Rara-Avis Sims Horten IX / Ho 229 - First Airshow Aerobatic Display - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Today we're trying out the new Horten IX / Ho 229 (…or Gotha Go 229) by Rara-Avis Sims, over the fantastic freeware EDRC Marpingen scenery and check out its aerobatic capabilities.

As with Rara-Avis’ Wren and Flying Flea I’ve been really looking forward to the Horten, as it is such an iconic aircraft, but one I wouldn’t have expected to see in MSFS.

As was the case with previous releases by Rara-Avis Sims, the visual model is fantastic, with tons of details, sharp textures and nice features. The sounds are quite good too and it’s great to see another custom sound pack (as the Flying Flea had to use Asobo sounds).

The flight model overall feels good, it requires quite a bit of rudder inputs and especially during steep turns it is possible to run out of rudder authority. I think with a flying wing design that is plausible. Takeoffs and Landings are also unusual, as you touch down with the nose gear first and lift the main gear on takeoff before the nose wheel leaves the ground. It’s great to see this idiosyncrasy represented in the sim.

When it comes to the performance of the aircraft it is however very overpowered in my opinion. I used about 60% power during takeoff and 50% during the rest of the flight. But still the aircraft accelerated extremely quickly and flew at around 700 kph without any issues.

Which leads us to the main issue, the engine modeling. A real Jumo 004 idles at 3080 RPM and has its redline at 8700 RPM. The game version idles at 8000 RPM and reaches 14,000 RPM at full throttle. Another thing to mention is that a lot of the early jet engines spooled up extremely slowly and in fact if you advanced the throttle too quickly with the Jumo 004 there was a risk of engine fire. The game version spools up extremely quickly and the throttle is hard to adjust precisely. If you move it just a tiny bit from idle there is immediately a 2000 RPM jump.

Apart from the performance/engine issue I only noticed three other small things that could use some improving. I think like most tricycle geared aircraft of WWII the nose wheel shouldn’t be steerable. The stick animations are very abrupt and don’t reflect the user inputs 100 % (an issue with many MSFS aircraft). And the Flaps Indicator doesn’t seem to be correct. The light for “Aus” (Out) shines when the flaps are up and the light for “Ein” (In) shines when the flaps are down.

Overall, I think it’s a good addon and I’m happy to see a nice representation of a Horten in the sim. I really hope however, that the engine performance will get adjusted, as that would make it a truly great addon!

The Horten is currently available here:
https://inibuilds.com/products/rara-a...
https://flightsim.to/product/rara-avi...

The Marpingen scenery by Luukas is available here:
https://flightsim.to/file/6727/segelf...

Hardware used:
Ryzen 7 5800X
32GB RAM
RTX 3080

00:00 Intro
00:42 Startup
03:05 Taxi
03:52 Takeoff
04:23 External Takeoff View
04:50 Climbing
06:15 Airshow Aerobatic Display
16:25 First Landing Attempt…Someone needs a new Spine
17:02 Second Landing Attempt
18:14 External Landing View
18:55 Taxi
20:25 Shutdown
21:29 Spectator View Takeoff
21:58 Spectator View Aerobatic Display
26:37 Spectator View First Landing
27:01 Spectator View Second Landing