STMA DHC-3 Otter v10

This is an update of an aircraft that's several years old. It's long been one of my favourites, I've had a version of it since at least Oct 2006, because it's easy to fly and with floats, wheels and skis it's usable in many situations.

Externally it looks totally modern but internally the panel isn't quite to the same standard as STMA's new releases. It's still good, usable and realistic but the instruments don't all quite match in looks as they're made in slightly different ways (I think) and I don't think the night lighting functionality is fully matched to version 10.

If you want this sort of aircraft I don't think this should stop you, but I think you should be aware of it so you don't think it's to the same standard as for example the OV-10.

One of the things I really like with STMA is that before you buy, here, you can download the readme file.

It's nominally nine versions and even more if you count liveries. I much appreciate that when you change livery you also get the correct registration both in the cockpit and in the logbook file. This partly justifies its price which I don't think should be more than the U-2S and OV-10 because I'm not interested in nine versions or even three. I want floats and I want turbine engine and I'm going to choose one of the engine versions and I'm going to keep one with wheels and skis.

I write "nominally" because if you Bing/Google for images of the real aircraft you'll find that most of them seem to be fitted with floats, all the time. The Sea Airmotive and Katmai are the exceptions. There are of course other Otters with these engine versions which mostly have wheels and skis in winter but the liveries don't reflect that and I know several have floats in summer only. 

Handling and performance is very good (I think: I've never even been a passenger in a real one). But it should be noted that water interaction in version 10 is very different from earlier: Unless you use pedals to keep sideslip to a minimum then water drag will make it difficult to get to take off speed. This also means that you need to take more care to take off straight into the wind than you did before. It's not difficult, but you likely need to re-learn.