Howard Aero Model 500

by

Milton Shupe, Scott Thomas, and Joáo Paz

Any freeware release is rightly greeted in the same way one greets a long lost friend who suddenly knocks on your door with a case of your favorite beer, chilled and ready to drink watching the big game!  However, once in a blue moon, that same friend brings caviar and champagne, and tells you he's got tickets to the game on the 50 yard line!

The Howard Aero 500 is such a gem.  This plane takes a back seat to no one.  Its overall quality, immersion value, and flight model fidelity reaches a payware level of achievement.  It's easy on the framerates, and looks marvelous inside and outside.  But what sets this plane on its own level of freeware is the depth of fidelity of the DVC.  It not only allows one an impressive option of sightseeing its wonders, but also features every single switch, gauge, and system of the real airplane.  For those who like immersion and fidelity, the eye candy of this beast isn't limited to the exterior modeling!

What's staggering is not just the number of working items in the DVC, but also the faithful reproduction of their actual workings.  Many switches feature their actual red guards, with the first click flipping up the guard and turning the switch on!

But the most impressive feature of the DVC is a unique button which when pressed, adds an increase of illumination during daylight.  What this button does is overcome that annoyingly poor daytime illumination in FS2004.  Gone with this plane are the days of being unable to read the DVC gauges when flying in daylight toward the sun!  This achievement alone places the Howard 500 in a special pantheon.

There are no compromises.  You can explore full immersion and realism in both the 2D and the DVC panels.  Few add-on's reach this level of complexity and sophistication.

If this isn't impressive enough, the plane achieves the same replications in the crew compartment and the passenger compartment.  How many freeware add-on's have been released which include details such as the flight pubs book case, or authentically reproduced leather and wood trimmed passengers seats!  Or, how about landing lights that tilt downward and then illuminate just like the plane's real lights!

Or if you are unimpressed with all that, how about two switches on the DVC and on the 2D panels which faithfully replicate the cowl flaps retraction and extension.  Or, when you pull the prop pitch lever on the #2 engine, the blades twist to the feathered position, and the plane yaws correctly to the port!  Or that if you loose an engine, and fail to feather the prop, it will merrily keep on rotating in the wind blast!  That's not the end of the flight model's achievements.

If you stall this plane, prepare to keep the ball centered on the turn/bank indicator.  Because if you don't, this plane will snap over into the prettiest spin you've ever seen.  True to most heavy twins, if you spin it, you better learn good spin recovery procedures, and give yourself a few thousand feet to recover!

This plane is also no fighter, and you will discover this quickly on initial turnout.  It takes a healthy amount of rudder input to keep the ball centered on a standard rate turn.  Further, the power of the two massive Pratt & Whitney R2800 radial engines yield a jaw-dropping quantity of raw, unadulterated 5000 horsepower!  You will definitely hear and feel the roar!  Further, the plane will scream into the air, and achieving initial climb rates of 2,000 feet per minute will not be a problem.  The problem will be learning to tame the beast by throttling back to achieve a smooth level out from your climb.

The plane flies exactly as you would expect.  It's a heavy, twin engine beast with awesome power!  But, the plane can be operated on short grass fields.  In fact, it's precisely this diversity which will provide sim pilots hours of enjoyment.  This plane will feature many challenges simply because it's capabilities give you so many ways to fly it.  The raw power makes it a fast cross country transport, but the massive fowler flaps also make it an impressive short field performer.  For proof, click on this link.  The threshold crossing speed is a modest 95 KIAS, and the touchdown stall speed is only 80 KIAS.

Whether you are landing at a picturesque mountain regional airport, or a short grass strip, this airplane has plenty to offer.  In fact, given the fidelity of the flight model, it's a good plane to learn twin engine flight procedures.  It's so faithful, the flight model was certified accurate by the real Howard 500's actual pilot!

About the only distraction to purely fun and challenging flying will be your temptation to view all the eye candy inside the luscious interior of the passenger compartment!  In truth, there is only one other artist who achieves wood grain and leather artistry as seen on this plane.  This passenger compartment rises to Tom Wood quality, and for a freeware price, it's truly impressive on every scale.  I guarantee if you have not already done so, this airplane alone will compel one to map buttons on your joystick to move around within a DVC!

It's not just the cockpit, passenger compartment, and flight models which are outstanding.  The release also features wonderfully complete documentation, including detailed performance tables and checklists.  Better still, the download uses a highly effective installer.  Simply point it to your main FS2004 folder, press the execute button, and voila -- you are ready for flight, captain!

In summary, there really isn't anything about this airplane worthy of criticism.  To be honest, it's simply one of the finest freeware releases in the history of FS2004.  I must add; however, in the interest of full disclosure, that I did participate in the beta testing of this aircraft.  However, in all honesty I found so very little about the plane which needed tweaking, that it was more an advanced screening than a beta testing effort. 

The Howard Aero 500 is a plane right out of the pages of golden aviation, but with the power and technology from a post World War II era on the cusp of mastering aviation.  The existing real planes are nearly priceless.  So perhaps in a very real sense, it's appropriate that such a highly faithful and marvelous virtual model would be released as freeware.