*) Creeping feature: Retractible landing gear. This would increase the value of the model for "transition training" for pilots transitioning into complex aircraft. *) Weird thing: AFAICT there are no interior lights in the C182 model cabin. This makes it hard to fly the thing properly at night. For example, good pilot technique calls for checking the flap position on occasion, but at night there isn't enough light to see the handle or the indicator. *) Weird thing: In a real C182 / C172 / C152 / C150, the flap/trim interaction can be described as follows: -- Changing the flap setting has little effect when the engine is at idle. -- Changing the power setting has little effect when the flaps are in the retracted position. -- However, there is a multiplicative effect: Adding power causes a nose-up pitching moment when flaps are in an extended position. Or, to say the same thing, extending the flaps causes a nose-up pitching moment. The effect is in proportion to the amount of power being developed *times* the amount of flap deflection. The C182 model does not realistically capture this flap/power/trim interaction. In the model, extending the flaps seems to cause a nose-down pitching moment, which is the wrong direction. And the power-dependence of the effect is not realistically modelled. *) Weird thing: The model seems never to consume any fuel. I dumped the property list and discovered that engines/engine/fuel-flow-gph takes on reasonable values and tracks the throttle setting, while engines/engine/fuel-flow_pph remained stuck at zero. This is a particularly bad disconnect, since apparently the latter is what gets integrated to calculate engines/engine/fuel-consumed-lbs. *) Weird thing: No "flags" on the instruments. The GS needle goes to mid-scale if there is no valid signal. That'll kill you for sure. I'm told that the hi-res instruments implement flags, but the lo-res ones don't, and the c182 model is using the lo-res versions. *) Weird thing: Causing failure via the "heading indicator" option on the "instrument failures" popup has no discernible effect on the HSI. I dumped the property list and observed that the "serviceable" flag on the heading indicator was false, in accordance with the desired failure ... but somehow the backend routines are not respecting this setting. FWIW if I replace the HSI in the panel with a plain old DG, the "failure" does what it is supposed to do: *) Weird thing: In a real C182 at cruising speeds, very little adverse yaw is observed. There is differential aileron deflection which the designers have lovingly tuned so that you can cruise with your feet on the floor (not on the pedals). In the model, there is a ton of adverse yaw. If this can be fixed, it would improve the realism. At low airspeeds, of course, the real aircraft still has plenty of adverse yaw. *) Weird thing: Compared to the real aircraft, the model seems to have not enough yaw-wise damping and not enough roll-wise damping. (Taken together these imply not enough damping of the Dutch roll mode, but this is a corollary, not a separate issue.) Roughly speaking, this creates the impression that the model is harder to handle than the real aircraft. *) Weird thing: In the C182 model, the engine noise is the same at all speeds from 1500 RPM on up. (The pitch gets lower as the speed drops below 1500 RPM.) This has an impact on pilot technique; the pilot should be able to hear RPM changes, anywhere in the range. *) Weird thing: The C182 model doesn't implement cowl flaps. This affects the realism, especially if you are using the model for "transition training" into complex aircraft. Cowl flaps are part of the workload that makes the thing complex. Also they underline the point that the checklist that works for one aircraft doesn't necessarily work for them all. *) Weird thing: In the C182 model, after flying for a while, the oil pressure falls below the bottom of the green. Not by a lot, but definitely outside the green range, and therefore outside the normal range. Is this perhaps because somebody forgot to open the cowl flaps? This detracts from the realism; I would be very unhappy flying an aircraft with out-of-normal oil pressure. *) Weird thing, mostly cosmetic, but probably easy to fix: Note that on a real C182, on the tachometer, the green range tops out at 2400, and there is also a red radial line at 2400. In the model, the markings are wrong. The red radial line is absent, and the green goes all the way up to 2500. The model's propeller governor is properly set, limiting the revs to 2400. *) Minor point: In the C182 model, there is no landing light. This detracts verrry little from the realism of the landing. The key fact is that at touchdown attitude, the pitch attitude is so high that the landing light is pointing way up in the air ... and (!) almost anything that could possibly be lit up by the landing light is blocked from view by the cowling. A privately-owned aircraft is not even required to have a landing light, even when being operated at night. I've landed a gajillion times with burned-out landing lights. It's no big deal ... assuming the runway-edge lights are working. I tell students the landing light is really just a taxi light. The only part of the landing where the landing light is really useful is for reading the big painted number on the runway, to confirm that you aren't landing on the wrong runway. *) Weird thing, cosmetic, but probably easy to fix: In the C172r and C182 models and perhaps others (but not the PA24-250), while sitting on the runway, whenever the brakes are applied the aircraft makes faint scratching noises, and bobbles a little bit in pitch ... even if the engine is off! With the engine off, I can't imagine why applying the brakes would cause bobbling. This applies equally to the parking brakes, plain old service brakes, and either (or both) toe brakes.