Dave Tonks reviews Lionheart Creations' flight sim take on the Quest Kodiak, a rugged bush aircraft favoured by the Missionary Aviation Fellowship.
Someone once told me that flight simulation was a nice little piece of entertainment for aviation enthusiasts, but there really wasn’t anything new it could teach you – wrong! Recently I received an email from a flightsim reseller with a few products I was already aware of. One of them caught my eye, and after some investigation I felt suitably admonished about my apparent lack of awareness of aircraft currently flying in the real world, let alone for flightsimming.
Have you ever heard of the Quest Kodiak? Well, I certainly had not, but a development by Lionheart Creations has changed all of that. Initially I thought that this was a mythical aircraft dreamed up by a software developer, albeit one that contained a lot of the features I like in a ‘small’ aircraft – STOL capability, good solid looks combined with over-engineered ruggedness, and very impressive performance. The Quest Kodiak delivers all of those things and at the same time manages to produce what is truly an iconic aircraft.
The Kodiak was conceived by the Missionary Aviation Fellowship, a Christian-based group formed after WWII to help aid impoverished areas of the world. Their plan was to design and manufacture an aircraft that could withstand the rigors of ‘bush flying’ in and out of remote airfields. The design ended up as a 10-seater (including two crew) high-wing aircraft fitted with a 750 SHP Pratt & Whitney turbine powerplant, with a fuselage designed for carrying 250 cubic feet of cargo (310 cubic feet with the belly cargo pod fitted). Lionheart Creations have done a fairly good job of producing this amazing aircraft (for both FS9 and FSX), and, for the price of 14.24 Euros at the time of writing, this a real bargain. With some 70 aircraft available from the four variants supplied with the package, there is surely something here to make the most fastidious simmer happy. The four variants are: passenger model, with eight passenger seats; cargo model with a full load of boxes; air ambulance/rescue model, complete with patient and medical equipment; and the skydiver version, with a removable side door. These variants are available with or without floats and the huge under-belly cargo pod, and in a variety of colours as well.
Panning around the aircraft shows some nice detailing; not top shelf, but nice enough. Zoom in and you will see some degradation of paint lines, and some large badges like the Coast Guard logo not looking too flash up close. There’s a nice shine from the fuselage and the typical FSX window reflections and chrome (prop spinner) round out a more than reasonable package. An interesting point is the ‘discontinuous leading edge’ wing, which, according to a video on the Quest website (www.questaircraft.com), improves low-speed handling and safety.
Move inside and the first things you notice are that the cockpit seems quite devoid of clutter, and that the Garmin G1000 system dominates the panel. Two PFDs (Primary Flight Displays) with a central MFD (Multi-Function Display) in the centre, a couple of round gauges on the pilot’s side and a major switch panel, plus the pedestal, and that’s it. There’s also an S-TEC 5-50-X autopilot too, which works perfectly from inputs from both the PFD and MFD. It’s a very neat and well laid out set-up and it makes flying the Kodiak a breeze.
Ctrl E will start the engine from a cold/dark state if you prefer, just make sure the park brake is on – otherwise, the aircraft will roar off into the sunset as the revs stabilise to idle. The 33-page manual is a bit confusing – there’s some good information there to assist you in getting to grips with the Kodiak (particularly the Garmin system), but there is also a lot of irrelevant information too.
One thing that did disappoint me was that the throttle quadrant has the word BETA on it, right next to REV (reverse). This indicates to me that the real aircraft is capable of Beta approaches (as per the system available in the Pilatus Porter and De Havilland Caribou), but it is not modelled in the Kodiak – a shame, because it would significantly improve the short landing capacity of the aircraft.
Apart from its few foibles, this sim is a lot of fun to fly, and the Garmin glass cockpit is just brilliant to use. There is a comprehensive training section on the G1000 system in the Learning Centre of FSX, and from checking that out I don’t think it would take long for the average simmer to come to grips with using the system. Dual monitors will make flying the Kodiak a whole lot easier, as you can simply move all the Garmin displays to the second screen.
The Lionheart Quest Kodiak is not your average GA aircraft, and as long as you’re happy to accept the few little deficiencies you will have a lot of fun flying it. And why not drop into Roadvale, take a screenshot at the hangar, and email it to me? I look forward to seeing it.
