Product Review Orbx - Victa Airtourer

[mutley 4,497]

 
Just published is my retrospective review of Orbx's Victa Airtourer.
 
Orbx are not famed for their aircraft and I have been flying this aircraft for over a year. How has this little tour sttod the test of time? Read on...

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

A really helpful and informative review, thank you Joe.

Although, as you know, magnetos and manifolds are not my thing, I do have a huge respect for those who take to the air in such aircraft, and I read these reviews in the vague hope that one day I might get bitten by the bug. TBH I'm having such fun in my 744 that I haven't been bitten yet: but that's not the fault of the aircraft and certainly not of reviews such as yours, which I read with much enjoyment (albeit occasional mystification).

So thank you for another intriguing peek into a parallel universe.

Cheers,

bruce

a.k.a. brian747

[Dean33 29]

Great review Joe.

So the only downside is trim over sensitivity. Presumably this can be fixed using FSUIPC 'sword' settings some adopted to speed up the slow trim on A2A Cherokee?

Off to look for some hanger space I think.

Dean

[mutley 4,497]

Yes it can be tweaked, if you have the Cessna trim wheel you would be ok, it's only the switch type controls like you get on a yoke that is any problem.

 

Cheers

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Nice review Joe, looks like a lovely slow touring plane...compared to their Lancair IV-P which I already have. The Lancair is a terrific plane and I have looked at that Victa often knowing it was bound to be a lovely crafted thing too, but...it costs nearly the same as a New Scenery (or more actually in some cases), the Lancair is hella faster and hauls more cargo (always a +1 point for me).

 

And I'm glad the Victa made it to your hangar, and hopefully many others as well, in order to encourage ORB-X to make more aircraft.

I'd love to see them eventually have enough aircraft products to "bundle" an appropriate aircraft to a specific scenery...fer instance...imagine a set of Short Fields bundled with some Bush Plane/Barnstormer/Ultralight/Whatever would be coolest to go with the region. A set of Regional Airports with a VLJ/Turboprop Cummuter/Lancair IV-P

Take my money.

 

Thanks for another great Mutley's review Joe!

 

 

OH...

 

regarding the trim sensitivity:

 

In the aircraft.cfg have a look at the Flight Tuning section. This one is from the ORBx Lancair, so maybe the Victa has the same...I bet tweaking the highlighted entries will help. I have tweaked this section in IRIS's BD-5 because the aileron roll rate was insane in the stock config. I reduced the aileron_effectiveness down to 0.75 from 1.0 and it made the airplane much more flyable without snap-rolling your neck off. Betting that the trims are tweakable too.

 

Cheers.

 

[flight_tuning]
cruise_lift_scalar          =1.0
parasite_drag_scalar        =1.02 // 190 HP 175 kts 13.5 GPH FL150 55% power
induced_drag_scalar         =2.5
elevator_effectiveness      =1.0
aileron_effectiveness       =1.0
rudder_effectiveness        =1.0
pitch_stability             =1.0
roll_stability              =1.0
yaw_stability               =1.0
elevator_trim_effectiveness =1.0
aileron_trim_effectiveness  =1.0
rudder_trim_effectiveness   =1.0
hi_alpha_on_roll            =1.0
hi_alpha_on_yaw             =1.0
p_factor_on_yaw             =1.5
torque_on_roll              =3.0
gyro_precession_on_roll     =0.0
gyro_precession_on_yaw      =0.0

 

[mutley 4,497]

Hi Matt, thanks for the feedback, that may come in very handy

 

As for the pricing, it is on a par with Alabeo, I considered it reasonable but docked it 1.5 for the very reason you state. However, if you can get in in a sale it would be an absolute steal!.

 

Cheers,

Joe

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

I totally agree that it is priced reasonably...my point was only that it's on the same page (and the bottom of that page no less) with similar priced scenery and my eye/wallet is visiting for the scenery eye candy while at the ORBx site, not the airplanes at the bottom of the page...so far.

 

Addendum to the above post as well...much as I like the Lancair and ORBx's aircraft modeling so far...I do hope they concentrate their resources on scenery creation. Way too much of this planet remains un-ORBx'd.

 

[Dean33 29]

I got this after the review. Cost me £20 and I think that was very fair.

The trim was far too sensitive so it was difficult to fly level. I followed guidance above just now and so far have found 0.3 to be much better. Thanks Matt.

The best thing about this aircraft is the visibility - no pillars. Great for small screens.

Big shock though - I think this is my first aircraft with no autopilot -something I use far too much. So, as it was intended, a great trainer.

Really enjoying hand flying low and slow.

Cheers guys.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

It's fairly easy to add autopilot function to any aircraft too. If you want I can post a quickie tutorial in the FSX section...if one doesn't already exist. I think I learned how somewhere on this forums.

 

Basically, you copy/paste the autopilot section from the C172 stock plane's aircraft.cfg, and then the "pop up window" from the panel.cfg for the autopilot/radio stack.

 

You can either make a back up of the originals of both .cfgs, or use the // to comment out the original entries in the original file. I prefer to make a copy of the originals for reference, and do the changes in a copy.

 

Easy peasy.