One of the four aircraft released as part of the “Make Good” promise after MSFS 2024’s rocky beginning is the CAP-4 Paulistinha. This aircraft is a thematic pick that connects with the Brazil World Update and in this mini-review I wanted to have a look at the aircraft. Is it worth your time flying it?

A bit of history

There isn’t a lot written online about the CAP-4 so the detailed history of how it came to be is a bit of a mystery to me. The aircraft is an unlicensed copy of the original Taylor Aircraft Company E-2 Cub with Brazilian aircraft company Empresa Aeronáutica Ypiranga taking on the design and manufacture of the locally produced aircraft.

With World War II in full swing and aircraft needed for training, the CAP-4 now being produced by the Paulista Aeronautical Company, saw high numbers produced reaching somewhere between 800 and 1,100 (sources vary).

Like the E-2 Cub that it’s based on, the CAP-4 is a very simple and robust airplane and well suited to training pilots. During the time period, Brazil had joined into WWII on the side of the Allies (being a key provider of supplies to the US industrial base) and many wartime pilots would go on to fly the P-47. Some in combat.

Visuals and sounds

Some aircraft that iniBuilds does are detailed works of art and others are pretty good and this is on the pretty good scale. It’s not bad at all but rather quite a simple creation with some limited weathering and wear in the cockpit but otherwise a very clean and simple presentation.

Everything in the cockpit is sharp and easily readable. The fun part about the visuals on the interior are the custom gauges and the usage of Portuguese for some of the instrumentation.

The exterior is very clean, again maybe too clean, but is otherwise sharp and well done. I wish the engine panel could be flipped up to have a look at it in walk-around mode as there isn’t much else to do aside from remove the pitot tube cover and inspect the wheels, ailerons, elevator and rudder.

In some instances, custom littering is clipped on the port side of the airplane while the starboard side is fine.

Several liveries with a Brazilian Air Force scheme and several civil schemes in blue, red, and yellow offer some interest.

Sounds are very average with this. The start-up and running sounds blending together well. There aren’t really any custom sounds to be found and there’s no creaking or groaning that you might expect on some slightly higher end experiences. It’s still good but nothing outstanding.

Systems and features

The CAP-4 is among the most basic airplanes out there. For the purposes of simulation, iniBuilds have made sure that we’ve got a transponder with a flight level indicator. Everything else is about as basic as it gets. The aircraft doesn’t have lights or even flaps.

None of that is a criticism, the CAP-4 is an incredibly basic airplane. Right back to the 1930s with this and there are virtually no frills on this trainer.

Flying the CAP-4

The place where this aircraft add-on shines is the flying. Though the feature listing for this aircraft is slim, the CAP-4 surely makes use of the same upgraded aerodynamics features that other MSFS 2024 aircraft have.

As a consequence of using the latest technology, the CAP-4 flies remarkably well. Take-off is easily managed with rudder authority kicking in early in the takeoff run and the airplane nose wanders a bit responding positively to rudder inputs to keep it straight.

The aircraft stalls smoothly with an easy recovery with the loss of just a hundred feet or so if quickly countered. Landing and touchdown are also easily done and its a very well behaved tail dragger of an airplane. I remember the early days of MSFS 2020 where tail draggers were very unusual to land and takeoff with different physics kicking in but here things are nice and smooth.

You can screw it up and crash it, which I did (for science!) but usually its not something that will happen unless you’re messing around.

When it comes down to it, this is a purely fun flyer that you take out when you just want to experience a more or less pure experience with flight. No complicated systems or procedures to get in the way, just fly!

Final thoughts

Being free, the CAP-4 doesn’t have to meet any significant value quotient and that’s probably good as this is a really basic airplane with very little in the way of extra features. That’s the nature of a 1930s era trainer airplane and so the value of this is in the fun that it offers.

Fortunately the CAP-4 is quite fun and in a sense it works well in its real world role. If you’re new to MSFS 2024 and you’re looking to learn how to fly a tail dragger (two main gear up front, one tail wheel at the back), this airplane makes the whole process simple and easy with such a basic experience that you can ignore all of the extras of some of the fancier Cub derived bushplanes and just experience flight. So go, experience basic flight and have a bit of fun!

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