FSX Pilatus PC-12

Bravo on this plane's appearance: It LOOKS like a PC-12, unlike a piper turboprop I downloaded from another source, which while it flew and performed well, it was hard to even look at as it was a very sorry excuse for looking--kinda, sorta, like a piper, but not quite... THIS plane looks like the real thing.

This PC-12 flies well, performs well, and exhibits true STOL characteristics typical of Pilatus! I've landed this thing hard and it doesn't want to crash like other planes. (May or may not be realistic as it bounces instead, I don't know.) The landing gear is tough and rugged--much like Walter Beech, (creator of Beechcraft) who designed his planes after fighter aircraft.

They're very durable, and able to take hard landings needed for short, rough fields. The engine, I notice will not over speed, while unrealistic, is a nice simulated 'convenience, I'll take it--one less thing to worry about, lol.

The PC-6 Porter, however, over speeds at just over 160 knots and 'crashes' the program. That all said, the things I'm not particularly happy with this plane: Very happy to have a VC but it is fuzzy and hard to read the instrument numbers where the 2-D panel is crystal clear. Unlike the actual PC-12 panel this panel was copied from, it has NO ENGINE INSTRUMENTS needed for approach speed control. The BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT WAS NO PANEL LIGHTS FOR NIGHT FLYING! (VC view)WHAT???

One must go over to the 2D view where vision over the nose is almost impossible for approach vision! The external view of the plane at night shows excellent lighting, but from the panel view, the lighting is extremely bright washing out the yellow taxi stripes and making ground taxiing at night very confusing.

The engine sound is fine for a generic turboprop sound. But the sound changes to different sounds for startup and wind down--not consistent. The external view shows the prop winding down but then stopping abruptly. All things considered, however, this is a very good plane and I easily recommend it for download.

It's a pleasure to fly and the characteristics are very close to the actual plane. (Ok, the view of the rear cabin is cartoonish but who cares, I'm interested in the business end up front.) Bravo.

I will fly this plane far more often than I will fly the attempted "Manga" cartoon version of the Piper that I got, even though it flies ok, too. Oh, to Jeff who asked about how to download this into FSX Steam (which I fly through): Unzip the file, then click on the "PC-12" file only inside the zipped folder and send it through the download process into your airplane file.

Thanks, guys! Happy flying!

Where is the GPS button?

How do I load this into FSX Steam edition?