Alabeo`s Staggerwing is out!

[dvj]

I did not get a long enough flight in to really check it out as some of you have, unfortunately. I did in a short flight around my home airport, KMIW, Marshalltown, Iowa. Some observations, some of which have been covered by others.

Modeling is absolutely beautiful!! Red texture package is beautiful.


Ground handling is attrociuos! Tailwheel is far to active. Will try the setting to full castoring. Should fix it. It seems to be awfull heavy, spongy, top heavy on turns tho. Undamped spring suspension, yes, most of cause. Rudder power couldn't be checked because of tailwheel hooked to it, and set to strong. cfg problem.

I want to try setting my seat just a little higher. All the pics of the pilots seating position I've seen shows higher eye point.

Can anyone adjust radio from VC??? I can't move yoke enough to see it, let alone adjust it.

My sounds were nearly drowned out by wind noise once flying speed was reached. Tried lowering it's volume in both settings, and in Accu-Feel. Way irritating.

Take-off required a lot of rudder dancing, just like my R/C model does, (which TeiscoDelRay owns now, by the way.) Once airborne, it was on rails, also like the R/C model. Handling was smooth and positive. Very enjoyable. My only landing sucked, because I was trying to adjust radio during long approach, and got out of whack when the wife suddenly needed something during final. (Should have gone around. :mix-smi

Another flight when I get time will be much better, I'm sure. Glad I bought this one. Alabeo's models are all excellent, of the one's I have. Waco YMF, GEE BEE Z, Pitts, and now the Staggerwing. Looking forward to more.

You can click on the Yoke support and the Yoke disappears so you can see the radios.

[WarHorse47]

You can click on the Yoke support and the Yoke disappears so you can see the radios.

I wonder why this and the structural tube was documented?? What else is available that we haven't discovered? I noticed that the aircraft.cfg section has four exits listed, but the only one that functions is the door. Guess I gotta do more poking around with the mouse to see what else is animated. :salute:

[Maury2008]

I think that the of gear lever animation is wrong.It should be a pull in and pull out knob like the other, (Park brake , Taiwheel lock), instead it moves vertically on the panel.
I'm wrong?

[bazzar]

As a customer having bought this product I would like to add that we must be careful not to over-expect from this one. It cost 19.95. Compared to a lot of payware that is incredibly cheap for such work which is demonstrably excellent modeling and painting. Sure it has its glitches and MAY have been released a little earlier than bug-testing should have allowed but it is all fixable in a first patch to make it a gem. Certainly a keeper in my hangar.

[ramjet]

I agree, its already a beautiful bird and very well mannered. An update will fix the little issues and it will be a dream. What a treat to watch this red beauty of mine glide through the skies over KHIO near KPDX in Oregon.

good flights, Cal

[Firekitten]

Regardless of how much we pay... we're still paying. I don't pay 20$ rather than 40$ and expect bugs. Price is price, and Unless a company posts and says 'this is an alpha/beta version for lower cost, feedback would help us or its more when finished' im not expecting it to be bugged and broken....Christ, what are we expecting? have we gotten to a point where addons must cost a bomb to be finished?

[bazzar]

A "quality" add-on will take 3-5,000 hours of total work to complete. If a professional modeler costs between 30 and 60 an hour (which they do)...well you do the maths. Sales are probably in the 100's not 1000's as a lot of people like to think. At 19.95, you are getting extraordinary value, believe me. You are most certainly not covering the cost to produce the thing - that is never computed into the price- it can't be. It is only people's passion for the hobby, sprinkled with a light coating of madness that keeps this hobby going.

How many cups of coffee can you buy for 19.95 and how many do you complain about?

[Thoe6969]

Regardless of how much we pay... we're still paying. I don't pay 20$ rather than 40$ and expect bugs. Price is price, and Unless a company posts and says 'this is an alpha/beta version for lower cost, feedback would help us or its more when finished' im not expecting it to be bugged and broken....Christ, what are we expecting? have we gotten to a point where addons must cost a bomb to be finished?

And we wonder why so many good developers get fed up and go awal.For God's sake grow up and give them a chance to correct the minor little glitches.

[skyhawka4m]

A "quality" add-on will take 3-5,000 hours of total work to complete. If a professional modeler costs between 30 and 60 an hour (which they do)...well you do the maths. Sales are probably in the 100's not 1000's as a lot of people like to think. At 19.95, you are getting extraordinary value, believe me. You are most certainly not covering the cost to produce the thing - that is never computed into the price- it can't be. It is only people's passion for the hobby, sprinkled with a light coating of madness that keeps this hobby going.

How many cups of coffee can you buy for 19.95 and how many do you complain about?

[FleetingThought]

And we wonder why so many good developers get fed up and go awal.For God's sake grow up and give them a chance to correct the minor little glitches.

AWOL (spelling): Absent With Out Leave. How dare they!

[Sundog]

Hell, even when you do everything right as a developer, people find something to gripe about. It's the nature of the beast.

[Firekitten]

And we wonder why so many good developers get fed up and go awal.For God's sake grow up and give them a chance to correct the minor little glitches.

Erm, minor? there are some fairly big issues that should really have been sorted... ones that are immediately obvious and testing 'should' catch.

And I think constructive criticism is fine. if a developer is going to release something without ample QA testing, they're fair game. If anyone can suggest this had ample testing, then I'll eat a microwave.

And I am a developer have have tested aircraft... I'd have spotted a fair number of these glitches in seconds.

[JAllen]

I am loving this airplane!! Couldn't wait to get home and fly it again. Today at the North Las Vegas airport I saw a bright yellow Staggerwing being towed into the hangar. So this evening I loaded up the yellow paint job and went flying. I would write to Alabeo about the glitches, but too busy flying. Maybe tomorrow.

[ryanbatc]

I'm liking the plane in general. I added the stock 2D popup transponder for flight online.

[bazzar]

Well I wrote and got a quick reply to say they'd be taking a look. Now, if they are worth their salt, which I am sure they are, there'll be a patch out pretty soon. You can always ask for a refund if you are that unhappy but frankly, my guess is that in a week or two, this will all have gone away. Nobody's going to lose anything and gain everything. Developers care about their work as much as any artist. Glitches happen for all sorts of reasons but usually they get fixed and when they are you have a better product and the dev has a better approach for the next one. Win, win.

[griphos]

Let's not battle over who is too demanding as customers and who is too lax as developers.

Alabeo is in business to make money, not offer labors of love at a loss. I like the price point, and can live without things like manuals and checklists. I wish they'd pay Bernt a bit more for his flight models, and I'm sure he does the best he can in the time they pay for. But, $20 is $20. I expect quality control. Shoot, Ant's Trojan is $20, and you get a heck of a lot more for your money from that one. I hope they'll correct the errors. It would be better to catch them in the first place.

[bstolle]

The (politely put) sloppy beta testing and the sometimes totally unrealistic customers complaints/demands are the reason why I stopped working for Alabeo/Carenado.

[pivo11]

If anyone wants it, I removed the annoying yoke shadow from the vc panel...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...e%20shadow.zip

Hey Rachael. Thank you very much. I don't suppose you could do the same thing with the shadows from the reinforcing struts that are left after "removing" them? Could you? Please? Thanks.

Cheers,
Fritz

P.S. Agreed on paying for sloppy work. Poor show, to say the least.

[Firekitten]

Pivo: I have some 'work work' to do today, but once I've got rid of this client (burried them in the woods I suspect) I'll take a swipe at doing just that for you. will update the zip and repost the lot.


Bernt: yeah, well I hope you didn't see my comments here as 'unreasonable' but I do agree on the (politely) sloppy testing. Although saying any occurred is suspect. You did make it fly well though as usual

[pivo11]

Thanks, Rachael, appreciate it.

Cheers,
Fritz

[Firekitten]

No worries...

and hey, I'm Jewish, if I'm paying, I'm complaining... what do people expect?

#culturalstereotypes

[T6flyer]

Only flown her for a little while today, and am enjoying it, but for some reason not as much as previous Alabeo aircraft (SU-26 is my default FS aeroplane). But I'll get there and probably spend a lot more time with it, than have done with the real thing. Only a few more hours to go! Only thing I noticed that she redlines far too easily, even with the prop and mixture controls. Engine sounds when finally sorted out, seem to be more like on tickover and then found in normal cruise. Perhaps its just down to good old finger trouble!

But so glad that she has been produced. Another one for the virtual hangar.

Best wishes,

Martin

[bstolle]

Bernt: yeah, well I hope you didn't see my comments here as 'unreasonable'...

Sure not! Thinking more of the Avsim forum....

No worries...

and hey, I'm Jewish, if I'm paying, I'm complaining... what do people expect?

ROFL

[Lionheart]

Ok... Everyone that is stressing out needs to take a deep breath and chill.

First, Alabeo is a hugely popular group that make awesome planes, right? You know, from what you see, that they worked hard on this. You know they tried to get everything right so they didnt have to have any bad comments. Its a fact, as you can see with all the rest, that bugs 'will' surface with a public release 'after' all the testing is done. We test and test and still the bugs come out.

The plane has only been out since Tuesday. They'll fix it. Relax.

All is well. Usually a full update is carried out about a week after release, on the usual. Thats only a few days, and its already been 4 days. We know that the battery switch has to be blipped once.

Give them a chance. Take a chill pill. Bear with them. It will be worth it, I am sure.

[FleetingThought]

I've already developed the technique of not flipping the battery switch on until I've set magnetos to Both, that way I can use the starter switch as God intended.

And it's fun taxiing and flying mainly by using the view out the side, that's something new.

Agreed, these things all get sorted out one way or another eventually. No need to obsess.