The Carenado S550 Citation II was released earlier in the year and was sent to me soon after that, I held off from doing a review because I wanted to get a good feel for the aircraft itself. I think I finally have done that!
Before we jump into the review I would just like point out that the review was not conducted in FSX. I recently purchased P3D and was stunned so I thought I might make it more aesthetically pleasing to have the review done in P3D!
The Cessna S550 Citation II was first flown in 1977 and so isn’t one of those modern corporate jets. It’s a classic aircraft that just looks stunning inside and out and with a max capacity of only 8 passengers it isn’t as large as it could have been. Cessna managed to build 940 of them prior to it being discontinued in 2006.
Installation
The installation of this product is quick and simple. It came in a RAR file about 360MB and took a matter of minutes to install. It only required a email and a product code and it would then install the product. The Citation II is available to FSX, P3D V1 and V2. I obviously installed it into P3D and it worked flawlessly first time.
With this addon you can install it into FSX and P3D simultaneously so there wasn’t a problem when I tested that and installed it into FSX to see whether it worked!
Exterior
In real life this aircraft is stunning, and Carenado have accurately modeled this to do the same. Looking at this in P3D I can safely say that it look amazing. The modeling of the control surfaces and the animations that go along with them are stunning.
The aircraft comes with 7 different variants of liveries that look very good indeed. It also includes a plain white one for those that want to do repaints.
Interior
The interior of this aircraft is really nicely modeled. One of my friends that doesn’t do flight sim thought that it was a real picture and not just a simulation. The detail of the design is so intricately designed that it was hard to actually see all of it. Unlike some aircraft that will drop loads of frames once you get into the VC, this seems to do the opposite for me. I actually get better frames on the inside of the aircraft than I did on the outside.
The night lighting for the VC is amazing, the picture below shows what it looks like, With the HDR and lighting effects that P3D gives you it really does look great and as far as I can see quite realistic. However I do think that the lighting is some places is a little bright which causes you to lose the high amount of detail in the cockpit.
Handling
This aircraft handles incredibly well a certainly feels like I think a business jet of this class should feel. I feels like but not to heavy and when I was messing around with the custom weather in P3D and decided to make it a 50KTS crosswind I think that it dealt with it very well. Even if we were going down the runway sideways!
I was definitely satisfied with the way that this aircraft handled and because I haven’t flown the real thing I can’t comment on how real it feels i’m sure that it is fine
Overall Conclusion
Since the release of this aircraft has been a few updates and fixes. Carenado have even released a addon for this aircraft which adds support for Navigraph and AIRAC. I think that the lack of AIRAC support was what was letting this aircraft down initially but with the addition of that separate addon it’s fixed.
The interior and exterior modeling of the aircraft is exceptional and the lighting inside of P3D definitely expresses that, the one thing that does annoy me is that the taxi light is far to bright and blows out the ground below.
“Overall a truly solid aircraft that just is stunning in all aspects!”
NOTE All screenshots of the product are straight out of the sim (P3D) and haven’t been edited in anyway
Verdict
The interior and exterior modeling of the aircraft is exceptional and the lighting inside of P3D definitely expresses that, the one thing that does annoy me is that the taxi light is far to bright and blows out the ground below. "Overall a truly solid aircraft that just is stunning in all aspects!"
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Installation
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Exterior
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Interior
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Handling
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Lighting
