A lot of folks in the MSFS community have been talking about FlightFX’s latest aircraft release. The Piaggio P.180 is a twin-engine turboprop executive aircraft and it has quite a unique look about it, and if you’ve ever witnessed one flying past, quite a unique sound about it too. The combination of looks and performance have a lot of people interested and the reputation of FlightFX certainly helps too. I thought I should check it out for myself so here are my first impressions up ahead of a flight journal or two and a full review.

Stylishly fantastic

It didn’t take much convincing to part with $25 USD to buy FlightFX’s latest project. The Marwan Gharib’s HJet is a really well done very light business jet experience and their SF50 VisonJet project is so well regarded that it made its way into MSFS 2024 as an included airplane (note to self: must fly that one soon!).

The P.180 is of course quite a unique airplane in and of itself. The twin turboprop powered airplane is setup in a pusher configuration with canards up front, slender wings at the back, and a T-Tail all tied together with a beautiful series of curves from the nose all the way to the back. Not too many planes look like the P.180 nor to many perform like it.

A 400 knot maximum cruise speed, 41,000 foot ceiling, and 1,500 nautical mile range with room for four passengers is quite a remarkable aircraft. It performs similarly to a business jet while benefiting from the efficiency of turboprop engines. Not a bad combination.

Standout features

FlightFX have done some great work in the past but did it carry through with their latest project? First impressions suggest that this is very much the case.

I can already tell you that the sound work is really good, the visuals are excellent and I already have a good feeling about many of the systems and their depth and detail. There are also some fun extras that help make the P.180 interesting to operate.

I love the EFB that the team have included. It has a small number of features that include practical ones like a panel state changer and fun options like the ability to configure the cabin and add objects to it…like a pizza box and some drinks! Yes! I love that sort of thing. They’ve also put a post-it note NOTAM with some helpful reminders about a few quirks of the P.180 in-case you get stumped. The post-it can be clicked and removed but when you’re just starting out… it’s a helpful hint and a great way to communicate a common sticking point with users. Smart.

The cabin area is fully interactive too with drawers that open and close and the lavatory has a seat that goes up and down, privacy door, and so forth. However, no flushing toilet option! Hah!

You can tell that the FlightFX team had a lot of fun putting this one together and I appreciate that. Doing this kind of work isn’t easy but if you can get to a point where some quirky and fun personality shows through and its paired with what appears to be a top notch product… it just makes everything that much better.

Quick and high

Something that I immediately appreciated on my initial flight out of Gisborne, New Zealand was the performance. The P.180 climbs quickly and it goes really fast for a turboprop airplane. That performance gives it the ability to reach FL410 if it needs to which is business jet territory and an unusual ability for many turboprops.

The airplane seems very responsive to controls too. Not enough stick time to get to know the quirks but its definitely a fun one right from the throttle up to takeoff sequence. A bit of a rush!

Yes, MSFS 2020 for now and 2024 later

We’re living in a bit of a limbo world right now between the end of MSFS 2020 and the beginning of MSFS 2024. I figured by now we might have seen the last few 2020 releases and full steam ahead on 2024, however, its clear that the new sim needs more time to develop and the developers need more time to port their projects over.

FlightFX have decided to release the P.180 for MSFS 2020 first with the project being available in the Marketplace of 2020. They have made the project 2024 compatible and so after purchase it should show up in 2024, however, they report via their Discord that a 2024 native update is also on the way and should be coming relatively soon.

Everything that you see in screenshots for this was taken in the older sim.

Full review coming later

I’ll be cooking up some more content with the P.180 soon. The aircraft is a lot of fun and its well put together! Still, it takes time to really get to know a project and so I intend to put the P.180 through its paces before delivering a review.

Stay tuned for that!

Learn more about the P.180

Check out the FlightFX website and learn more about the P.180 as well as the many other projects that the team are working on. They have amassed a solid team and some excellent released products as well as a promising list of future products… this will be a group to watch closely!