Leonardo C-27 J Spartan XP12 (2024)

An easy-flying, really nice airplane and a great medium cargo hauler!

I took it out for a quick test and fully enjoyed the way it handled.

Test conditions: Calm winds, daylight.

The engines spooled up nicely at brake release and the aircraft was easy to control down the runway, lifting off smoothly (no flaps) at just over 100 kts.

Retracted the gear and just moseyed around a bit to check the handling, which was also nice and smooth. Then climbed up to 10,000 ft to check a few things.

I leveled at 10K, applied full power, and then sat back and played with the autopilot while the aircraft slowly accelerated. I managed to activate altitude hold, but wasn't able to get the autopilot to follow the heading bug I'd set. Now, I didn't play with the AP too much, so I may have missed something. I ended up using the wing leveler, which held altitude fine, but for some reason kept wanting to force a gentle turn. I disconnected the AP, leveled again, and got it to stay relatively wings level, but it did hold altitude pretty well. That's about all I did with the AP.

One other autopilot note: Disconnecting the autopilot was not as easy as I'd expected. Normally, any change to pitch trim automatically kicks-off the AP---but it doesn't in this model. To disengage it, I had to push the big panel button---which did work.

It took many minutes before reaching Vmax (clean configuration) of about 325 kts, which is exactly what several sources indicated Vmax should be. Those same sources indicated a cruise speed of 315 kts, although another source indicated cruise of 290 kts. I think I'd cruise around 300 kts and leave just a bit of wiggle-room for some extra speed, if needed.

I then did some stall tests, both in clean and in landing configuration. Again, the aircraft was quite impressive. In clean configuration (gear and flaps up), power at idle, and maintaining altitude while airspeed dropped, the aircraft entered a sink rate at around 105 kts, which again was consistent with several sources. In repeated tests, the aircraft never fell-off or "broke," but did wallow a lot. Adding a bit of power made for easy recovery.

In landing configuration (gear down, full flaps), the aircraft again entered sink rate right around 60 kts, which is quite impressive. Although the aircraft did not exactly fall off, I managed to get the speed down to around 55 kts, but at that speed did not have enough control effectiveness to reverse the increasing wallow. By a little experimentation, I found that slow flight at around 65 kts (with lots of power) was quite doable, and did a few level turns at that speed in both directions just to be sure.

Coming back to land, I found the aircraft easy to land, and quite comfortable at that. I started out with a no-flap approach at 120 kts, and the aircraft responded quite well and landed smoothly.

I went around and then did a full flap approach at 100 kts and that worked out just about as nice.

I also found out, quite by accident, that the props go into reverse pitch when you apply the brakes after touchdown (I used the "b" key on the keypad). I wasn't expecting that. After my first landing, I came to a full stop, then attempred to takeoff again and found that as I applied power, I started going backwards, and I didn't recall doing anyrthing to make that happen. I looked around for a prop control but didn't find one----so used the keyboard command ("Shift-/") to toggle "thrust reverse," which immediately got me moving forward again.

Another cool thing modeled here is that if you get going backwards too fast and then hit the brakes, the aircraft will rock back, pretty much like you'd have to be careful of in real life.

Just to be sure, when I made the next landing I applied the brakes after touchdown (with throttle at idle) when I was still going about 60 kts (using the "b" key), waited a moment, and then applied power, and the aircraft noticeably slowed with the application of power, and after it came to rest, it then started backing. I don't know how the real C-27J works in this regard, but it sure is interesting.

Anyhow, this aircraft was a joy to fly. I need to go back and play with the autopilot and avionics .

Many thanks!

Leonardo C-27 J Spartan XP12 (2024)

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