With A2A going in this GA direction with their 172 and Cherokee projects with 'trainer/aircraft owner' in mind, what type of GA twin would you like to see? Obviously exotic vintage twins like the Howard 500 Beech 18, DC-3, Goose, Electra Jr, Bobcat, P-38, F7F..etc would be the top of many folks list, including mine. I am not talking about those tho. I am talking about something that would be a logical followup in the 'trainer/GA owner' category. Something that you would see on a typical GA flight line, and also something that might go with the Redbird training sim.
Multi engine flying/ownership is VERY expensive and hard to keep current. Multi training is a next step in flight training process after getting your single training. Since building multi hours is so expensive, I think an GA twin of Accusim caliber would be very well received. Of course we all really want our classic jets, warbirds and vintage GA/airliners as well, which I think we will get to once again after this first batch of GA releases. Waaay down the road tho when we get to the next batch of GA releases, I think the GA twin might be something worth looking at.
I think a good choice would be something small enough to be an effective trainer, yet big enough to be a workhorse/business tool for users of Airhauler, FSpassengers, VAs..etc. A B58 Baron, Seneca, Twin Commander, Twin Bonanza come to mind there. Even tho a B58 or Seneca are on the big side for trainers, airline flight schools such as JAL and KLM do use them very effectively as multi trainers. Like the B58, Seneca, and others, you can remove the rear seats to turn them into effective cargo planes.
Other aspects of this is the enhancement of the accusim training into multi flying (learning Vmc factors and such) but also 'accusimming' the ownership/operation of a business tool, where operating costs would become a factor. Kind of like an expansion of the COTS idea.
Personally I think I would go for the B58, just because it is a very good and well built airplane. You could also eventually accusim the PT6A for turbine training and stick them on the B58 ala Rocket Engineering. One advantage of the Seneca is that it shares the common Cherokee airframe which would cut down some development time. Twin Commanders are just beautiful airplanes, and great workhorses. Bob Hoover certainly enjoyed the Twin Commander
I really enjoyed Milton Shupe's offerings for FS9 too.Anyway, if you could pick an A2A GA twin, what would you choose? Would you want a light GA twin such as a Seminole, Duchess, Twin Star, Twin Comanche, Skymaster, Cougar, Apache..etc. Would you want something more mid range like a Aztec, 310, Baron, Seneca, Twin Commander, T-Bone. Or would you go with larger cabin class size such as Queen Air, 340/420, Navajo size stuff.
Cheers
TJ
