For this flight journal I’m back in the cockpit of SimWorks Studio’s PC-12, freshly updated with a series of fixes, for a short but fun island hop across the Caribbean. This flight was done with MSFS 2020 as the aircraft is slowly making the transition to the new sim and I wanted to try out the PC-12 at its best. Let’s take a look at how it’s flying now!

Updates to the classic turboprop

Released in December of 2023, SimWorks Studios PC-12 is one of their flagship products alongside the excellent Kodiak 100. Post launch, the PC-12 went through a series of updates to try and sort out some of the quirks with the aircraft. There were a few bugs and a few systems related issues but the hardest thing for SWS to deal with was the PC-12’s quirky handling and control system. The aircraft has coupled rudder/ailerons that are supposed to help remove some asymmetric yaw while hand flying the airplane, but it and some other quirks of how the PC-12 responds to power adjustments has had the airplane’s nose sliding around in a slightly disconcerting way.

Fixes to the airplane have also focused on the propeller, of which there is a four and five bladded version, as well as on the turboprop engine with all efforts aimed at improving the accuracy of the simulation.

Have they sorted out all of the problems? I’m leaning towards yes as I recount a recent flight that I did with the aircraft. You can also check out the change log for the product here.

From tiny airport to Caribbean hub! TFFS to TNCM

For this flight I chose to start at Les Saintes Airport (TFFS) located on the island of Terr-de-Haut which is part of the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe. This is a fun custom scenery that was added in the Caribbean World Update and it features a terrific little airport nestled between a couple of hills. The runway is on the short side so it made for an interesting takeoff.

Loaded up with fuel, a small amount of cargo, and full of passengers, I prepared the PC-12 for flight. The PC-12 is not overly difficult to get started and the procedures to do it have more or less been burnt into my brain after flying this airplane a lot over the last year. Despite the earlier challenges with SWS’s PC-12 rendition, its still an excellent add-on and one of those planes that keeps me coming back and I was reminded of why that was as I departed this small airport.

Backtracking on runway 09, I positioned the PC-12 at the end of the runway. Right away I noticed that handling on the ground appears to have been improved. It was difficult to taxi at times before and strides have been made to improve that. Great!

After getting ready to go, I powered up while holding the brakes, released and waited for the PC-12 to pick-up speed. And pick up speed it did climbing into the air with a little bit of runway to spare. Phew!

The next test of handling was to hand fly the next part of the flight. Rolling to the left as I cleared the hills below and admiring the scenery. The coupled aileron and rudder controls does make for some interesting handling characteristics but I was pleased to see the nose moving in a more controlled way. I had previously noted a significant drop or rise in the nose as the aircraft rolled with an uncommanded movement that was seemingly unaffected by rudder input. Now it much more subdued and natural feeling – to this not a PC-12 pilot, not an expert, flight sim blogger anyways!

After that it was time to climb to 30,000 feet. But not before flying through a little bit of weather as we departed to the north. Fortunately it was nothing the PC-12 couldn’t handling and a slight bit of turbulence was all that we experienced.

The cruise up through the islands of the Caribbean to the north went smoothly after that. I haven’t remarked on it just yet in all of this but I wanted to point out too that the systems seem to be working better than ever before. I had issues previously with the mix of avionics systems (and SWS have elected to bring in the PMS50 and TDS GTN750) sometimes not recognizing my flight plan but all seemed well this time and I suspect whatever bugs or gremlins were in the system have been sorted. So too were a few oddities with the start-up procedure… everything went smoothly.

Back to the cruise, the PC-12 does take a bit of time when loaded up to climb to its max cruise altitude and, as it turns out, our short hop up to Princess Juliana International Airport wasn’t quite long enough to get there. Before long we were descending and starting to setup for landing as the island appeared through some low level haze in the distance.

I setup the approach for runway 10 and the autopilot tracked the revised flight path beautifully. There is no ILS on this runway so I wasn’t able to test that but everything else went smoothly.

I disconnected the autopilot and followed the lights in for a smooth landing on Runway 10. No unusual side slipping or uncommanded yaw movements through the whole thing, except when adjusting power, which is very much how the PC-12 flies. Even so, those movements were more subtle than they have been.

After that, I taxiied off the runway and parked the airplane. Doors open and time for the passengers to disembark – presumably happier than after some of my landings recently!

Glad to see it

I’m really glad to see the state of SimWorks Studios PC-12. I will at some point either revise or re-write my review of the airplane as a lot of my issues with it have been resolved or mitigated as much as possible.

Simulating any airplane is a challenge and the PC-12 has some unique combinations of features. It’s while the aircraft is a success commercially in the roles that its found but it also makes for a compelling flight sim experience too as the airplane feels just as at home flying into major hub as it does flying into small and sometimes challenging airports.

The next big steps for the airplane is surely to bring it into MSFS 2024. We know that SWS is working on that. We also know they are working on their own rendition of the PC-12NG series with more modern avionics. It will have to do battle with the included PC-12 from Carenado in MSFS 2024, however, SWS have the potential to bring some premium features to the mix that would make it more compelling and interesting for the marketplace. We’ll have to see how that goes!