPS loss. After all, this is quite a beautiful aircraft .

This section receives a 7.5 of 10

Overall, this is the best payware I've ever flown. It earns a 44 out of 50 (88%). And in no way am I advertising for any company. I would highly recommend buying the product.
Thanks for Reading!