The Dorand AR.1 was a World War I French two-seat reconnaissance bi-plane used by the French Air Force, the American Expeditionary Force, Kingdom of Greece and Kingdom of Serbia.
Designed by Captain Lepére of the STAé (Section Technique de l'Aéronautique). Dorand AR-series were named after the STAé director, Lt. Col. Dorand. They were characterized by backward-staggered two-bay wings and angular all-moving tail surfaces.
Production began in a state-owned S.T.Aé. factory at Chalais-Meudon near Paris after flight testing had been completed in the autumn 1916.
The first of the thirteen squadrons which flew Dorands on the Western Front received their aircraft in the spring 1917. Five other French squadrons used the type on the Italian Front.
In 1917 the American Expeditionary Force ordered the Renault-engine varieties of the Dorand, the first of 22 AR.1s being delivered in December 1917 and the first of 120 AR.2s in following February.
After the war many AR.1s and AR.2s appeared in the French civil register, being used as passenger transports.
The presented AR.1 A2 200 was a mid-production version powered by a 150 kW (200 hp) @1600rpm Renault 8Gdy V8 naturally aspirated liquid-cooled 900in3 (14.7L) engine with a wet sump oil system and twin-choke updraught carburettor.
Specifications: Span: 43ft8in 13.29m, Length: 30ft 9.14m, Empty weight 1962lb 890kg, Two-bladed wooden fixed pitch 15beta 9.383ft 2.86m diameter propeller, Max.speed: 80kn 92mph 148km/h, Endurance: 3 hours, Stall: 36knots. Do not pull negative Gs.
This particular unit was found in a barn close to the Serbian - Hungarian border in a very bad shape. The plane was disassembled shipped to Australia and thoughtfully restored in its original glory presenting you a unique experience of the 1910s era with some upgrades to be able to operate in the present.
Features: Highly detailed, fully animated and functional cockpit, 4k PBR materials, finely tuned flight and engine model, great sound, six different flavours (liveries)
CREDITS:
Original base 3D Model: Lucien Lilippe
PBR Materials: Contains assets from ambientCG.com, licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal
Parts of the 3D model, textures and animations has been made with Blender
Écrire un commentaire
First, I was a bit skeptical reading a couple of negative reviews. However, for only 12Euros I took the risk. What a wonderful plane I've discovered!
Being a pilot, airplane manufacturer and of course aviation enthusiast, I can tell you that you can rarely find such a product. The cockpit and the textures are almost photorealistic.
The engine sound in particular must have been recorded from the original or a very similar powerplant, based on my personal experience as a frequent visitor of the British air shows and museums mainly in Duxford where you can hear quite similar sounds. Some say the cockpit sound muffled. That is true because you have to have at least a headphone on your ears. Otherwise, you would be deaf pretty soon by the unmuffled exhaust pipes less than a meter away. Moreover, you must have to wear it for the sake of radio communication as well.
You can hear the sounds of the structure, the clicks of the switches and knobs, the wind noise as well when the big 900in3 engine is off.
The pictures and the description clearly state that the plane is restored with more recent avionics and other up to date materials whilst continuing to maintain the vintage feeling. For me it is quite obvious in 2021 you couldn’t get into the blue with a single compass or other over 100 years old gear from 1916. Those upgrades are extending the usability of the aircraft.
I really hope that realPhysics will create other excellent aircrafts such as this from the same era.
I wholeheartedly recommend.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Standard/Deluxe/Premium edition
Processor: Intel Core i5 (i7 recommended) or AMD Ryzen 5 (7 recommended)
RAM: 8GB (16GB or more recommended)
Graphics card: 4GB dedicated memory (6GB or more recommended)
1.2GB available hard disk space
Please make sure you set the Flight Model option to Modern in the Options menu.
HOW TO INSTALL:
- Delete older versions if any
- Extract the package to your MSFS 2020 Community Folder
- for Steam, it should be located in C:Users [Computer Name] AppData Local Packages Microsoft.FlightDashboard_8wekyb3d8bbwe LocalCache Packages Community
- for Windows Store C:Users[Computer Name] AppData Local Packages Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe LocalCache Packages Community
- Drag the folder named 'realphysics-aircraft-dorand' directly into the Community folder
- Restart the sim
You'll find your Dorand AR1 in your hangar next to the default Diamond DV20 and the Extra 330.
