Well, the Twotter is a terrific buy, I have it and love it, great sounds, terrific model, beautiful VC...as far as how it handles as a turbine, it is not as realistic as the J41, you aren't going to blow your engines up by moving the throttle up too fast.  Still, it's a terrific piece of payware and a lot of fun to fly out in the bush.

The PBY is another great bird, beautiful VC and sounds great too.  Lots of paints and models included with this one.  If you are looking to bush fly though I think I would get the twotter first, then down the road get the PBY.  The Twotter takes off on shorter runways and weighs considerably less, plus it will get you up into the higher altitudes.

As for the DC2, I have not played with this one so I couldn't give you an honest answer.  I guess you should just decide on what kind of flying you want to do before you purchase.

It's going to be hard to find a model as realistic as the J41 when it comes to turbines.

I've modified my original post to include the Islander.

I own all of them except the UIVER DC-2.
All three are good aircraft 
The Twin Otter is a classic. The VC is nice (although a little blurry depending on zoom levels), the engine sounds are great. It is getting older compared to what developers have done with newer add-ons.
The PBY Catalina has a beautiful VC, beautiful exterior model and liveries, a WWII classic, and is probably the one that has the most extensive systems models (out of the three) I would say. A cold dark start is a pretty cool thing to do and when those big radials start spitting black smoke it definitely puts a smile on my face!
The BN2 Islander is my favorite out of all three. The liveries are very nice, the aircraft is a slow small transport aircraft and flies like it. The VC looks great and actually shakes on takeoffs and landings! The sound package is the one I like the most (although all three have HIGH QUALITY sounds, so the Islander doesn't win by much). It probably is the best out of all 3 for bush flying.
I stick to it and say BN2 Islander! 
Best thing would be to go to youtube and look at videos of all of them.
Good luck with your TOUGH decision and let us know what you got.

olderndirt wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2011 at 10:37am:


Do you not like those choices?   

I'm open to other suggestions for the next can't-live-without/as-real-as-it gets addition to my hangar

[quote author=ykbpTI6 link=1294008749/8#8 date=1294114361]Though I have MEL on my ticket, all I ever flew was the PA23 Apache, the PA23 Aztec and the C402.  [quote]

I'm qualified to fly very small/single engine-rubber band/balsa

****
Thank you all for your suggestions.  It seems that the favorite here is clearly the Twin Otter.  I kept coming back to it, I spent quite some time perusing the online manual, watching youtube etc.  In the end, I just couldn't convince myself that it would suit my fancy (at the moment), I didn't like the lack of charts or documentation about how to procedurally fly the aircraft, etc.  I'm sure its a wonderful, wonderful aircraft, but I just couldn't push the "buy" button on it.

The Islander looks like a damned good aircraft, but I just couldn't get excited about it.  With the Uiver DC-2, I felt I would have been too spoiled by Accusim products and been disapointed.  I also thought about the A2A B-17, but I have to admit that I wouldn't quite know what to do with such a specialized aircraft like that.

So.....

The Catalina it is.  The 400 pages of documentation, extensive charts, and the overall novelty/look/feel of the whole thing really won me over. If anybody cares, I will post (in another thread) a little mini-review a little later, giving you all some first impressions.

Thanks for your input, even though I didn't go with the majority opinion!!!

snippyfsxer wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2011 at 11:49pm:

Hi, I'm biased ofcourse.
The Uiver is not 'accusimmed' in that sence, but we do have full system simulations.
The engines can be abused, and in that case will fail or catch fire.
You can do a full, by the book, cold and dark start-up, with working external power, fuelpumps, priming, flooding carburetors, etc. Forget one step, and you must try again. (or use ctrl-e, if you're lazy)
Props can be fully feathered, and you can see the propgoverners move. Airstart of the enigines is possible too.
Fuel system is completely modelled
Switching tanks is tricky, don't forget to flick on your fuel pumps, or the engines will stall due to lack of fuel pressure.
We have a working manual hydraulics system, with manual pump, in case your hydralic pumps fail.
You can do wheels up landing. The props will bend, but the plane will not crash. (as with the real plane, that's why the wheels stick out a bit)
At night, you can see if you're flying rich or lean, by the color of the exhaust flames.
It all comes with 3 external models, plenty free repaints, 3 VC's (1 with modern avionics, 2 completely steam gauges, all fluidly animated and modelled in 3D) and a fully modelled interior, including loo ,and virtually anything that can be clicked , switched or moved in the real plane is animated and functional in our model.

You can download the manual from our site for free, www.dc2-fs.com, and see what we have to offer.
You will not be dissapointed

The price is right, and the money goes directly to a good cause, the preservation in airworthy condition of the real plane.

Cheers, Rob Cappers
"UIVER" Team

Cool

Hmm. I'll check the link for the manual, I'm having some issues with my provider.
Edit: works on my side....

Yes, Gann's book is great.
You should try to get your hands on 'North star over my shoulder' by Bob Buck.
Very interesting. The guys starts on small bi-planes as a kid, flies airliners, starting with the DC2, and ending on a 747. During the war he does research on all kinds of weather phenomenae.

Cheers, Rob