Carenado released their Cessna 208B Grand Caravan today, and while there are a few minor caveats worth noting before you run out and buy this one, it marks Carenado’s first release of one of their newest “state of the art” files to the XP market. That said, this first version has “limited functionality” in XP10, i.e., it was not specifically built for XP 10, but other than that the ACF appears superior in all respects – after a quick look around – and this ACF presents a fresh, first tier Carenado Class product to our market.
Think of it this way…as good as the F33A and the Seneca are, the Caravan is going to be of serious interest to a lot of people looking for one of Carenado’s recent files. Some highlights?
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First thing to note: the panel, and do not confuse this with other GA singles. It’s not. This is a turbine powered commercial/light utility workhorse capable of operations in almost all known conditions/environments, and the Carenado version is equipped as such. This is NOT a GA trainer, nor is this aircraft as easy to fly in “real life” as a Piper Archer. IF you want to “step up” to more complex OPS this could well be a logical next purchase for many of you, but the inherent complexity of this aircraft is well represented.
Documentation is thorough, and you’ll want to read the material over conscientiously before going out in this one. That said, the ACF has pronounced torque steer that will keep you on your toes during takeoff, and the aircraft’s STOL characteristics are readily apparent…and a blast in practical use.
The panel at night in v9.70 (above). Below, on the ramps at Lugano.
Class leading exterior detailing sets the stage of course, with about ten million cargo compartments available to load for those trips out of Rancho Cucamonga Estates. The sound files are extraordinary…pan around the aircraft while in exterior view – with some good headphones on! Wow!
Once again, Dan Klaue and the Carenado team have produced a real winner, and this aircraft represents something a lot of us have been waiting for. After just a short time flying the bird I can recommend this one, but we’ll work her up slowly over the next few days as well. The file is currently available at the Carenado e-store, priced at 29.95USD. FlightTime56 will have a close inspection up for you soon too, and we’ll follow-up with expanded operational coverage, as well as of the version 10 update as soon as it’s available.
Later…Chip
OH YES YES YESSSS !!!! I’m waiting for a Turboprop for so long.. Hope it will be great.
Looks nice! In my opinion though, they could get rid of the reflective spinner. To be honest, I’ve never seen a 208, or many other airplanes that have a bare metal spinner. Not to mention that sometimes it looks quite weird.
SkyHarbor, what you see in the above pictures is a graphic glitch that we are trying to track down. We at Carenado have been unable to reproduce the problem that causes the bright spinner depicted in a few of the screenshots above. As soon as we find the culprit, we’ll address it. If it sometimes looks quite weird, it is most likely due to the fact that people are running it in X-Plane 10, which has severe inconsistencies in displaying transparent textures properly, which is one of the main components of the chrome finish effect. It is mainly for this reason that Carenado does not claim 100% v10 compatibility. Until Laminar sorts these transparency discrepancies out, we have no way of offering 100% consistent results in X-Plane v10.
Further, your claim about not having seen a 208 with bare metal spinner seems a bit far fetched. A quick Google image search for “Cessna Caravan” brings up pages and pages of Caravans with bare metal spinners; in fact, non metal spinners are the rare exception.
I wasn’t referring to the above pictures, I was referring to the ones on the Carenado website, and how the spinner’s reflective properties appear to be created using the weapons camera instrument, or possibly the HITS instrument, which makes the reflection appear darker than the environment. At any rate, I simply prefer plain spinners. Carenado’s aircraft are, nonetheless, excellent.
Looks like I was wrong about the bare metal spinners after all though. The only C208s I’ve seen all had painted spinners, so that’s probably where the confusion came from.
The fact that it looks weird in some situations can be either considered Carenado’s fault or X-Plane’s fault. We do what we can within the constraints of X-Plane. Having no inherent reflections in X-Plane has forced me to look around for some “creative” solutions to the problem. I’ve tried to minimize the adverse effects, but in the end, I think what we’re all waiting for is for Laminar to add some proper tools for this type of thing. It’s sorely needed, and long overdue.
Some hacking can be done to make the static spinner reflection appear all the time, instead of the animated one. You have options.
I think I know why some pictures above have such a bright, bare, unrealistic look to them. The pictures must have been taken while in 3D cockpit mode; i.e. taking the inside view camera way beyond its intended reach. Not quite sure if this would constitute a “bug”, but I’d gravitate more towards saying that there are several things that don’t look right on the outside of the plane, when using the inside camera to view them.