u/sssilver

Maybe I'm missing something, but every time I go looking for a decent Cessna 182 Skylane or a 210 Centurion, the answer is always Carenado. Their planes look fantastic, but that's kind of the problem, they're gorgeous on the outside and surprisingly shallow once you actually fly them.

The systems are simulated maybe skin-deep. Failures are basic or nonexistent, the engine modeling doesn't really punish you for abusing it, the electrical and fuel systems are mostly for show, and the flight model feels more "approximate" than authentic. For a payware GA aircraft that's supposed to be your bread-and-butter flying, it just never reaches that study-level depth where you feel like you're actually managing a real airplane.

And the frustrating part is there's no alternative. The 172 has plenty of options, but the moment you step up to a 182, 206, or 210, the field empties out and it's Carenado or nothing. So you're stuck choosing between a pretty model with arcade-ish systems, or not flying that aircraft at all.

Why is this the case? Is it a licensing thing with Textron/Cessna? Is the GA market just too small for a developer to justify the time it takes to build proper study-level systems? Is everyone with the skills to do deep simulation off chasing airliners because that's where the money is? Or are there fantastic options with terrible SEO that I just can't find?