Looks like a good one! I love how they're coming out with so many quirky historic planes now, to make up for how overly ultra-modern so many of the default ones were.
The Grumman comes with an interactive copilot checklist to teach you everything along all steps of the flight. The reason you had not heard of it is because the version you have is a beta version as we were still updating the textures and any issues that were reported since this was a ported over aircraft. So basically you just got an early look at it before the actual release but maybe only by a week or so. We did release a user manual after this video was made but it's only a partial manual as we are still adding more info to it during July. And for the textures the P3D was not even close to the textures we updated using Substance. You can see a video on our product description page that shows the effects and layers that went into our new PBR textures using Substance. The aging may be tricking you on the quality as we used the same effects and software being used in the industry today. I do appreciate you sharing our product on UA-cam. I will agree since this is a ported over bird from P3D and we had to learn how to develop for the new sim we did use some textures again like the gauges which to me look fine since the quality and size is 4k. But yes the money value is there in the systems and flight dynamics and even the textures compared to P3D. Our next bird is a new project and will be our standard for textures as we have a professional Company painting everything.
Appologies for not knowing! It was on your site with no mention of it being a beta, so I assumed it was the release version when I purchased it. I did get the manual and the update afterwards. I try to be honest but fair with my reviews, I won't pull punches but I give credit where its due... Sure its a native conversion but I do honestly like it... but I'm a seaplane nut... flies great, glad to hear the textures are updating/ being updated.
"we did use some textures again like the gauges which to me look fine since the quality and size is 4k" ....... I'm sorry but self praise is no recommendation. The guages are nowhere near the native quality of MSFS. Come on, you must be able to see that. I've been buying your products since the C402 in FSX, in about 2014? .... being honest, you've always been weak with texture quality. But this one really is not good enough - not when you've made the somewhat exasperating decision to charge 30.00 for it. That is top dollar for the current level of MSFS aircraft addons.
When this plane came to xbox I purchased it just because we don't have a lot of choices and definitely no freeware. I absolutely hated it at 1st and I put it away for a couple months. Now I have over a 100 planes in my hanger andI find myself taking this one out more and more all the time and absolutely falling in love with it. Like you said it's definitely not the prettiest plane, with it's less than perfect textures, But there's something about it that you can't help falling in love with and it's just a fun plane to fly. But it took me a while to get to that point and I had to go through a lot aircraft before I went back to revisit it and then something just clicked and I fell in love with it! Thanks for great review!
Just a note: the volume on your videos seems very low. I have to crank my volume up for your videos and then remember to reset it to normal for other videos.
We have one of these birds based at my home airport in Brantford, Ontario. Very interesting aircraft. Wave and water effects are just around the corner and these effects are really needed for the float plane pilots! Good review! Blue skies!
I have been in one, back as a kid. Fred Ladd in Auckland had some of them, for Tourist Air travel. The panel looks fairly right, at least it isnt a damn king air panel, which too many people do. Best regards!!!
Could quite possibly be... plus I misready the label XD You have to remember these are my first times flying these planes... and the manual is harder to get from their website than blood from a stone.
@@AvAngel Well in your defense, you never claimed to be a professional pilot, only a texture artist. Plus we don't mind you making these silly mistakes as that prevents us from doing the same ;-)
Another one I will at least delay thanks to you and to the freeware Grumman Goose which I quite enjoy though its interior "paint job" is a bit rough. It flies well though and seems to cover about 90% of what this doing for my purposes, even in VR. I could change my mind but there are just so many planes and I don't even look at airliners. I'm looking forward to the Flying Iron P-38 coming soon. Thanks as always!
Thanks for your honest and balanced reviews AvAngel. I look at aircraft criteria in a very similar way to you, so your reviews definitely strike a chord with me. Agree 100% that this is not worth $30, but Flysimware aircraft (FSX/P3D) go on sale often, so hopefully we can get this for closer to $15. As far as Flysimware is concerned, I have a number of their aircraft for FSX/P3D and they all suffer from terribly dated texturing, but the functionality, flight models, sounds and modelling detail are all exceptional. So I don't mind paying for them, just not at full price.
Biggles flew this one in "Biggles Delivers the Goods", and it has better range than the Grumman Goose, so it will be great for island hopping in the Pacific. So I kinda must have it. But I think I'll wait until it (hopefully) hits around $20. Until then, I'm going to take my Grumman Goose out to Bora Bora and relive my "Tales of the Gold Monkey" fantasies.
Seems like this will be a fun bird to fly while waiting for the Goose. Thanks for showing it off! I'm also fan of float and bush planes because I love to look around and touch down wherever I want to go and with float planes almost any puddle of water is a runway :D
i like the older used look , and the fact that the pontoons are done properly on the plane. as far as water ability aircraft, there is the Icon, Grumman Goose, Cessna L-19(Bird Dog) float version, and the XCUB float variant add on by Bush League Legends
Entertaining video as always: I don't care about the textures -I love the way it flies and I've wanted a widgeon for years and have finally got one; thanks
Thanks Av, this had also completely passed me by. Gotta say, I agree that $30 does seem a bit steep for what it is, but I also gotta say it's tempting as all heck. I think I'll hold off though at least until we do get wake effects.... although that said when the aerosoft twin otter comes out.... I may not need a widgeon anymore lol
@@AvAngel Yeah, I've gotta be honest, I am rather a fan of retro birds too, hence why I jumped on the DC-6 virtually as soon as it was released lol, although there is no part of me saying I maaaaaaay have too many aeroplanes for MSFS.... if that's possible lol
Nice aircraft, but must agree with you on the quality, should be way better for $30. in my opinion. Would I buy it, sorry to say no, unless they improve it in an update. That’s not to say I don’t like it though, I like the older aircraft, and especially seaplanes. Great video, thanks much!
I see this video was uploaded 14 hours ago..the user manual was just officially released 1 hour ago..and the final release version 1.0 of the aircraft was released 5 hours ago. Flysimware has done an annoying amount of updates..I get emails multiple times per week with a new version..I guess it's good to see they're still improving it tho. I haven't downloaded the 1.0 version or the manual yet..I haven't even launched the sim in 3 weeks..I'll probably do some flying this week tho since I'm on vacation.
Not sure if you realized this, but you locked the tailwheel right before you couldn't steer. It's because you locked the tailwheel, lol. BTW really enjoying these and your flying in general.
I grabbed this almost as soon as Mark announced it because I like his planes but I haven't installed it yet as it's still very much being worked on and there seems to be a new version every two or three days at the moment. The latest email said he's still working on a manual which is possibly why you couldn't find one ? This is the first good look I've had at it :)
@@AvAngel An email came out a few hours ago saying version 1.0 has now released (I might download it now LOL) and a few minutes ago another email arrived saying the manual was also available now. So it's very much supported. Flightsim platforms come and go but I don't think Mark ever considers a plane finished, even the learjet which is at least 5 years old got a new FMC recently :)
AV Just wondered.....Do you get crashes /blue screen every now and then..I bought a purpose built PC three weeks ago with AMD card just for flight simming. I am in a group of serious,fun brilliant "live" flight simmer Discord"The Ultimate server of flight simming" but ever few days the sim crashes during flight....I just wondered if as a professional user do you get these glitches....? Very much like your videos and please can we have more Bush flying such as in Alaska etc.
@@AvAngel Thank you AV was just flying and AMD crashed three times today... Might be temp problem, but very annoying.... Super, look fwd to more of your videos al
Steam gauges. No frame killing MFD's - for us simmers that *don't* have a $10-15K PC setup. I'm on it. It looks great. The current A-4 Skyhawk and F/A-18 out there as *payware* are planes that *truly* suck. I wouldn't even download those if they were freeware. Oh. Don't forget that horrible Eurofighter Typhoon. Mach 2 by the end of the runway after takeoff....Ugh.
So far in my opionion the only planes that are close to study level on msfs is justflights piper arrow and pmdg dc 6 not even the crj 700 can compete with those two diamonds. The junker thats coming in the next few months is according to the dev also study level all buttons and switches will work. We need more study level planes. I hope someone will make a study level cessna 172 in the future because asobos planes are not cutting it.
I love these kinds of aircraft, but I'm most definitely not gonna get this one. With that subpar modeling and texturing it would rub my rose into having overpaid for a low quality product on every single flight. Or in other words: I can't even stand the Grumman Goose Redux, and that one is free. Go figure. The saddest part: it's unlikely that any other developer will tackle this particular aircraft as a high quality project anytime soon, because there already is this version. That's why low quality cash grab releases like this make me somewhat angry.
Can you steer it on the water?! The goose doesn’t steer. Edit.. Never mind I just saw your video it doesn’t even steer on the ground which is pathetic. Unbelievable for a $30 add-on.
I ended up buying this. Instantly regretted it. Even at $20 this plane looks pretty awful. I'd say the graphics definition is some of the worst in the sim right now. The outside textures are pretty hideous in my opinion - and if they're 4K then they must have been upscaled, because this doesn't look like native 4K to me. What it needs is a thorough retexturing in proper high definition, and by people who know what they're painting. For example, the top rear of the fuselage in pretty much all the paint jobs is shaded as though it curves around to the fuselage sides, which it does not - the Grumman Widgeon has a 90 degree angle there. Flysimware should be embarrassed to release an aircraft with textures this poor into MSFS - and to release it at the price they originally released it at (IIRC it was $29.95) is - I think - appalling! I'm like you in that amphibians are my preferred aircraft - why would I ever restrict myself to land when I can also have entire oceans as my airstrips. But sadly, the Widgeon (or Gosling, as the British military named her) stays in my hangar until she gets a proper retexturing.
It's good... for 2010 AD)) Now this trend is getting worrisome: we're getting either pretty but shallow crafts or functionally rich platforms with visuals exported from P3D/FsX with minimal changes (
Looks like a good one! I love how they're coming out with so many quirky historic planes now, to make up for how overly ultra-modern so many of the default ones were.
The Grumman comes with an interactive copilot checklist to teach you everything along all steps of the flight. The reason you had not heard of it is because the version you have is a beta version as we were still updating the textures and any issues that were reported since this was a ported over aircraft. So basically you just got an early look at it before the actual release but maybe only by a week or so. We did release a user manual after this video was made but it's only a partial manual as we are still adding more info to it during July. And for the textures the P3D was not even close to the textures we updated using Substance. You can see a video on our product description page that shows the effects and layers that went into our new PBR textures using Substance. The aging may be tricking you on the quality as we used the same effects and software being used in the industry today. I do appreciate you sharing our product on UA-cam. I will agree since this is a ported over bird from P3D and we had to learn how to develop for the new sim we did use some textures again like the gauges which to me look fine since the quality and size is 4k. But yes the money value is there in the systems and flight dynamics and even the textures compared to P3D. Our next bird is a new project and will be our standard for textures as we have a professional Company painting everything.
Appologies for not knowing! It was on your site with no mention of it being a beta, so I assumed it was the release version when I purchased it. I did get the manual and the update afterwards.
I try to be honest but fair with my reviews, I won't pull punches but I give credit where its due... Sure its a native conversion but I do honestly like it... but I'm a seaplane nut... flies great, glad to hear the textures are updating/ being updated.
"we did use some textures again like the gauges which to me look fine since the quality and size is 4k" ....... I'm sorry but self praise is no recommendation. The guages are nowhere near the native quality of MSFS. Come on, you must be able to see that. I've been buying your products since the C402 in FSX, in about 2014? .... being honest, you've always been weak with texture quality. But this one really is not good enough - not when you've made the somewhat exasperating decision to charge 30.00 for it. That is top dollar for the current level of MSFS aircraft addons.
When this plane came to xbox I purchased it just because we don't have a lot of choices and definitely no freeware. I absolutely hated it at 1st and I put it away for a couple months. Now I have over a 100 planes in my hanger andI find myself taking this one out more and more all the time and absolutely falling in love with it. Like you said it's definitely not the prettiest plane, with it's less than perfect textures, But there's something about it that you can't help falling in love with and it's just a fun plane to fly. But it took me a while to get to that point and I had to go through a lot aircraft before I went back to revisit it and then something just clicked and I fell in love with it! Thanks for great review!
Just a note: the volume on your videos seems very low. I have to crank my volume up for your videos and then remember to reset it to normal for other videos.
They did however do a fantastic job on their other product, the Cessna 414, which I REALLY like
We have one of these birds based at my home airport in Brantford, Ontario. Very interesting aircraft. Wave and water effects are just around the corner and these effects are really needed for the float plane pilots! Good review! Blue skies!
I have been in one, back as a kid. Fred Ladd in Auckland had some of them, for Tourist Air travel. The panel looks fairly right, at least it isnt a damn king air panel, which too many people do. Best regards!!!
"We need turn on wheel steering" (*Locks tail wheel up*)
Was your CFI Ted Striker from "Airplane! Flying academy" ? ))
Could quite possibly be... plus I misready the label XD You have to remember these are my first times flying these planes... and the manual is harder to get from their website than blood from a stone.
@@AvAngelNo blaming, just appreciating little comedy moments ;).
And yes their site is beyond awful.
@@AvAngel Well in your defense, you never claimed to be a professional pilot, only a texture artist. Plus we don't mind you making these silly mistakes as that prevents us from doing the same ;-)
Another one I will at least delay thanks to you and to the freeware Grumman Goose which I quite enjoy though its interior "paint job" is a bit rough. It flies well though and seems to cover about 90% of what this doing for my purposes, even in VR. I could change my mind but there are just so many planes and I don't even look at airliners. I'm looking forward to the Flying Iron P-38 coming soon. Thanks as always!
I got to study Hawaii Mars moored at Sproat Lake, awesome sea plane. The shade of the wings were good for angling.
Just got this on sale and enjoying it
Getting to know your channel after your flight with Jeff. Good stuff, I love your sense of humor.
Thanks for your honest and balanced reviews AvAngel. I look at aircraft criteria in a very similar way to you, so your reviews definitely strike a chord with me. Agree 100% that this is not worth $30, but Flysimware aircraft (FSX/P3D) go on sale often, so hopefully we can get this for closer to $15.
As far as Flysimware is concerned, I have a number of their aircraft for FSX/P3D and they all suffer from terribly dated texturing, but the functionality, flight models, sounds and modelling detail are all exceptional. So I don't mind paying for them, just not at full price.
Biggles flew this one in "Biggles Delivers the Goods", and it has better range than the Grumman Goose, so it will be great for island hopping in the Pacific. So I kinda must have it. But I think I'll wait until it (hopefully) hits around $20. Until then, I'm going to take my Grumman Goose out to Bora Bora and relive my "Tales of the Gold Monkey" fantasies.
Seems like this will be a fun bird to fly while waiting for the Goose. Thanks for showing it off!
I'm also fan of float and bush planes because I love to look around and touch down wherever I want to go and with float planes almost any puddle of water is a runway :D
It's been updated since this, its really not bad tbh.
Made me chuckle, You have an evolved sense of humor. Thanks. Good job. Fair-minded review.
Appreciate it 😀
i like the older used look , and the fact that the pontoons are done properly on the plane. as far as water ability aircraft, there is the Icon, Grumman Goose, Cessna L-19(Bird Dog) float version, and the XCUB float variant add on by Bush League Legends
doing some more searching i found a float add on for the Cessna 172 at flightsim.to
@@daxconnell7661 Unfortunately the 172 amphibian model is a mess to actually take off and land in the water.
Entertaining video as always: I don't care about the textures -I love the way it flies and I've wanted a widgeon for years and have finally got one; thanks
Thanks Av, this had also completely passed me by. Gotta say, I agree that $30 does seem a bit steep for what it is, but I also gotta say it's tempting as all heck. I think I'll hold off though at least until we do get wake effects.... although that said when the aerosoft twin otter comes out.... I may not need a widgeon anymore lol
I want the twin otter too... but i gotta have me some retro bird... its just.. i love them.
@@AvAngel Yeah, I've gotta be honest, I am rather a fan of retro birds too, hence why I jumped on the DC-6 virtually as soon as it was released lol, although there is no part of me saying I maaaaaaay have too many aeroplanes for MSFS.... if that's possible lol
"This isn't an airplane. It's a canoe with wings!"
Its awesome! I have over a 100 airplanes and I fly this one the most.
Informative and hilarious! I love your videos.
My grandfather was a flying boat pilot, so a no brainer for me, just wish it was 10 bucks cheaper.
Nice aircraft, but must agree with you on the quality, should be way better for $30. in my opinion.
Would I buy it, sorry to say no, unless they improve it in an update.
That’s not to say I don’t like it though, I like the older aircraft, and especially seaplanes.
Great video, thanks much!
You're welcome :)
Worth the money! Love it!!!
I really want them to bring in the HU 16 like they had in FX.
Great Job, Miss.
agreed, it is over priced. Good video as always, thanks Angel.
It's still definitely worth the price and I love this plane!
Just flight is also amazing.
I see this video was uploaded 14 hours ago..the user manual was just officially released 1 hour ago..and the final release version 1.0 of the aircraft was released 5 hours ago.
Flysimware has done an annoying amount of updates..I get emails multiple times per week with a new version..I guess it's good to see they're still improving it tho. I haven't downloaded the 1.0 version or the manual yet..I haven't even launched the sim in 3 weeks..I'll probably do some flying this week tho since I'm on vacation.
Not sure if you realized this, but you locked the tailwheel right before you couldn't steer. It's because you locked the tailwheel, lol. BTW really enjoying these and your flying in general.
I’m often very special
I grabbed this almost as soon as Mark announced it because I like his planes but I haven't installed it yet as it's still very much being worked on and there seems to be a new version every two or three days at the moment. The latest email said he's still working on a manual which is possibly why you couldn't find one ? This is the first good look I've had at it :)
That might be it then!
@@AvAngel An email came out a few hours ago saying version 1.0 has now released (I might download it now LOL) and a few minutes ago another email arrived saying the manual was also available now. So it's very much supported. Flightsim platforms come and go but I don't think Mark ever considers a plane finished, even the learjet which is at least 5 years old got a new FMC recently :)
6:50 You actually locked the tailwheel there. :) The price is a bit high for the quality I see.
I am quite special.
AV Just wondered.....Do you get crashes /blue screen every now and then..I bought a purpose built PC three weeks ago with AMD card just for flight simming. I am in a group of serious,fun brilliant "live" flight simmer Discord"The Ultimate server of flight simming" but ever few days the sim crashes during flight....I just wondered if as a professional user do you get these glitches....? Very much like your videos and please can we have more Bush flying such as in Alaska etc.
I’ve never actually had blue screens or crashed myself and I’m on an amd machine too, could be ram? And yes some more bush flying soon 😀
@@AvAngel Thank you AV was just flying and AMD crashed three times today... Might be temp problem, but very annoying.... Super, look fwd to more of your videos al
Temperature could certainly be it, monitor them next time you fly.
what planes do you fly the most in the sim?
Bush planes mostly, so far the tail draggers like the carbon cub, husky and 170, but also the 172 bushkit, 208, mostly rugged aircraft.
@@AvAngel do you recommended the g44
Steam gauges. No frame killing MFD's - for us simmers that *don't* have a $10-15K PC setup. I'm on it. It looks great. The current A-4 Skyhawk and F/A-18 out there as *payware* are planes that *truly* suck. I wouldn't even download those if they were freeware. Oh. Don't forget that horrible Eurofighter Typhoon. Mach 2 by the end of the runway after takeoff....Ugh.
Yeah honestly, to me this isn’t bad… to people that want sexy eyes candy maybe not but I just want seaplanes!
I fly the hell out of my widgeon
*locks tailwheel* ...... "Why wont this thing turn?!"
My brain doesn't turn most of the time.
What's the airport in this video please ?
Bella Coola BC, Orbx's addon airport.
Direct X12 wont come with this july update.
But the performance updates are coming still
@@AvAngel Yes the performance updates are commong and it is a bout a 60% increase.
does it turn on the water?
yes with the engine thrust.
I'll stick with the Grumman Goose,I think it's the better one.......................
(turns tailwheel lock ON instead of OFF)
:P My brain no good.
which airport icao is this?
Bella cools the ICAO escapes me sorry
So far in my opionion the only planes that are close to study level on msfs is justflights piper arrow and pmdg dc 6 not even the crj 700 can compete with those two diamonds. The junker thats coming in the next few months is according to the dev also study level all buttons and switches will work. We need more study level planes. I hope someone will make a study level cessna 172 in the future because asobos planes are not cutting it.
Fsx had 14 years of development, give this one some time
@@AvAngel Yeah i know its only gonna get better at last we have two options piper arrow for ga and dc6 for passenger planes;).
you must be from B.C
Nope, Uk. Never been sadly but I’ve done so much flying out here in the sim
I love these kinds of aircraft, but I'm most definitely not gonna get this one. With that subpar modeling and texturing it would rub my rose into having overpaid for a low quality product on every single flight. Or in other words: I can't even stand the Grumman Goose Redux, and that one is free. Go figure. The saddest part: it's unlikely that any other developer will tackle this particular aircraft as a high quality project anytime soon, because there already is this version. That's why low quality cash grab releases like this make me somewhat angry.
I wouldn’t say it’s a cash grab, systems wise and modelling wise it’s good… textures let it down a tad you’re right but that can change
Must have plane!!!
Can you steer it on the water?! The goose doesn’t steer. Edit.. Never mind I just saw your video it doesn’t even steer on the ground which is pathetic. Unbelievable for a $30 add-on.
Castering tail wheel... steering is differential throttle on water and land like the goose, there is a patch that lets you use rudder steering though.
I ended up buying this. Instantly regretted it. Even at $20 this plane looks pretty awful. I'd say the graphics definition is some of the worst in the sim right now. The outside textures are pretty hideous in my opinion - and if they're 4K then they must have been upscaled, because this doesn't look like native 4K to me. What it needs is a thorough retexturing in proper high definition, and by people who know what they're painting. For example, the top rear of the fuselage in pretty much all the paint jobs is shaded as though it curves around to the fuselage sides, which it does not - the Grumman Widgeon has a 90 degree angle there. Flysimware should be embarrassed to release an aircraft with textures this poor into MSFS - and to release it at the price they originally released it at (IIRC it was $29.95) is - I think - appalling! I'm like you in that amphibians are my preferred aircraft - why would I ever restrict myself to land when I can also have entire oceans as my airstrips. But sadly, the Widgeon (or Gosling, as the British military named her) stays in my hangar until she gets a proper retexturing.
An old FSX portover? No, thanks, not even as freeware. This is a dinosaur of the past sims, seems 15 years old.
It is native not a port, just the same base model
One of my favorite planes ever and well worth the $30!
way too many ads in your videos 🙄
What? One?
What videos are you watching I only ever see one ad in a 20 minute video of hers...
texture of aircraft is very poor
It's good... for 2010 AD))
Now this trend is getting worrisome: we're getting either pretty but shallow crafts or functionally rich platforms with visuals exported from P3D/FsX with minimal changes (
It's going to be that way for a bit... remember FSX/P3D had 14 years of content :D
Textures aren't everything. This plane more than makes up for the bad textures on on its Flight characteristics.
WAY TOO EXPENSIVE for that junker of a plane
No! I have over a 100 airplanes in my hangar and I fly this one the most because it is awesome!