The latest warbird from FlyingIron Simulations has been out for a few weeks now and I’ve been having a blast flying it around the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s the Würger, the Butcher bird, the Shrike, the Fw190A-8. This is my full review of the aircraft.

Disclaimer

FlyingIron Simulations sent me the Fw190A-8 in exchange for a review of the aircraft. As always with these arrangements, I like to remind the audience that my opinions are my own and that FlyingIron Simulations is reading this review at the same time as you are.

A bit of history

World War II aviation history enthusiasts know that Focke-Wulf’s Fw190 series was one of two successful single seat, single engine fighter series employed by the Luftwaffe during the war. While the Bf109 had a sleek and slender profile, the Fw190 was easily recognizable by its stubby nose and radial engine configuration. That formula would be more or less unchanged through the A or Anton series before beginning to diverge somewhat with the later models. That’s a story for another day.

Designed by Kurt Tank for Focke-Wulf, earlier versions of the aircraft were intended purely as a fighter-interceptor but operational requirements and the increased threat of the American daylight bombing campaign pushed the Luftwaffe to adapt its fighter wings to confront the threat and the Fw190A-8 is one of the representative models of a late 1943 to mid 1944 time period. With increased protection for the pilot, heavier armament in the nose, and conversion kits for bomber destroyer and fighter-bomber setups, the Fw190A-8 lost a little of its famously sharp handling in favour of a more capability. This is the variant that FlyingIron Simulations has chosen to represent in Microsoft Flight Simulator and its a good one as the A-8 is the best represented in the modern day at airshow circuits with both original and replica models often representing this variant.

Visuals and sounds

Straight off the bat, this is a top tier aircraft visually and you’ll be hard pressed to find better work in the sim in this category. FlyingIron Simulations are experts at visually crafting aircraft in this medium and that work shows in virtually every place that you look on this warbird. The wings, antenna, gun ports and barrels, landing gear, radial engine, trim tabs, tail wheel and propeller are all exquisitely modeled.

You can get very close to this aircraft before noticing any of the usual polygonal edges and all of the decals on the aircraft appear to use MSFS’ well worn vector system which means that they retain their sharpness even extremely close up. I was particularly impressed with the attention to detail on the underside of the airplane and around the engine where even the small shutters open up to reveal plenty of detail inside the engine housing.

The animation work on the exterior is also great. The gear retraction and extension is great, aileron and elevator controls are beautifully done, and the animations have some physical properties too with a bit of flutter on the controls at higher speeds. Nice attention to detail there. Of course the whole airplane shakes with that massive BMW radial up front.

The aircraft has 14 liveries available all which are historic representations including the bright red USAAF and camo scheme RAF options.

The interior is also equally impressive. I’m really to declare this the best looking Fw190A cockpit that I’ve seen and after 20-years of warbird flying in a bunch of different sims and what probably amounts to hundreds or even a thousand plus hours in Focke Wulf simulations… this one just hits all the right notes for me. Its got the same kind of texture resolution that you see from the DCS Fw190A-8 but the colour and materials are just a little bit better than that one in my humble opinion.

Once again, animations here are extremely well done. Everything moves, opens and closes smoothly. Even the fuse panels and their associated poppable fuses feel better than the average.

Lighting is also well done with a carefully setup UV lighting system which looks great at night. The Fw190 was rarely employed at night but it is flyable in those situations.

Moving over to sounds, FlyingIron Simulations have done a complete soundset for the aircraft. I think it sounds really good and it has a radial engine clatter that you don’t always find with simulated aircraft. At first I was a little uncertain of the sound inside the cockpit as it really clatters away… but I’ve grown to appreciate it. It’s a little more uneven than the DCS and IL-2 versions and I don’t know if that’s an artistic choice or one driven by real world sound recordings. It’s not bad, just a little different. It does appropriately ramp up in volume as you give the engine power and you will hear the second stage supercharger cut in which is a little disconcerting at times but it’s certainly a realistic consideration.

Other noises including the gear and flaps are appropriately done. I would suggest that maybe the starter system could use a tiny bit more volume to be heard as it revvs up before initiating the engine start. I think that one is a little quiet and ideally you should be able to hear it as it gets up to the appropriate RPM without needing the tool tip to tell you that its high enough. A minor complaint in an otherwise excellent sound set.

Features

FlyingIron have packed a lot of features into the Fw190A-8. A detailed flight model has been created, reportedly with the help of experts on the Fw190 and experts on the BMW 801 engine. Custom coding is in place for places where MSFS falls short and that includes their own detailed modeling of fuel, hydraulic, and electrical systems. Electrical modeling goes down to the level of modeling each individual light bulb and system power draw. Neat!

That all comes together in an optional reliability and realism setting where running the engine at too high a power level will damage the engine. Its something that FlyingIron Simulations has been putting into all of their MSFS warbirds, including their heavily upgraded Spitfire IX, and its here too.

There are a bunch of options included in the aircraft. You can choose to use a MSFS pilot or a FlyingIron authentic WWII pilot, you can choose to have the gunsight or replace it with a GNS530 GPS (something that a lot of warbirds have in modern times), you can choose to use FlyingIron’s custom tailwheel model or use a simplified MSFS version, and you can use a reliability system that requires occasional maintenance as you fly your warbird. Finally, you can also optionally fit a jettisonable external fuel tank.

All of these options are managed through a custom tablet interface that hides away nicely in the cockpit when you don’t need it. The tablet is excellent offering up all of those features plus telemetry data, engine status, as well as a simplified autopilot system that lets you take the Fw190 on long cross country hauls and still be able to step away from your sim rig for a little while as needed. I always appreciate that nod to sim flyers.

Is there anything more that FlyingIron Simulations could add to the feature list? There’s not much that’s left on the table here but if there was a desire for more I would say that I’d be great to see the optional gunpods, rocket pods, as well as SC50 and SC500 bomb loadouts. They wouldn’t add much to the experience in a sim like MSFS but that’s pretty much the only thing “missing” from the experience. It’s otherwise a thorough representation of the Fw190A.

Flying the airplane

There’s an awful lot to master here with this warbird and generally speaking that’s why you buy a warbird in a civil aviation sim. The Fw190 is a but of an untamed beast at times with excellent flight character overall but with a few quirks that can catch you out in ways that you won’t get in a Cessna or something similarly more tame.

For example, on engine start, if the wheel chocks (i.e. parking brake) aren’t set, you’ll have to hold the brakes yourself because otherwise the airplane will lurch forward on the explosive thrust alone. Love that!

Tail wheel handling here is very good. FlyingIron invested in custom code a few projects ago and have it well implemented in the Focke Wulf. A little dancing on the rudder is needed to keep things steady and stable. Its not as difficult as the DCS or IL-2 version so I think there’s a limit to the fidelity here but its still among the best handling in MSFS. The full back stick tailwheel lock, a Fw190 feature, also works here which is terrific and requires a bit of getting used to on the takeoff roll.

In flight, the Fw190A-8 behaves mostly as I would expect it to. MSFS 2020 is still somewhat limited here and so there are times where the aircraft feels a little lighter and a bit too responsive versus what we see in IL-2 and DCS. It’s the same feeling as I get between those two other sims and FlyingIron Simulations Spitfire IX. It’s a limitation of the sim and it sounds like MSFS 2024 is going to be better at it than 2020 is so any upgrades there will probably benefit this aircraft.

Those complaints aside, you do get classic Fw190 handling attributes. Stall the aircraft and you’ll get the famous wing stall followed by a hard roll before steadying out. Roll the aircraft sharply left and right or through full rotations and you’ll see just how responsive one of the fastest rolling fighters of WWII can be.

Landing is quite a challenge too with that infamous stall making it a necessity to get stabilized and on speed. The flaps and gear down don’t make the Fw190 much friendlier and the forward view is restricted. But that’s all quite a fun thing to experience in an airplane such as this. It’s why you buy it!

The engine start-up and shut down process does work with a Control+E tap of the button but the start-up procedure isn’t overly difficult once you get through a few of its quirks. The in-game checklist or tablet checklist will help you get through that process.

Final thoughts

The work done by FlyingIron Simulations Fw190A-8 is nothing short of exemplary. Though there remain a few limitations imposed by the sim platform, MSFS still can offer great warbird flying experiences and this is one of the best experiences you can have.

Everything here is done to a high level from the visuals and sounds to the systems depth, custom engine coding, custom tailwheel behavior, and the included tablet with its multitudes of screens and data outputs. A lot of the extra stuff, the stuff that makes the airplane challenging, can be turned off if you want to simplify the experience. However, if you’re chasing that feeling of flying an airplane that is just a little extra like most warbirds are, this feeling is very much captured in the work here.

This is one of the best warbird experiences in Microsoft Flight Simulator. No question!

FlyingIron Simulations Fw190A-8 is available for purchase from their website for $45.00 AUD or approximately $29 USD.

Screenshots