Bravo on the Starship - 300 hours
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I have to say Bravo on the Starship! This was the first BlackSquare aircraft I purchased (followed by the VelocityXL - I tried to buy the analog Bonanza package but I only have msfs2024 - will be buying the Bonanza/Baron package tuesday and taking the day off work
). I'm an IFR rated pilot with 600 hours TT and 150 hours actual instrument time (in the clouds) back in the day but had to give it up 25 years ago. So, I experienced the very start of the GPS revolution but all we had was handhelds at the time. I had a Loran (not IFR rated and could be taken out by rain) in some of the planes I flew and we did radar vectors "direct" but other than that it was old school VOR, DME, ADF navigation.I've been having a BLAST in the Starship. It was one of my poster planes back in the day. In the last 40 days I've flown it 300 hours
. Flew it around the world once. I've chased the nastiest weather I could find and got into a spin from the turbulence in the clouds in a thunderstorm over the mountains in europe. Chased icing all over to test the deicing systems etc. Loved every minute of it.I used the GNS430 for the first 10 hours or so mostly but since then I've had it off 99% of the time and used the built in FMS - sooooo impressive a system! I've just left the failure system at MTBF and the defaults. Here are the failures I can remember experiencing.
Pitot icing - this was my fault and I underestimated you! I didn't see a draw increase when I turned the pitot heat when running the checklist but wrote it off as not implemented. Turned out that it was a binding on my Bravo throttle that had it off behind the scenes. On a flight I had my pitot tube freeze up and I recognized it and ended up figuring out the issue.
RTU1 failure (before takeoff - repaired)
Pilot PFD failure - used the reversionary panel to combine with the ND
Oxygen leak - I tried closing the oxygen supply off thinking that would preserve it so I could finish the flight but it still leaked - so I went to a lower altitude and finished the flight.
Pilots windshield heat failure in actual icing (switched to standby and rocked on)Can't wait for the Bonanza release on tuesday - I have 100 hours in the A36 and it was my favorite plane I actually flew
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Wow! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with Starship. A review from a fellow pilot always means so much to me. I know that a lot of my users don't spend a lot of time worrying about failures, but hearing stories of failure recovery in flight always makes me so happy. Real world flying wouldn't be half as rewarding if it wasn't for the understanding and skills brought about by the possibility of something going wrong.
It is clear that you are using my aircraft exactly as I intended them to be, and those stories make all the late nights worthwhile. So many have done around-the-world trips with Starship, and I'm quite envious! I'm glad you're looking forward to the Baron and bonanza professional in just a few days, and I hope they will provide the same kinds of experiences in a lighter GA package. If you have any questions, you know where to find me! Thanks again for your kind words!
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One of many easter eggs hidden in that passion project
A software developer in general, or a developer of flight sim products? I suppose it's not surprising how many engineers find their way to my aircraft, but it's always interesting to hear the stories.
