I’ve learned that I am, in-fact, a sucker for classic GA aircraft. Over the last several months, Asobo and Carenado have partnered together to bring us several including some Beechcraft classics like the Model 17 Staggerwing, the classic Model 18 and now we have the retro-futuristic Bonanza V35. It’s just come out and I’ve done a flight with it and decided that I’d do a first impressions piece now and then you’ll get much more out of a full review later.
Just a bit of history
I intend to dig into the history of the Bonanza much more deeply in time for the full review but I wanted to do a bit of an overview anyways so you know what this plane is about.
Six seat, single engine, and sporting classic lines, Beechcraft introduced the Bonanza back in 1947 and the type has been in continuous production ever since. It is the longest running aircraft line in history according to my reading so far. Although it hasn’t been produced in the numbers of the Cessna 172 series, there are still 17,000 Bonanza’s that have flown off the production line since its introduction. Not a small number!
The type proved popular and it was designed to be an airplane that returning war vets might find appealing after spending time in combat aircraft like the P-51 Mustang. The v-tail design just helps cement that forward looking appeal.
Visuals & sounds
Every time I review a Carenado aircraft I say roughly the same thing. My first impressions of the visuals in with the Bonanza V35 is that they are outstanding. Almost indistinguishable from the real thing, Carenado’s artists have once again knocked it out the park both inside and out.
I still need to have a close inspection of some of the fine details but I can say that on first inspection that this is a beautiful aircraft.
The sound is a typical Carenado effort. It’s good and it has all of those extra airframe squeaks and tire squeals that I’ve come to expect from them. The engine noise is adequate but never fully pleasing as it continues to have that slight drone feeling to it. Still, I’ve taken some of their other types on long distance runs and it usually fades into the background.
Flying it (so far)
So far I’ve done a few circuits and a longer distance cruise from Catalina island to Los Angeles and back. It was very well behaved in my experience although I haven’t put it into more extreme circumstances.
Takeoff was easily managed with just a little counter rudder needed to keep things going true. Turns are, as I’ve read in pilot notes, very well coordinated on their own with little or no rudder really needed. That’s the advantage of the V-tail evidently!
This airplane has a GNS530 paired with a semi-modern autopilot system. There’s a transponder and all of the other usual features that you’d want to have in a cross country aircraft. You can absolutely take this airplane on one of those long distance journeys without issue and you’ll do it at speed with 160 knots indicated kicking in without effort. It might just replace the Beech 18 on my US cross country tour.
Landing was similarly relatively good although I did not anticipate the speed loss when I kicked in the landing flaps and I nearly bought it on landing. Note to self to keep the speed and power up a bit!
I also was so carried away looking at the airplane that I forgot to switch the fuel tank and I nearly crashed it until I found the fuel lever and switched to the right tank. Again, oops, and note to self. Bad habits and all!
I haven’t done stall testing or crosswind landings or anything like that yet so more to come there.
Final thoughts
This is, clearly, like the other Carenado/Asobo collaborations a quality product being sold for a very cheap price relative to other items out there. While Carenado products on their own pack in a few more features (like a tablet, static ground objects, tie downs, etc.) they also end up running for about twice the price.
Here we have a quality looking product with absolutely top notch visuals, decent flight model and useful avionics. The classic V-tail look and older classic style avionics makes this stand out from the default Bonanza G36 version already in the sim.
I like it! I’ll be flying it some more before writing up the full review! If you want it right now, visit the Marketplace and pick it up for $15.99 USD.
Stormbirds 
Knew a guy who had a V35. One of the really nice things about the Bonanaza was it apparently had great grass field handling.
As I understand it, it was really initially intended as a business plane, and they expected it would be going into grass runways on a pretty regular basis, and designed for it.
I gather the Cessnas are not nearly as happy on grass.
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Also, I’m buying this as soon as I get back toy desktop. The steam gauge Bonanza is the FS2020 plane I’ve been waiting most for.
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You won’t be disappointed. It’s a very good if not excellent GA aircraft in my first experiences with it! Especially for the price.
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Super interesting!
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And I was initially thinking of streaming it, but I just realized I can listen to Wondrium lectures while flying, which will be awesome.
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My dad had one actually this exact model so I’m thinking of looking into a paint kit for this one. His experience was thst it was not very stable on the roll axis absent auto pilot. Very stable in pitch but not in roll.. maybe something to do with the tail. This is in comparison to cessna which when trimmed can basically be left alone. Was demanding on pilot compared to cessna 177. Had to always be ahead of the aircraft. There was some other peculiarity about tge fuel tanks where if you were not paying attention the shift in cg would cause you to overspeed for get if thst was a general thing or something that happened in a particular case.
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Thanks Mike for some really interesting comments. I am curious to see if any of that is modeled here. More testing is required although so far it feels pretty benign. I’m not sure if its a lack of modeling or just that I’m used to aircraft that are even less well behaved 🙂
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the full story is this: cog is a big thing in the aircraft. The aft center of gravity is very sensitive at full loading as far as the aft limit of cog went. If you were at full fuel and full cargo (human or otherwise) you could put the cog out of limits by burning fuel. He was worried about it so much that they removed the jump seat in the very rear. I messed around with it last night and cog doesn’t seem to be modeled where the aft limit changes much. it did seem to roll quite a bit. it felt a bit eerie flying it. back then were didnt have the glass cockpits and such so there were just nav and com radios and maybe a weather radar, but not an integrated multifunction display. not sure where i got the inadvertent dive thing from except that maybe a plane in trim got nose heavy one time due to the selected fuel tanks.
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It’s a gorgeous-looking plane and I love the V tail, it’s very clever and works well.
I had the X-Plane 10 version with Reality Expansion Pack. It was already an old Carenado model by then but it was very fun to fly, unfortunately it was sold by FSPilotShop which went under (perhaps I should try and contact Carenado about updates).
I saw one here in Europe, it was surprising because it had an US tail number and it was at a small grass airfield, so I suppose either someone had to regularly ferry it back there for airworthiness inspection, or its owner is from the US and decided to make a big trip over the Atlantic and preferred small airfields. The idea of such a long oversea trip with a single engine is a bit scary.
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If you’re a sucker for classic GA aircraft, do yourself a favor and get the MilViz C310.
Though I have their other (excellent) addons in MSFS (& P3D), I hadn’t been particularly interested since I’ve got to save my “sucker money” for military aircraft 😉
But I’ve been aware of it’s stellar reviews, etc., and after watching their latest “state of the company” stream on Twitch (T-38C is flying in sim!), I decided to go ahead and get it.
Two words: Fan.Tastic!
My Carenado itch is still being scratched by the Cessna 337 🙂
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Yes, the C310 is on my radar too. I’ve got a bit of a backlog built up but at some point I will probably have to check it out!
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