Milviz is working on a DHC-2 Beaver!

[Javis]

If you guys had watched the twitch video starting about 27:27, Collins talks about a new aircraft... guess what it is? I want that one too!!! Another fury water mammal.

Yeah, i wanted that one too, for many years already, Ted. Ever since someone created a truly excellent model of it for FS98 (or FS2K...). I even got a clip round the ear when i dared to speak up for it against the Beaver in the corresponding thread...Because it has been neglected that long, about a year ago i decided to do one myself. And look where we are now.... AH is doing one, Milviz is doing one, FSDev is doing one. (according to Colin's comment on AH's facebook). That's 4 all together.... In a matter of months... after having been overlooked for more than 15 years ! Go figure....

[stearmandriver]

Couldn't help myself. The Aerosoft Beaver has been one of my favorite sim planes; I've flown it all over Southeast AK and BC with the ORBX sceneries, all over the ORBX PNG bush strips etc, so I've been pretty excited for a new, higher quality Beaver. Bought her and tested her last night. Overall, my impression is: very good, with only one area disappointing me. Well worth the money.

What I liked:
Visuals/ textures - excellent.
Customization - excellent.
Systems - very good (with maybe a couple bugs... hey, it's V1.0)
Sounds - very good (I found it odd that a couple sounds were missing for me, like when you retract or extend the gear on the floats. Not sure if that's intentional or not.)
Flight characteristics - overall, very very good:
Control feel and balance - excellent
Perception of mass in the air - excellent
Pitch/power relationship - excellent
Stall/spin regime - VERY excellent (maybe the best departures I've seen in the sim)
Stability / trim - excellent
3 point landings - excellent

Now, the two things I thought could be improved:
Ground handling - it's just too easy. The plane just goes where you point it, there's very little sensation of mass or inertia in turns . Straight ahead, the feel of ground friction and braking effectiveness vs weight is great, but in turns, there's no centrifugal momentum necessitating opposite rudder to stop a turn. You just let go of the rudder and she's instantly going straight. That felt weird.
Normal takeoffs / wheel landings - she takes off happily from 3-point, as I understand a real Beaver will. But a normal takeoff involves forward yoke to lift the tail off the ground. It can be done in the Milviz Beaver but it takes way longer than it should, even with full forward yoke and a forward CG, the tail won't unstick until around 60 mph. Hell, she'd fly by then. It's not a big deal but feels a little odd.
Wheel landings - probably related to the above. You can set her down on the mains but it's difficult to hold the tail up for any length of time, again even with full forward yoke, a forward CG and partial power. The tail of this plane just really seems to want to be on the ground for some reason. I've never flown a Beaver, but I have flown similar - sized and heavier taildraggers, and this feels kind of weird.

BUT, those two points are pretty minor when compared to the positives. Like any plane, just fly her like she likes to be flown and all is well!

[TuFun]

Beautiful Beaver! Learned a few things in this video. Honored his father with the tail number.

[stearmandriver]

Hello,

I made a quick video review of the Milviz Beaver as I was testing her out the other night. I didn't want to tag this onto the "Beaver Released" thread as I'm critical of a couple areas. Since some of us have been following this particular thread for quite a while, I figured maybe some folks on here would still be wondering how she flies. I look at taxiing, wheel takeoffs, 3 point takeoffs, wheel landings, 3 point landings, general maneuvering, the stall/spin regime, slips, water and ski operations.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbQB...ature=youtu.be

In general - she flies very good. I'm overly critical of wheel landings at first, but I retract some of that after I figure out how much better she likes power-off wheel landings. Still have a couple complaints about ground handling, but she's undoubtedly my new go-to bush plane in the sim.

I apologize for the lousy video quality; I accidentally produced an over-optimized version of the video. Rest assured both the plane and the scenery look much better on even my medium-end machine! It's good enough to show you how she flies though...