Background & History
The Cessna U206G Stationair 6 II started life as the 205, and was a stretched four seater 182. The 205 was introduced in 1962, the 206 took over in 1964, which was produced as two versions, the P206 Super Skylane and the U206 Super SkyWagon. The difference between them was that the P206 was the passenger version and the U206 was the cargo version. The 1964 version U206 was powered by a 285 hp Continental IO-520-A naturally aspirated engine. The engine was upgraded in 1977 to a Continental IO-520-F producing 300 hp. From 1971 the 'Super' was dropped and the aircraft became known as the Stationair. Production of the aircraft lasted to 1985.
Cessna brought the 206 back into production in 1996, and the 'new' aircraft was certified in 1998 with designations 206H and T206H. 7556 206's were built between 1962 & 1984. The 206 was designed as a utility aircraft and was produced with floats, skis, and fixed tricycle landing gear, options also extended to additional cargo pods. The early production aircraft had 40 degrees of flaps that made a go around difficult and allowed pilots to get into places they couldn't get out of again!
Installation & Documentation
The aircraft comes as two packages, a normal version, which is a 36mb download and only includes the regular U206, and the full version, which is a 53mb download and includes the regular, cargo and amphibian versions. A very easy double click on the setup program and a few simple clicks through the setup process will have this aircraft installed on your computer, ready to fly. The documentation is presented in PDF format and covers all aircraft versions. It is very thorough and covers everything a pilot needs to know, even how to 'sail' the float plane version in heavy winds, something I have yet to put to practice! All the usual instructions are included, and the instrumentation and particular quirks of the different aircraft versions are covered in the manual.
The documentation also includes checklists, emergency procedures, description of the panel and performance charts. You’re given a lot of in depth info that enables you to fly the airplane like a real pilot.
Outside Model
The outside model looks visually stunning. The model is very detailed, with every single bit modelled with a high number of polygons. Even the pilots look incredibly real. The aircraft features 'remove before flight' tags and chocks that are removed when the engine is started. The textures are of very high resolution, with even the rivets looking sharp and detailed. The aircraft is well animated, including the pilots looking into the direction the aircraft is flying - if the aircraft turns left, they look left, if the aircraft climbs, they look up! You can open the front windows if it gets too hot for you.
There are 12 different livery sets with a wide range of colours. All liveries come with either 1 or 2 pilots and optional wheel pants. The textures look all very clean with minimal wear and tear. If you're after a more rugged wear & tear look you're out of luck with this one. Having said that, the textures look appropriate for a well maintained and clean aircraft.
The different aircraft versions are well modelled. The cargo version has a cargo bay below the fuselage and the amphibian version has floats in high detail. The floats are also animated well, with the gear and water rudders retracting nicely.
2D/3D Cockpit
Carenado did a great job replicating the cockpit, it looks like the real thing. The 3D virtual cockpit is well drawn and the reflections on the windows are well done. The virtual cockpit is a true 3D cockpit, with most switches and levers working and in 3D. The exception to this are the radios and autopilot which only have 2D buttons. This makes the radios look a bit fuzzy and not as clean and sharp compared to other top quality add-on aircraft. All in all, it looks a bit like the instruments are taken out of different photographs and they look noticeably different, sometimes clearly showing different light conditions. This is not a big deal, the instruments still look great, but I've seen better. Almost all instruments are fully functional, and have click spots in the virtual cockpit which allows displaying zoomed versions of the selected gauge.
This also works in the 2D cockpit. When clicking on the main instruments a larger version of that instrument comes up and if the instrument doesn't have a larger version it displays a digital readout of the instrument on top of the instrument. There is a small and unobtrusive panel icon that displays all the different panels, and makes choosing the different, larger sub-panels easier. This can be turned off if you don't like it.
The virtual cockpits are identical across all variations, with the exception of the float version which sports the accurate landing gear gauge for floats. While the instruments are faithfully modelled after their real counterparts, not everything is working identically to the real world counterparts. Some of the advanced functions are missing, for example, you cannot set the timer and some of the ADF functions are missing. Having said that, all gauges are more functional than the FS default ones, you can for example turn the radios on and off. Another thing missing is the lever to lower or raise the water rudders. On the other hand, Carenado included a fuel computer which allows you to keep track of your fuel consumption.
I found the aircraft easy to fly from the virtual cockpit, which is something I don't normally do, as my system can't keep up with detailed virtual cockpits, but with this aircraft I had no problems whatsoever. It was very refreshing to be able to look around with my joystick setup.
Overall there are four main popup panels: radio stack, throttle, trim panel, and fuel/electrical panel; plus the usual, map, GPS and kneeboard. You also get a VFR panel that hides most of the instruments and gives a good view ahead.
The night lighting is subtle and very well done. It looks amazingly realistic with the little instrument lights faithfully replicated. You can even switch on the light in the cabin which illuminates the whole panel realistically. At night you can see all the gauges clearly but it doesn't overpower the rest of the screen like some very bright night lighting panels can do. I had no instrument stutter on my system and everything flowed very nicely.
Flight Dynamics
This aircraft felt heavy to get off the ground when full loaded, but it was easy and very responsive to control inputs. Once in the air it is very easy to get the aircraft to do want you want it to do.
The one thing that impressed me was how well the rudder inputs affected the aircraft; it is very, very easy to control the P-factor with the rudder under full throttle, and just as easy to side slip this aircraft. It is almost so easy to do, it is fun!
A stall is very hard to induce. Once you get it to stall, it stalls quickly, but it is easy to recover as long as you have the altitude.
This aircraft flies by the numbers, with the stall speeds, fuel usage and climb performance matching published specs. Taxing is a doodle, with small inputs to steer the aircraft accurately.
Overall this aircraft is great fun to fly, it takes off and lands very well and I had no difficulty flying it what so ever.
Sound
The sound of the 206 is out of this world. If you have a subwoofer you will really enjoy this aircraft, from start up to shutdown, everything sounds awesome. You get a very nice deep rumble on idle, and the typical Cessna engine sound at full throttle, which reminded me of my childhood watching Cessna's and pipers taking off over my head!
When you are flying the amphibian version and land on water you hear the electric pumps working to keep the water out of the floats. Scared the hell out of me the first time, until I figured out what it was!
Summary
Overall I loved flying this aircraft, even though I am more of a commercial flyer; it is an easy to fly and fun aircraft, and with the different options of the full pack very much value for money.
If you love GA aircraft you cannot go wrong with this one, it is worth the extra if you are going to or want to land in the lakes and oceans around the world!
great outside model, superb cockpit night lighting, top notch sound, solid flight dynamics, good documentation, great frame rates on lower spec systems
instruments could be improved
Jason McKee
