MSFS24 Pietenpol Air Camper – Feature Showcase

After a lot of hard work over the last several months, the Pietenpol Air Camper started beta testing this past Friday! We are now targeting a release sometime in August.

I have been grateful to work with an amazing team of testers who have been beating on the aircraft throughout most of it’s development. Now with this final pass, we hope to find as many remaining issues as possible before release!

The Pietenpol is a relatively simple aircraft when it comes to design, but has quite a bit going on under the cowl.

Thanks to the efforts of our newest team member: GotGravel, not only does the Piet fly nice, but it has a lot of physics-based features as well, which include:

• Hand-prop start interaction
• Fuel slosh
• Priming/Overpriming, including depriming with throttle
• Carburetor heat thermodynamics
• Prop drag & windmill resistance
• Negative thrust backfire SFX
• Slip drag SFX
• Camera motion effects
• Vibration & buffeting effects
• Gravity reactive doors

Some other non-standard features, which are not physics-based include:

• Hydroplaning/water skiing (Bush tires)
• A breakable prop
• Autostart preflight covers removal
• Generator-driven panel lights with low voltage dimming

Our rendition of the Pietenpol Air Camper does not have a starter. In order to start the engine, you must hand-prop it. Or if you are feeling lazy, you can of course use autostart, but what’s the fun in that?

Enter GotGravel, stage left.

I must admit that when we first decided on developing the Piet, I did not think about the fact that it did not have a starter, and thus realized we would need to figure out how to make that work. After a few weeks of attempting to come up with something myself, I decided to turn it over to GotGravel who developed the system we are using today!

The Piet can be started from both the interior or exterior via avatar mode. This includes being able to manipulate the throttle, mixture, mags, and primer without needing to jump back into the cockpit. Just don’t forget to leave the chocks in place!

The Piet is using 2024’s modern fuel system, which accounts for the volume of fuel remaining and length of the fuel lines. Also, being a carbureted engine, you will have fuel starvation under appropriate conditions (Like when you decide to flip the non-aerobatic rated airplane upside down).

The carburetor system itself is tied into our custom carb heat thermodynamics code, which takes into account ambient temperature and precipitation to simulate carb ice under appropriate conditions. This system is completely optional and can be disabled by unchecking Engine Realism in the blueprint options.

Priming the A65 engine is a fully optional setting as well, and can be disabled the same way if desired. It takes environmental conditions into account and simulates overpriming as well, becoming harder to prime the more strokes you do, with our sound effects also reflecting this feedback.

To clear an overprime, simply open the throttle fully and wait a few minutes.

Fuel slosh has also been simulated for the fuel rod, which will animate and rotate as you go over bumps or pitch and yaw the aircraft about.

For the sake of not writing a novel, I want to briefly touch on some of the other physics features mentioned above.

Camera Motion and Vibration Effects
Vibrations in the Piet are fully dynamic taking into account RPM and airflow. This allows us to drive simple vibrations on things like gauge needles and the fuel rod, as well as more advanced features like control surface and windshield buffeting with prop wash.

Camera motion effects are also included and can currently be tuned using the vibration effects intensity slider on the blueprint. This adds some subtle reactive motion to the camera to help you not feel as bolted down to the seat.

Gravity Reactive Doors
Our Piet includes door modifications which helps the pilot and passenger get into or out of the cockpit without needing a few years of gymnastics. Obviously not a huge deal for sim flying, but its a great excuse to fly with the door(s) open. However, when one flies with the doors open, one expects some sort of reactive motion, and thus our doors respect gravity (and rough terrain).

To end off this dev update, I took some time today to do a little test flight showcasing the Piet’s sound design. Our testers have loved the sounds so far, and we hope you do as well! So, I’ll do less typing here and let the sounds speak for themselves.

As mentioned in the previous announcement: Our sounds have been created in-house using Wwise and feature authentic Continental A65 sounds recorded by community member and tester Av8trFord. All foley design and mixing has been done by Mykrode and myself.