Stephen Posted January 24, 2022 Report Share Posted January 24, 2022 Aircraft Review : Piper PA-28-180 Cherokee C by Aerosphere Simulations Over the last few years the biggest aircraft category in the X-Plane Simulator has had a bit of a decline. The cause was two dimensional, one was the drawback of Carenado/Alabeo from the X-Plane simulator after Thranda Design decided to pursue a different developer direction, but two was also the fact the category had been saturated with almost every conceivable General Aviation (GA) variant possible over the last decade. In GA now there are only a few developers actively developing the so called classic Piper, Beechcraft and Cessna models. One is VFlyteAir whom have also been quiet lately, and the nice collection of Just Flight Pipers. Another developer are of what you could call an X-Plane "Classic" developer is Aerosphere Simulations however are still pumping out with regularity with nice if quite modest General Aviation aircraft. A few months ago it was the PA-32-260 Cherokee Six B, and here is the little brother in the PA-28-180 Cherokee C. The "C" model is signified by it's square-cut windows and the iconic “Hershey Bar” wing. The “C” variant also has a four cylinder carbureted version of the Lycoming O-360 that produces 180HP and is equipped with a two bladed fixed pitch propeller. Notable is the aircraft variant has the "Push-Pull" throttle and Mixture controls instead of the earlier lever quadrant and in creating more space cabin forward. This 180 horsepower variant had an empty weight with an autopilot of 1270lbs, and a gross weight of 2400lbs and resulting in a useful carry load of 1130lbs. And the basic Cherokee is not to be confused with the Archer, which had a longer fuselage. The Cherokee 180 was first certified on 3 August 1962. Aerosphere could be classed as a "Classic Style" developer. Up front there is none of that nonsense of popup features or even a menu. So don't go looking for items like static elements, removable panels, detailed engine, fuel cart, weights and fuel etc; as there isn't even any chocks to stop the aircraft rolling away. The Aerosphere 180 is however VR (Virtual Reality) friendly, and has FMOD sounds. Only external animations are the main right cabin door (latch only works from the inside), and the large baggage store area (behind the rear bench seat) door, that has a set of non-usable chocks and some spare engine oil set inside. Modeling could be noted as "Classic" as well... The polygon mesh is quite large, hence the visible lines on curves, overall the modeling is not bad and the Cherokee shape is well done, but don't go looking for the ultra mesh detailing that is common today... hence the dated feel. The detail however is saved by a lot NML normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping which is really quite good... all the panels are visible as are the sunk and raised rivets... best detail is the tail and wide rear single elevator that are nicely detailed to bring out the metal strengthening aspects of the panels. minute detailing is a bit average, notable in the wingtip lighting assemblies and leading edge vents. Wing chord shapes are not bad either. The wheels are all covered by large fairings which can't be removed. The internal side of the wheels in detail is not very complex either, so there is no authentic high detailing here. The cockpit glass feels thin, and not heavy as you would find on a sixty year old aircraft, there are no scratches, wear or dirt to give it a more aged old feel... it is all simply clear, but nicely shaped for the front windscreen. The highlight is the nice twin-blade propeller and chrome spinner, which is a McCauley prop. The starter ring can be seen as well which is a nice intimate detail. Cabin The cabin could be described as "Late 50's Country", with it's light tan and woollen tartan inserts. Don't expect any comfort, they are as flat as they look with ribs, and again feel dated. But the dated feel is correct for the period. Under seat frame is nicely done, and the wheel puller affixed to the rear bench seat is a nice touch. Rear seat baggage area is huge, and feels like wasted space, the cabin roof detail is however very nice. There is a full animated pilot that moves in all directions, pitch, roll and rudder yaw, not exactly the most human like model (more like a mannequin), but it is a fair go I suppose. Instrument panel There is no doubt were all the attention and detail work on this Piper 180 C has been focused on... the instrument panel. The molding and quality instruments are very authentic, but like in a new Cherokee 180 C, not a 55 year old Cherokee 180 aged sort of way. So there is no cracked facia, foam spewing detail or weather worn faded areas, there is however a nice bit of gaffa tape keeping the panel together over the avionics. Notable are the very nice reflections on the instruments, it gives the panel a very realistic feel. The authentic yokes are very nice with well done finger grips on the rear. Again though they both feel new, more than aged or worn down in time, but I do like the authentic PIPER Cherokee centre yoke logos. Both yokes (together) can be hidden via pressing the chrome yoke stem behind. Panel layout is pretty standard, however the Standard Six (Eight here?) flying instruments are more grouped very wide in front of the left side pilot, with nothing, and not even any backup instruments for the right side pilot. Left to right top row has Clock, Airspeed Indicator, Artificial Horizon, Altimeter and directional Garmin CDI (Course Deviation Indicator) VOR2. Bottom row; Turn Coordinator, Heading Dial and Vertical Speed Indicator and Bendix/King ADF pointer... all are perfectly laid out, with the VOR OBS (Nav2) and the ILS alignment Dial clear and nice to use. I like the layout a lot. Lower left is the S-Tec Autopilot adjustment panel, then lower knee panel are all the lighting switches and adjustment knobs, starter switch, with the pitot, fuel pump switches. Avionics and Autopilot power switches are mid-lower panel. Centre-right is the Avionics stack. Top is both a Garmin GNS530 and below a Garmin GNS430 (both units pop-out), Standard Garmin GMA 340 Radio, S-Tec Fifty Five X Autopilot, Bendix/King KR87 ADF receiver (incorrectly labled?) and Garmin GTX 327 Transponder. Engine dials and gauges are all far right. Top a very large RPM and built in hour counter, right Gyro Suction gauge, and EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) gauge. There is a block of six gauges that cover; Fuel Left Tank, Gen (Generator) Amps, Right Fuel Tank top row, and Oil Pressure, Fuel Pressure and Oil Temperature bottom row. So over all it is a very basic instrument setup and one that anyone should know in everything laid out here, in other words a "Simple Layout', but one that looks good and is easy to use. Under panel is nicely done. Note the Throttle and Mixture knobs and a HOBBs meter hangs below. Under left is the park brake, far left the Fuel Selector... Rudders however have no toe-brake effect. Flap lever set is between the seats, and the trim winder is on the roof. _________________ Flying the Cherokee 180 Being a basic aircraft. Starting and setting up the 180 is very easy. A few pumps of the engine primer, mixture to half-way, touch of throttle, Switch on and then hit the "Starter Button", a few twirls of the prop and your running... If you don't get the mixture to running set correctly, then lower to mid lean is about right. If not the 180 C will lurch quickly off the ramp when releasing the park brake, get the tuning right right and you will have some control. Like a lot of GA aircraft there is too much thrust, even at idle... more control is needed as the brakes can be sharp as well... ... be very light on the toe brakes, even be more so in being as even as you can. If not the the aircraft will brake sharply to the direction of the brake effort... I even resorted back to my (50% Regular) pinky lever to keep the braking effort as even as possible, but with a bit of experience you can feed in the toe brakes slightly to control the speed, which is quite powerful at a taxi speed. You can trundle the 180 C along, but keep the speed down with a lot of braking effort. At the runway KHAF RWY33) hold point, I set the trim to pitch down slightly forward (you will see why in a moment). The small "Storm" window, a bit of trivia in that a "Storm Window" or 'ice window' is a carryover from when aircraft did have opening windows that were meant as a Direct Vision DV window in case of ice formation on the windshield, or the wings. Mostly today it is used as ventilation. Here you can open it to the rising external noise, the opening door will give you the same effect. But the outer edge of the window frame disappears as you do? Sounds are actually very good at idle speeds, and okay as the power rises. My biggest issue is that in areas the sounds are too quiet, then too loud on the spectrum, there is not a consistency I would like (in other words I kept turning the sounds up, then turning them down again with complaints from the family that it was too loud). First I will state I have never flown a real Cherokee 180, but I do have a lot of GA Simulator experience... if the following is correct to the behavior of a Piper 180 C, then so be it. Off brakes, full rich mixture and feeding the throttle in, and the 180 C initially goes right, which is slightly corrected... ... Then the asymmetrical prop thrust kicks in with a bang, and you go seriously... even lurching to the left, which means a lot of right rudder to compensate, to keep the 180 C straight I am almost at full right rudder, with only a 5 knt wind in my face? I have done this takeoff run nine or ten times now... and I am now always ready for the coming left lurch, but never really catch it, or it always catches me out every time? Correcting the drift, I am then always caught out again straight away in that the Piper 180 C is now also airbourne? The lift point is around 65 knts... is that right? at no set flap or clean? I thought it would be around the mid to late 70's in knots or even in the early 80 knts.. ... strong control is needed as you climb out, both the rudder and yoke needs a lot of power to the right to keep the Piper straight and level... I have another gripe here as well. The Artificial Horizon marker is very, very small? You can't set say even find a 5º or 10º pitch, as it barely moves position even though you are climbing out at 500 fpm. So the 180 C is already very physical aircraft to fly. That may be to your tastes or challenge, depending on your flying skill set. Rate Of Climb is 750 fpm, but you will do usually your 500 fpm, maybe 600 fpm. Ceiling is noted around 15,700 ft. I feel I am flying the Cherokee a bit lopsided... as I have to use some persistent right rudder and right yoke to keep the aircraft flying straight and level, so it is tiring to fly distances manually, as you are pulling right against the left forces consistently. You can of course use the X-Plane rudder trim (COMMAND) to adjust the rudder angle to compensate for the drift, but that is not the 180 C presented here. So if you want feel from an aircraft in feedback then you certainly get that here. Another anomaly was my Artificial Horizon played up weird as well... I was straight and level, but my Artificial Horizon told a completely different orientation? as it was also periodically spinning on it's axis... Fly into any dense cloud conditions and this scenario could be deadly. Top Speed is around 132 kt, with a cruise speed of 124 kts, the 180hp version is not very fast, but is noted to be quite dependable. Range is around 510 nm at a total Fuel Capacity of 50 gal. S-Tec autopilot is pretty basic, but helpful here. You can set the altitude (10 set increments) via the S-Tec panel left lower panel, but that is about it, the rest is standard servos of HDG, NAV, APR, ALT and VS in Vertical Speed. Lighting There are two lower panel lighting adjustment knobs for the instruments and avionics... the avionics can be a bit too bright, so you dial them down about halfway to match the instrument lighting. Overall it looks quite nice and everything is highly readable... highlight is the six pack Fuel and Engine gauges, that look great lit up in the dark, even authentic. There are two roof mounted lighting options. The first is an adjustable overhead red glow light for the instrument panel, that is highly effective... .... the second is a cabin light with a very tiny (miss it) button switch and not the big round knob (for the red glow light), this lights up the rear cabin nicely. External lighting is quite average? All the navigation lights are not refined and blend into each other, and the single-nose landing light is a big orb... The tail top mounted beacon is another orb (when it shouldn't be), and the strobes are just plain awful. You do actually get more comfortable with the handling of the Piper 180 C the more you spend time in the aircraft, that is if you get used to your right foot doing all the work. It is a good place to be once you acclimatise to the feel and motion of the aircraft... and into the landing circuit for KHAF Rwy 33... Flaps are three steps via the Flap lever on the floor. First step is only 10º, which can easily be overlooked, to a speed on or around 95 knts... .... Second and Third steps are 25º, and 40º degrees with speed drops of 90 knts (25º) and to a full 40º and should settle around 75 knots for the final approach... ... there is no ballooning or that feeling of being lifted out of your seat if you get those speeds perfectly right, in this case the 180 C is a very stable aircraft to set up. You are down to about 70 knts for the final approach phase, and the 108 C will sink nicely and is very nicely controlled. Pushing hard with my right foot, brings the nose around to meet the runway... you feel you are landing in a strong crosswind, but your not. Slight pitch up flare rubs off the speed and flows you down to the runway... again very stable in this final phase. Touchdown is around 60 knts, give or take a few knots... 180 C's Stall speed with flaps full down (dirty) is 50 kts, only 10 knts below. On landing again the Piper lurched to the left and needed some quick and expertly handled corrections... ... so at points the 180 C is and can be a tricky even challenging aircraft to fly, or is that it's appeal! Liveries There are six liveries with the Piper 180 C. One is white if you want to do some of your own designs (and another white with rego). The rest are all American registered and a bit "ho Hum" in not being very creative in design, or in their names. ________________ Summary This is the Piper Cherokee "C" model that comes with the square-cut windows and the iconic “Hershey Bar” wing, the “C” variant has a four cylinder carbureted Lycoming O-360 that produces 180HP and is equipped with a two bladed, fixed pitch propeller. Six years ago or more X-Plane was awash with these sort of "Classic" style aircraft from old school developers. Most had diversified out of the original X-Plane PlaneMaker into what you would call a Pro or Professional take on the system, but didn't expand on further into the plugin realm. So the aircraft didn't have the huge feature lists and effects of which the more modern aircraft do... and that is what we have here a "Classic" design with no menus, pop-up screens or features, unless (like with the GNS in that are X-Plane default items). The designs are not Ultra-Quality either in the modeling or detail. But they are creative and to a point a "Pure" X-Plane aircraft... and that is what we have here from Aerosphere Simulations in their Piper PA-28-180 Cherokee C. By those "Classic" standards the aircraft is very good, nicely designed and the focus on the Instrument Panel is genuinely well done, but the details are basic as is the polygon mesh, and say in the minute details of wingtip light assemblies and wheels. Sounds are good if a little variable, but instrument wise the 180 C is well done with a nice layout and avionics. Lighting internally is very good, but poor externally in not being at all refined. Interesting is the flight model of where being a pure PlaneMaker then these aircraft can shine. idiosyncratic is the word here. But are you adjusting to the aircraft's idiosyncrasies (or flying around them), or is the aircraft itself idiosyncratic? The more you fly the aircraft, then the more you adapt to it's say odd idiosyncrasies? It is an interesting dilemma that only real 180 C pilots can answer. I have flown the vFlyteAir 140 a lot, yes a lot less powerful Piper, but the aircraft was a gem to fly... that aspect is missing here in that it is a challenging aircraft to fly but is that it's attraction. A few things like the hard left pull and the odd Artificial Horizon in being hard to use and bizarre behavior, makes you wonder about the rest. Overall these "Classic" style aircraft are extremely popular as they represent the "Purity" of X-Plane and it's system itself. Users snap them up and collect them, then fly them consistently with their extremely low framerate penalties, there is not the burden of wading through pages of manual or details to get down and dirty to the flying aspect. And that is their beauty, to a point the "Classics" are a pure X-Plane aircraft. _____________________________________ Yes! - Piper PA-28-180 Cherokee C by AeroSphere Simulations is NOW available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : Piper PA-28-180 Cherokee C Price is Currently US$29.95 (Currently on SALE at 17% off US$24.95) Features: 4 HD (4096 x 4096) liveries with a plain white texture that can be used for custom paint schemes. Steam gauge classic general aviation panel with required instruments for IFR. Garmin 530 & 430 All gauges are 3D Detailed flight model and interactive 3D virtual cockpit with animated knobs, buttons etc. cabin door, storm window and front/rear baggage compartment door. Toggle button to remove/display yoke Compatible with HDR and normal lighting effects Many textures taken from the actual aircraft Virtual Reality friendly and includes the click regions and hotspots required for VR gameplay. FMOD sounds Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 195 MB Current Version : 1.0 (January 20th 2022) ___________________________________ Installation and documents: download for the Cherokee 180 C is 190.50MB and the aircraft is deposited in the "General Aviation" X-Plane folder. Full Installation is 209Mb Documents supplied are: ReadMe.pdf Basic "ReadMe" (2 pages) of the history of the aircraft and features. _____________________ Aircraft Review by Stephen Dutton 25thg January 2022 Copyright©2022: X-Plane Reviews Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo M2 2TB SSD - Sound : Yamaha Speakers YST-M200SP Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.55 Plugins: Global SFD plugin US$30.00 : Environment Engine by xEnviro US$69.90 : RK Apps XPRealistic v2 - US$34.99 Scenery or Aircraft - KHAF - Half Moon Bay by Rising Dawn Studios (X-Plane.OrgStore) - US$19.00 (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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