I have been bad-mouthing G2 for months after having nothing but issues with getting the add-on disks to install. I finally returned the whole package and tried AFPD...

Other than delayed shipping of the product, my initial reaction to the new AFPD installation has been mostly positive. I received it on Friday and have been playing with it on and off all weekend.

Here are my initial impressions…

Flight characteristics seem to be equal to G2. I am by no means an expert pilot. The main reason I purchased a sim was to improve. I did well with G2 on basic pattern flying and did just as well on the new AFPD. I am concerned with some comments on how AFPD handles wind simulation, but have not yet experimented with that so I have no opinion (G2 did well in the area).

I had no issues installing the program. It worked just fine on my Sony Vaio with the NV 5200 FX video card. I get decent FPS on this card and very little flicker.

The program interfaced perfectly with my Hitec Eclipse 7 radio. Calibration was simple and after a weekend of flying, no recalibration has been needed.

I am concerned with the cabling that was included – it appears to be a little on the cheap side. I plan on doing some reinforcement work on the connections once I can get Ikarus to verify that these improvements will not void the cable warrantee…I am still waiting for an answer on that one.

The manual is very well done. Complete and easy to read…

I have not yet installed the “latest patch” – Looking at what the patch corrects, I don’t really see a need as of yet and I am worried that the installation may cause more issues that it corrects. Anyone out there that thinks I am missing a key issue by not installing the patch, please let me know.

I played with installing some of the user-defined aircraft out there – very simple procedure and worked fine every time I did an installation. Well done there!! I sure wish someone would design an installation for the Hanger 9 Ultra Stick line – I would be willing to help finance that effort if some expert wanted to do it.

So, after about 6 hours on the sim clock, I am happy with my purchase – there is always some room for improvement, but my initial impressions of AFPD (from a rookie pilot) are very positive.