Golden Age Simulations PT-17 Stearman - Aerobatics over Little Gransden - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Today we’re taking the brand-new PT-17 Stearman by Golden Age Simulations up for a short aerobatic display over Burning Blue Designs wonderful Little Gransden scenery. It's an airplane I had highly anticipated for two reasons. First, the Stearman is one of my absolute favorite airplanes and one I've been lucky enough to spend a lot of time around in real life and second, Golden Age Simulations was one of my favorite developers in FSX and I had really missed their airplanes in MSFS.

I think the Stearman is one of the most iconic planes ever build. If you ask most people to picture a biplane, an image of a Stearman is probably the one that’ll spring to mind first. And even though the DC Designs Stearman is a lot of fun to fly with Stearmandrivers flight model mod and has a fantastic sound set, to my mind it never did the Stearman justice. The visual model was just very inaccurate, both on the outside and inside and looked more like a caricature. Now, with the Golden Age Simulations one we've finally got a proper Stearman in MSFS. And not just one, the package includes three variants, the Continental powered PT-17, the Lycoming powered PT-13 and a modernized version with a 300hp Lycoming R-690 engine, like they often get restored/modified by Rare Bird Aviation in Hungary. All three variants come with their own flight model.

Overall, I'm very happy with the GAS Stearman. The flight models feel quite accurate, it does hammerhead turns like a champ, is one of few planes that can spin properly and the roll rate is much more accurate than the one of the DC Designs one. And like a real 220hp Stearman you'll run out of altitude very quickly when doing aerobatics.
The visual model is nice too, with a lot of detail and additional visual features, like chocks, pitot cover, fuel pump,...and two nice pilot models (not used in the video). Overall the sounds are quite good too.

There are only a few issues I've found with it so far and most of them are probably easy fixes:
There currently doesn't seem to be any significant mag drop when switching between the magnets.
The texture of the transponder in the map case is missing (fixed with Update 1.1)
There are no sounds for winding up the starter
The stall speed seems to be a bit low (should be at around 55mph)
And one additional thing, that isn't an issue as such, but I wish it was added, is a starter switch inside the cockpit of the PT-17 and PT-13. Most if not all Stearmans flying today are fitted with an electric starter.

But like I said overall I'm very happy with the Stearman and I'm sure I'll enjoy countless hours with it. And I'm also excited for the arrival of Golden Age Simulations in MSFS and I can't wait for further releases by them.

For this flight I choose one of my favorite airfields by Burning Blue Designs, EGMJ Little Gransden. At the time of the video, I only had about one hour in the GAS Stearman and so some of the maneuvers could have been a lot smoother. For example, the attempted avalanche (loop with a snap roll at the top) like Dave Conn often does in his aerobatic routine. Or another example would be the four-point roll that should have been started at a higher altitude...I still hope you'll enjoy the video =)


The Stearman is currently available for Sim-Outhouse members at a discount and will be available at venders like SimMarket and the GAS website in a week:
https://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...

The Little Gransden Scenery is available here or in the ingame Marketplace:
https://burningbluedesign.com/product...


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

00:00 Intro
00:40 Startup
02:30 Taxi
03:50 Runup
04:14 Takeoff
04:50 External Takeoff View
05:25 Climbing
08:19 Aerobatic Display
14:10 One Wheel Landings
15:25 More Aerobatics
17:11 Landing
17:50 External Landing View
18:27 Taxi
20:10 Shutdown
20:30 Visual Features
21:05 Spectator View Takeoff
21:40 Spectator View Aerobatics
29:26 Spectator View Landing