Ok, after doing a few go-arounds, I rolled the Carenado Beechcraft Mentor into the hangar for a complete repaint... Two tone silver and platinum, with celtic detailings, plus re-upolstering the seats.

The route is YYZ to KMCD: Pearson Airport in Toronto to Mackinac Island. Departure time is 10:51 AM Jan 1 2006


Well, lets see how this plane handles for a longer flight. Apparently I shaved for the flight... Note to self, add beard to pilot figure.


Gear up, the view from the end of the runway, looking up. If you can't make it out, it says "Maireann croí éadrom i bhfad"... Basicly, "A light heart lives long".


Heading into bad weather over Lake Huron. And it was such a nice day when I left.


I'm about 40 miles from Mackinac Island here... At least, I assume I'm still over the lake. Maybe I should head down lower to check...


To the left, I can barely make out Bois Blanc island as I begin to close in on KMCD.


Chock one up to the wild and wacky Flight Sim weather. I'm in the Eye of the Storm, it seems. All the better, though, I have good visibility for the landing. On the south side of the island you can see the Arnold Line docks, and on the far side you can just make out the Grand Hotel. The fort is there, but hard to make out in the winter, in these conditions. Scenery is more of Boz's wonderful michigan scenery.


Touchdown! After making my way to parking, it was a little before 1:30. Not bad.



Overall impressions: I'm not as pleased with the mentor as with the other Carenado plane I got in the two-pack. It doesn't trim well at all, I found... I was fussing with the trim the entire flight, never managed to get it comfortably set. Also, the virtual cockpit was extremely jerky... Very poor gaugue refresh, like a bad freeware release. But it flys great. For short hops, it's fine... For longer flights, the lack of autopilot and questionable trim makes it a hands-on flight the whole way. Still, I got it and the Cessna 182 RG for the price of one payware release from other developers, so it's not a bad deal.

Hey.....Welcome to the real world......"T" stands for "Trainer" It wasnt' meant to go straight and level all by it's self!
It's great for Aerobatics.
As for the gauge refresh.....I've never seen that with mine.
I dont' know what your specs are,But if you have good setup they should be running smooth as silk?

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Actually, some reviews I read before I purchased them mentioned the Mentor's problem with VC gaugues... It's not just me. The 182 is fine, but the mentor is terrible for gaugues in the VC.

As for it being a trainer... Yeah, but that's no excuse for some of the trimming issues. The only one of the three trim controls I can reliably use in VC is wing... nose is only selectable in a tiny little area of the wheel, very hard to get... And the rudder control just doesn't exist in the VC, all it is is a textured blob. And some quirk with the Carenado trim controls (I noticed this in the 182 as well) only lets you see the amount you have them trimmed in the VC... Mouseover in 2D cockpit doesn't show you (-2.1) type information. Thankfully the 182 at least has graphical indicators that are halfway functional for that, but the Mentor doesn't.

Actually, as far as stability, it's pretty stable in flight. Until you introduce mother nature, of course.

Yeah indeed my gauges in the T-34 refresh perfectly fine. 

Lovely flight and well known tourist site.... The Mentor is a beauty of a plane, Gunnerman and I have flown it loads of places, And trim? Aye she does trim level but I always use my stick and weave in and out of clouds, No Problems with the Guage refreshing on either of my cards (Nvidia Geforce MX440 onboard 64mb or Nvidia Geforce 6200 128mb PNY) so no idea there..... But lovely shots, and in michigan, well you never know what weather it may throw at you  Cheers, Gunny