This is a review of Aerosoft’s Twin Otter Mission Pack by Paul Webster.
My last review was of the excellent DHC-6 Twin Otter from Aerosoft. If you happen to have the ‘Twotter’ in your virtual hanger then no doubt you’ll not need much of an excuse to spend some more time in its cockpit. If incentive should be needed or the mood take you, then Aerosoft, in conjunction with Combat Planes Inc, have released a Mission Pack which should help get you really intimate with their Otter.
The Product
The mission pack not only includes 10 missions, but also additional mission specific scenery, sound effects and voice files and a further 5 more liveries, upping the number from the original install to a choice of 20 Twotter variants to choose from.
The Missions are all set in Canada and Alaska and are comprised of 2 Beginner level missions to get you warmed up, 6 Intermediate level missions to make sure you’re up to speed with the aircraft and then 2 Advanced level missions to really put your skills to the test. The missions will see you flying passengers and freight across some great scenery, working for Homeland Security and undertaking urgent Medivac flights and more.
The additional aircraft liveries are:
- DHC-6 100 Alaska Aeronautical Industries (float equipped)
- DHC-6 100 Alaska Aeronautical Industries (regular landing gear)
- DHC-6 100 West Coast Air (float equipped)
- DHC-6 100 West Coast Air (regular landing gear)
- DHC-6 300 Canadian Armed Forces 440 Sqn (regular landing gear)
Purchase and Installation
Purchase of the product is done through Aerosoft’s download facility which is simple and straightforward. After validating your payment, you are able to download the product and obtain your software key from your own account section on their website. The download listed was v1.02 which needs to be patched to v1.03. The patch is available through the support section, but presumably Aerosoft will make the latest version the main download in the near future.
Installation again is straightforward. Your download is a zip file which includes the main installer along with your license and a readme file. Double-clicking the extracted installer kicks off the routine which, as you will already have installed the Twotter, you will be familiar with. The Installer locates your working directories and adds the relevant missions, scenery and sound files along with a Start Menu shortcut to the products manual.
The 6 page manual as usual is in full colour pdf format, and is pretty basic. The only relevant information to the missions themselves appears on the end page as a troubleshooting FAQ section, the rest of the manual being comprised of credits, copyrights, system spec etc.
The Missions
It’s not my intention to give you a rundown on all the missions in the pack, just the first few which will hopefully give you a flavour of what you can expect.
The first mission sees you starting off in Juneau (Alaska) floating off shore. The bay is nicely populated with houses and I noticed a couple of Orcas swimming not far from the plane. A pleasant sounding ATC tells you you are clear for take-off and fills you in on the local weather conditions, then your co-pilot gives you a pre-flight briefing informing you of some system problems that are likely to effect your flight (nothing serious in this beginner mission).
Your flight sees you taking off and heading for Taku Glacier Lodge, where you drop off your passengers and pick up some more passengers and cargo to fly them to Taku Harbour. The scenery is excellent in the early morning sunshine, with plenty of opportunities for picturesque screenshots. There’s some nice little animations such as a passenger waving at you on the pier to come pick them up and smoke coming from the Lodges chimney. As you fly, your co-pilot keeps you appraised of any problems and contacts the relevant bases for landing permission etc.
Maneuvering on the water is nigh on impossible without using the engines independently. The most common turn I used sees one engine using positive thrust whilst the other is in reverse enabling you to turn pretty much on a sixpence. Dual throttle controls would be great for the Twotter, but as I don’t have them, I’ll have to stick with using the throttles in the VC.
The third leg of the mission involves carrying more passengers from Taku Harbour back to the Lodge. I get the feeling this is where the mission should end, but when your passengers have disembarked your co-pilot tells you to head out and essentially you find yourself flying the same Lodge to Harbour leg as before with the same aircraft system failure and announcements and then back to the Lodge and repeat. Time to leave a post on Aerosoft’s support forum.
Mission 2 is a dusk IFR mission using a regular tricycle landing geared Twotter. It’s the first part of the 4 part Alaska Transit mission which sees you running passengers and cargo in increasingly difficult conditions with a variety of system failures to keep you on your toes. Again your co-pilot handles all ATC comms for you (you don’t want to use FSX’s ATC for any of these missions) and informs you of required course and altitude changes.
The airfields you use for this mission are icy, making ground handling a challenge. I noticed that you can use your rudder with engines in reverse thrust, so this is a bit more handy than using the regular pushback option, or again you could use the engines individually in reverse or forward, or a combination for ground maneuvers. Landing using reverse thrust is also handy on iced runways as it reduces your speed and therefore time spent rolling on the ice.
Sadly, again I experienced problems with completing this mission, with FSX crashing to desktop saying that it had run out of memory, something I’ve not encountered before as I have 3Gb of physical memory and 4Gb of virtual memory. This happened twice in a row, frustratingly about 45 minutes into the mission. Another post for the support forum.
Mission 3 is the second part of the Alaska Transit mission. Again IFR and again in low light conditions. Taking off from Healy airbase, the flight takes you around Mount McKinley, North America’s highest peak, where you make a cargo drop at base camp and then on to land at McGrath airbase to drop off passengers. A couple of systems failures on route and some treacherous terrain keep you on your toes and the lengthy flight interesting.
I had a couple of problems with this mission. First off, the mission objectives state that you fly to Denali Base to drop off cargo and passengers when in fact you are supposed to over-fly the base for a cargo drop, so the first time I flew the mission I ended up crashing into the mountain as I was descending through thick fog for a landing at the base. The second time I flew the mission, as soon as I touched down, the dreaded “Windows is out of memory” message made another appearance (despite upping my virtual memory to a fixed 6Gb) so I was unable to complete this mission either.
Conclusion
I really like what Aerosoft are trying to do with this mission pack. Their Twotter is a great model and deserves to be flown regularly in order to appreciate just how good it is. Being given increasingly challenging missions through some incredible landscapes with cool little animations and scenery, all with the aid of a helpful co-pilot is probably the best way to get to know and enjoy the aircraft. Unfortunately, from my experience, the execution appears a little flawed and feels like it’s been a bit rushed through the beta testing / proof-reading stages.
Having looked on Aerosoft’s support forum, no-one else seems to have posted about the problem with Mission 1 not ending, but the problem with Mission 2 was posted by someone else and I’m guessing the cause for this will be the same as what’s caused the problem with Mission 3, but from the thread I’m not certain if this was resolved for the original poster. It took 5 days for my account to be activated on the forums, which I think could be a cause of frustration for some users who want help with their products.
The mission pack is fairly cheap -£10 - and from the looks of the support forums Aerosoft staff are keen to help people with problems (when they allow you to post). It has the potential to be a very good product and includes some decent additional liveries, but you’ll probably need patience and perseverance with both the product and the support to get the best out of it.
Whether or not you’re up for these multiple challenges is up to you. If you are, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Despite it’s flaws, the mission pack does help you get familiar with the Twotter, providing challenges and situations and scenery you probably wouldn’t normally encounter in your regular flights. However if you’re after something as polished and flaw free as the Otter itself then perhaps this one isn’t for you.
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