The Piper Navajo |
The Navajo could best be described as a robust workhorse. It is a
satisfying aircraft to fly if flown well, and this durable design serves
operators well. From a pilot's perspective it is a pleasant albeit noisy
aircraft to fly. Flight deck noise levels are quite intrusive at
even moderate power settings and few choose to operate the Navajo without
the use of headsets.
The Navajo is a durable aircraft capable of operating in
and out of even unimproved runways, and a favorite for
charter and corporate flying. It's large cabin, fuel
economy, and visual appeal make it a favorite of pilots
and passengers alike. The Panther conversion increases
climb and cruise performance over the basic Navajo.
Colemill Enterprises of Nashville, Tennessee and it's
conversions to the Panther raised the performance of the
airplane even more. The cowlings and long spinners of
the stock Navajo are replaced with a blunter nacelle
with deeper inlets. New four-blade Hartzell Q-tip
propellers are used from the fatter spinners. The Zip
Tip winglets provide additional lift, more stability,
and reduce yawing effect in rough air. The Colemill
conversion has been well-received by pilots and
passengers.
Aerodynamic improvements and
improved sound insulation, and cabin sealing being two
areas of interest. The basic airframe offered
considerable scope for comfort enhancements especially
as the airframe aged. |
Although it has been out
of production for almost twenty years, the Navajo
remains one of the most sought after twin engine
general aviation designs of all time. It has been the
focus of much attention and design enhancements by third
party remanufactures.
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Several very interesting videos
on several of the Navajo variants
are available here:
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Luxury and Performance |
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While relatively solid on the controls, the Navajo remains responsive if not nimble and is stable throughout the flight envelope. The Navajo is a good IFR platform. |
In the spacious rear cabin (in low density
seating) the noise levels are appreciably lower and not
unpleasant.
Both
the standard cockpit and virtual cockpit are faithful
representations to their real world counterpart down to the smallest
detail. |
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Features |
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Recommend
System Specifications |
While cutting edge add-on aircraft such as
this will "run" on a system with the minimum
specifications outlined by Microsoft for Flight Simulator, the following are minimum guidelines to achieve acceptable
performance:
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Microsoft Flight Simulator X,
Flight Simulator X Steam Edition or Flight Simulator
2004 required
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Pentium or AMD microprocessor or
higher with 2 GHz MHz + speed and 2 MB RAM minimum |
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Windows
10, 8, 7, Vista or XP. 32 or 64
bit. |
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Nvidia or ATI Radeon based 3D accelerator video
card with full antialiasing and T&L lighting capability and a
minimum of 256 MB onboard RAM |
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SoundBlaster Live or equivalent
128-bit DirectX sound device |
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Up-to-date DirectX video and sound drivers |
Obviously, higher end systems with multi-core
processors and 3.0 GHz+ speed
CPU, 2+ GB system RAM and 512+ MB or preferably video RAM will perform
much better.
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