Bonanza confusion

[HaraldG 559]

Hi,

 

a recent thread here in the forum made me think about more VFR flying than I practice today. When I looked at my hangar, beside (mostly historic) airliners there are only either small and slow utility planes (An-14, Fieseler Storch, Wilga) or historic fighters like my Messerschmitt. I have no "classic" GA aircraft which is not as slow as an An-14 but not as fast and thirsty as a Messerschmitt or Mustang.

 

I'd like to have a Beech Bonanza - best would be a V-tailed A35. But when it comes to models, there is a certain confusion which I should choose.

- There is a freeware model by John Recker in the library. The exterior model is nice, but there is no 2D panel, and the VC is "basic"

- There is a Carenado A35 model from 2004. Looks nice, seems to have a 2D panel which I prefer.

- Then there is the Dreamfleet/Flight1/Aerosoft version of 2006. Looks overall nice. I thrust Dreamfleet since I have their 727.

- Finally there is the F33 version by Carenado (2012).

- The Beech Mentor T-34B (Carenado, 2004) could also be an option.

 

The F33 is is not my choice because it has no 2D panels. While I like VC sideviews, I don't like the forward view (highly disputed, but a matter of taste).

 

So I can decide between Carenado A35 and Dreamfleet A36. Both are no new models, but this hasn't to be a disadvantage (as I can see at my DF 727). Unfortunately, Simmarket has no real Screenshots of the A35 (EDIT: Saw some more pictures at carenado.com). In terms of the pure model I prefer the V-tail...

 

So has anybody experience with both the Carenado A35 and the DF A36? One has to have in mind that tha A35 still costs 18 Euro while the DF A36 (German version) is on sale by Aerosoft for 10 Euro.

 

Really looking forward to your comments!

 

Best regards,

Harald

[Appliance 51]

Hi Harald.

I own both.

Carenado's V tail is quite old now. The interior, gauges and VC may disappoint these days. Still has lots of character and exterior is fine. Flies OK for a Carenado.

The Dreamfleet A36 is a substanially more sophisicated product. Dedicated RXP 430's, weather radar etc. MUCH heavier on frames. Funnily enough I didn't enjoy flying it as much as the otherwise inferior V tail.

Not much help to you I'm afraid, just my take.

[HaraldG 559]

Thanks Brian!

 

What may be of importance is that there are obviously more repaints available for the Carenado model than for Dreamfleet's.

 

The differences between Carenado and Dreamfleet regarding cockpit/gauges are evident, indeed. Maybe the FPS heavyness of DF depends on the Avionics... I found a modification providing a more classic instrumentation for the A36, looks nice and will perhaps give better framerates.

[forkedtail 5]

I have the Carenado V-tail Cessna, and I agree with the comment that while it is a well-above average modelling, it is showing its age compared to other Carenado product.  It certainly should be sold as a discounted product if it is not already.  At one time Carenado was providing their older models as freeware.  This plane would fall into that category, as would other models such as their Mentor.  Nevertheless, I enjoy the Cessna and need to do some searching for new repaints, as it is provided with only one.

 

The aspect that will disappoint is the cockpit rendering.  It is well below the standard for payware aircraft today.

[ematheson 19]

The FS9 Carenado V35 was originally developed for FS2002 and subsequently upgraded to FS9. That means it lacks many features that even the default FS9 aircraft have. It is a beautiful model, but OLD. As noted above, it really should be freeware at this point... or maybe Carenado should convert their FSX V35 like they did with their F33...

[N60JBravo 27]

Disregard post, I thought I was in the FSX forum.

 

Boy did I berf this one.

 

regards,

Joe

[pfflyers 7]

Since the OPs original post suggests that he does not use the vc for flying he won't really mind that the Carenado model is dated in that area. The OP should be able to find or make his own updated 2d panel and have an aircraft that would fill his need very well. Even at its old age the exterior model is very nice, and there are lots of repaints available. It's still one of my favorite GA types.

[HaraldG 559]

Hi,

 

thanks for all the helpful input.

After all, I think buying the Dreamfleet Bonanza will be no mistake.

As pfflyers assumes, the VC alone won't be the problem with Carenado's model. But if I buy a plane it should have a certain system depth, and the fact that

 

 

it lacks many features that even the default FS9 aircraft have

suggests that this is not the case. Even that wouldn't be a big problem if the price wasn't still almost double as high as for the Dreamfleet model, which I can get for less then 10 Euro here in Germany.

 

Regarding frames, if the A36 is as "heavy" as Dreamfleets B727, then I should have no problems.

 

Thanks  and regards,

Harald

[HaraldG 559]

Hi,

 

sorry for warming up this old thread. Have bought the Dreamfleet Bonanza and I like it. But every time I fly it half an hour or more, my PC slows down extremely, the hard disk works without stop and VC textures aren't loaded anymore or only after some minutes of waiting. Somewhere I read that this kind of problems can be caused by RealityXP instruments (GPS?). Is there any possibility to avoid this behaviour? Which file causes this? Not only my FS2004 gets unusable, even the whole PC...

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

Regards, Harald

[fppilot 4,335]

I logged 142 hours in FS9 with the DF A36 and my flights averaged right at 1.5 hours. I did not experience the issue you described. I moved to FSX and the Carenado A36 in January 2012.

[HaraldG 559]

I have removed all the RealityXP-related dll files from my modules subfolder and will investigate further tomorrow; today it's too late.

 

BTW, in some forums the "RxpSrv.dll" is suspected...

 

Thanks,

Harald

[HaraldG 559]

By the way, what function has the "sb3gaugebridge.dll"? It was installed with the DF A36, too.

 

Thanks, Harald

[WingZ 547]

Well I'd be interested to hear what you discover, Harald.

Years ago. I threw out the Reality XP gauges, and their Dreamfleet installs.

I don't know what it was, but my sim became totally unmanageable.

 

While it may not be the fault of the gauges themselves, they interacted unacceptably with something I already had.

 

It's something I often come across with software that goes a little "outside the box"

[HaraldG 559]

Hi WingZ,

 

I ended up flying the Bonanza, but without any RealityXP gauges. I made some tests, and always when I flew the Bo more than lets say 30 min my FS2004 and my whole PC became unmanageable indeed as long as FS2004 was running. When starting FS2004 new, the problems even occured from the beginning, FS2004 needed half an hour to load any flight, even when I didn't load the Bo at all. I had to start the PC new to overcome this effect. I conclude that the problems were caused not just by the gauges itself but by some dlls coming with RealityXP.

 

As first step, I used a panel configuration which I found here in the library: a36tradp.zip by David Voogd. After loading the Bo with this panel (after a PC new start of course), the problems didn't occur. By the way, this traditional panel seemed to fit much better to the Bo IMHO, especially the KI525 HSI which was included. (Although the WX Radar would have been nice for my yesterday flight EPGD-EYPA).

 

As second step I removed the dll files which came with the RealityXP instruments included with the Bonanza - I new them from installing it into a sandbox first. (I also removed the sb3gaugebridge.dll, which seemed to be a component for Squawk Box 3 which I don't use.) I then ran FS2004 more than two hours without any problem. I have no idea at all what was the cause of the dlls' misbehaviour, sometimes I read about Malware scanners, but why did this problem occur half an hour after loading the plane? Maybe some update process went in the background... really don't know. However, I didn't do a test with either only the RealityXP dlls or only sb3gaugebridge.dll, that may be up to someone else... I can only repeat that I read about a file "RxpSvr.dll" as being suspected as culprit - without it the Bo didn't load and the sim crashed.

 

I then checked the DF B727 with its WX radar, which worked fine without these dlls as it did before to cross-check not to have removed a false dll. I assume that the dlls were for the Garmin GNS 430 exclusively and that I could have used the WX Radar though. Nevertheless I decided to continue using David Voogds panel with some improvements particularly regarding the so far non-functional VC. (if someone is interested, I could share my improvements, if I found contact data of David Voogd to ask for permission).

EDIT: I have emailed David via the address I found in several uploads, but the mail was returned due invalid address...

 

Now the VC looks like:

 

 

With this changes (and, luckily enough, with the possibility to remove the ugly radar pod from the wing), I enjoy flying the Bonanza. Totally different from my B727 world tour, but when did I see trees and houses from en-route the last time? Not having the super-immersive GNS 430 is not that problem, as I always can switch to the B727 with her INS... I'm learning power settings for the IO-550 now...

 

Have fun!

Harald