Reviews (by ricardo)

Alright, first of all I'm going to start with the fact that the plane has beautiful external modeling and external textures are great. However, the cockpit is not to the same standard. The gauges defiantly are lacking as well as the weathering which appears a bit cartoonish. The appearance of the plane overall would be worthy of 4 stars. This plane however is missing vital requirements for a warbird in msfs 2020 in regard to system modeling. The lack of engine damage ruins simulation immersion. There is no way a P-51 has the capability to reach 66,000 ft or can run on emergency war power indefinitely without overheating. Seriously Aeroplane Heaven. I'm not sure if this was laziness or just a lack of capability in regard to the systems. Either way if milviz or flying iron releases a P-51 this will get deleted from my sim as it currently stands. The sounds are also poorly done. Bottom line is the plane looks real pretty but the systems do not match the quality of its appearance. This being my first time trying one of their planes (mainly to give support in hopes that they continue development of it with updates) I was not impressed. How they correct the many deficiencies now will determine if I ever purchase their work again. I would not recommend this plane in its current state. They have come a long way appearance wise but as far as realism is concerned, it's just not acceptable in msfs 2020 compared to the standards set by their competition. It's actually a little depressing that they screwed this one up. Now we have to wait for someone else (milviz or flyingiron) to deliver a proper study level P-51 or pray Aeroplane Heaven has the character to fix their mistakes and deliver a quality product. The fact that they released this plane in such an outrageous state and haven't yet communicated plans to correct the listed deficiencies other than the utterly horrid sound package doesn't give me too much confidence in them. It seems as if they'd rather produce a large quantity of garbage planes rather than focus on quality. A few pbr textures and removable panels might be enough to impress one of those xbox flight simmers... all that's useless if you can't properly produce a realistic flight model (which includes the planes systems). Im not having it.

Sim Skunk Works has again released another beautiful flight model; however, it still falls short of the standard set by mainstream developers for MSFS 2020. Their use of external software for many features to their aircraft instead of a in plane tablet is somewhat juvenile. although they have improved texturing slightly compared to their g91 it's still not up to the standards of justflight asobo or aerosoft. What I don't understand is how the specifications tab in the aircraft selection menu for the aircraft is blank. Considering the vast amount of history and information available to them concerning the F-104. It seems they are content with releasing incomplete aircraft. Their g91 still has wheels that penetrate the ground. So, it doesn't look like they care about updating and fixing issues with their aircraft. I'm impressed with the implementation of in sim radar but the overwhelming number of minor issues and inconstancy in quality is starting to leave a bad taste. Once there are more suitable alternatives, I don't think I will continue to purchase their aircraft.

The Update to 2.0 corrected issues with flight dynamics and we saw the fulfillment of sim skunk works promise for additional models, the external model for the right wheel was also corrected. however, there are still areas to improve until this plane is considered a first rate pay ware aircraft. For one, the nose of the fiat g 91 was painted BLACK to decrease sun glare. For some reason in every real photo of the aircraft this is obvious however sim skunk works or whatever fool they have doing repaints must be color blind because in the majority of their military liveries they decide to paint the nose dark green. I'm not sure if this is an honest mistake or a lack of attention to detail in regards to historical accuracy. The ailerons are not animated from the external model. They must have forgot that airplanes have more moving parts other than flaps and rudder. Over all I am satisfied with the efforts made to correct deficiencies from the initial release however Sim Skunk Works still has a long way to go, they seem to be focused more on being able to drop weapons than delivering historically accurate repaints. Which I expect from a historical aircraft in a simulator. Job Well done with 2.0 but fix the liveries and add animations for the ailerons. Textures should probably be available in higher resolution 4k 8k to be on par with companies like Aerosoft or Asobo. You released this plane with a failing grade. And it is now passing with a B-. You are capable of obtaining an A.

After initial purchase of the plane i immediately began to notice issues. I performed the manual start successfully and the plane handled well on the taxi. When I began to takeoff the plane mode began to behave abnormal. Sharp veers to the left or right and over steer when the rudder was applied at speed on the ground. This made takeoff or landing practically impossible. I searched for a solution on sim skunk works official site and I followed their links and downloaded their recommended software to solve model behavior issues. After doing this the model is flyable. However there are several key issues that still stand. The left landing gear animation does not rotate the wheel. It simply drags the tire along the tarmac. The planes brakes are automatically applied as soon as you touch down to land. This makes jumping or bouncing during landing and stopping short on the runway almost a certainty. There is no way to turn this off. As of now you must come to a complete stop on the runway before turning off it durning landing. That is highly unrealistic and annoying. Overall I expect these issues to be fixed. If they are not sim skunk works has proven themselves untrustworthy in my book.