Say you really like flying the Cessna 152 in Microsoft Flight Simulator. You love small GA airplanes from Cessna but you’ve flown it for hundreds of hours and you’re looking for something that fits into the same niche but does things a little differently. Enter the Cockspur C162 which simulates Cessna’s light sport aircraft entry into the modern aircraft market. Let’s talk about the aircraft, the simulation, and why you might find this interesting.

Disclaimer

During FSExpo I got a chance to meet with Cockspur Simulations and as a result they hooked me up with some of their products. As always, when someone gives me something I like to provide a disclaimer that the review will always be my take on the product without any editorial from the developers/publishers of said product.

A bit of history

The Cessna 162 was meant to be Cessna’s entry into the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) category that became popular in the early 2000s. Cessna designed the new type in 2006 with the first flight occurring in October of that year. Intended to be a simple yet robust aircraft ideal for training and private ownership, Cessna initially secured 1,000 orders for the type. But things went downhill from there.

A series of issues and two prototype crashes during spin testing soured interest. Ultimately, only 192 were sold of a total production run of 275. Not the hit that Cessna was hoping for with the airplane. Criticism ranged from the being considered too expensive and not high performance enough to compete with other LSA category aircraft. Cessna also received backlash for outsourcing the production to Shenyang Aircraft Corporation in China. This, combined with the 2008 economic crisis helped kill the airplane and the Cessna 162 stopped there.

175 Cessna 162 Skycatchers are still flying as of 2022 with the largest concentration being the Rainier Flight Service in Renton, Washington.

Visuals and sounds

The work by Cockspur on the C162 visually is generally very good! The 3D model looks the part and details are consistent throughout with the wheels, ailerons, and other elements all modeled well. The 162 employs a control scheme where the aileron doesn’t always offer a full deflection in roll to prevent adverse yaw and that animation is present here too which is a great little visual as well as flight model detail (more on that later).

There are a few visual quirks that I want to point out. The window shade texture seems to be having some issues with a weird visual quality to them. They actually outright disappear when your mouse over to interact with them as an added quirk.

The exterior model shows off the pilot and copilot but when you’re inside the cockpit the copilot disappears. I kind of miss that, after all, where am I going to put my cat? These are minor issues and on the whole the visuals are good.

The aircraft comes with 12 real world liveries and some dynamic liveries so you can put your own call letters/numbers on the side of the airplane. All of the liveries are good quality and I really like the dynamic ones being an option. More developers need to offer that as a feature! Flying a C162 with Stormbirds lettering on the side of the plane in a thunderstorm feels on brand for me.

The sounds are typical Microsoft Flight Simulator sounds which generally feel fine though I do think the engine start sounds a little quiet to my ears. There’s also only just a light click on the starter key where I tend to prefer something that feels a little more chunky. Flaps and other sounds are also maybe a bit on the quiet side but then maybe that’s how the 162 should sound as a relatively “new” airplane by Cessna standards.

Flying the C162

The Cessna 162 has some interesting character to it and Cockspur have represented that seemingly as best as possible within the constraints of the sim.

I’ve already mentioned that the aircraft has an interesting aileron control scheme where only one aileron control will fully deflect and the other one, on the other side, will only partially deflect. This is to prevent asymmetric yaw states and its both animated and also part of the flight model.

Takeoff in the 162 comes extremely quickly and that comes with it being a light sport airplane. The engine is more than enough to yank it off the runway and up into a 700 fpm climb. That seems to be true to the real life version. In more extreme crosswind scenarios you will get dragged off the runway if you’re not careful so be sure to be aware of or avoid cross wind scenarios. I did test it in some exceptionally stormy weather in the Toronto area (severe thunderstorm watches and warnings in effect) just to see how it would behave and the answer is… it’s a light airplane and it doesn’t like that situation.

The 162 is pretty good at cruising short distances but it’ll require constant correction if you’re in any kind of windy or stormy weather. There is no autopilot so its not a great long distance cruiser but it does make a good sightseeing airplane flying around a city area or somewhere scenic. I don’t think there are any 162s in Ireland but I flew near the Cliffs of Moher in the new World Update and that was a fun experience. I did also fly the aircraft into severe thunderstorms in the Toronto area to get a feel for the lightweight nature of the airplane and yeah… you get bounced around quite a bit.

The elevator is particularly sensitive and the aircraft will pitch up quickly or nose down quickly with slight movements. It does feel a bit too sensitive but again it seems to be a quirk of this small and short airplane so that may be on the nose for how a 162 should feel.

The stall in the 162 is interesting as well. I did some testing on what the stall would be like and found that it stalls at an extremely low speed. Under 40 knots when I was testing it. I thought this unbelievable but its actually just a few knots off of the listed stall speed for the type so pretty close to the real world. The 162 does have a bit of a reputation for spinning when the stall develops so you go from flying to slightly stalled but fully controlled and then into a tumble and a brief spin. Two protoypes were lost in spin trials so its not an aircraft I recommend you spin and the pilot notes for the type recommend the same. Recovery in all cases was quick with just a few hundred feet lost.

Systems

The C162 is a basic aircraft and so you don’t have a lot of controls or avionics to worry about. That makes it pretty good trainer but it does mean that there aren’t a lot of frills. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but rather a statement of what it is.

MSFS has no built in representation of the G300 from Garmin so Cockpsur put in the G3X as a good substitute. That makes a lot of sense to me though the G3X is not always my favourite system as far as glass panels are concerned. Still, its quite functional and you can use it to give you plenty of navigation information. The airplane doesn’t have any analogue back-ups as a light sport airplane.

Cockspur have not used the built in checklist system which is a small mark against. They do make up for it with a cool pull out card that does have a good checklist on it. I like the pull out card feature but I also like to see the checklist system working when building cockpit familiarity – even if the C162 cockpit is dead simple.

Final thoughts

Cockspur have produced a good recreation of the Cessna 162 representing the quirks of this light sport airplane well. It has strong visuals, adequate sound, and a good flight model that seems to mostly match the real one. On the downsides, there are a few minor graphical issues, the sounds are a little quiet, and there aren’t a long list of frills here. It’s a basic, no nonsense, creation of a fairly simple and straightforward airplane and it does a good job of representing that.

You won’t find maintenance or reliability modeling here as you might see on some higher end products but the C162 isn’t aimed in that side of the market so these are fine as omissions.

I do want to talk about price which is €19.99 or about $21.60 USD. It’s a little higher than some of the Asobo/Microsoft released GA types though priced lower than you’d find Black Square, A2A or Just Flight products which are in a different end of the market.

As I stated from the outset, I think the Cockspur C162 is the aircraft for you if you’re preferred type is a Cessna 152 or one of the many light sport airplanes in MSFS. Maybe you’ve grown bored of that type of airplane and you want to try something a little different. This aircraft fills that niche perfectly and it makes for a great little city tourer.

Interested? You can purchase the aircraft right over here on the Cockpsur Simulations website or you can buy it on the MSFS Marketplace.

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