Adventures in the Beech Baron B58

The X-Plane simulator's aircraft menu includes a Beech Baron B58A, with which I've been wanting to spend some time. It's a normally-aspirated twin-engine aircraft, so it can't go very high, but it goes a little faster than most of my typical single-engine rides, and if one engine quits, the second engine provides the bonus of a much longer gliding range, which can get you to a more distant alternate airport.

Here's a rear view of the B58 in flight. Many years ago, I checked out in my flying club's B55 Baron, which is a very similar aircraft, with a shorter body than the B58, but I never accumulated the necessary hours in it, to be able to take it out by myself.

I'm somewhat disappointed by the mediocre performance of the autopilot. To be sure, it's a fine old control unit, that can hold a heading, track a VOR radial or GPS course, and hold an altitude or rate of climb or descent. My disappointment is with the way the assigned altitude is set by first stabilizing the aircraft on the desired altitude, then engaging the autopilot ALT mode.

There's no way to specify a desired altitude, and have the autopilot climb or descend to that altitude. It's also very disconcerting when engaging the autopilot during a climb, and trying to get it to stabilize on a specific climb rate, as it has a tendency to porpoise all around for the first few minutes, as it over-controls the climb and descent rates. This not something that inspires confidence in the unit, when climbing toward high craggy mountains in the late afternoon shadows. 

X-Plane allows me to setup a few quick-view keys on the numeric keypad. This is my favorite view for just flying along, and being able to see most of the instruments at the same time. So this is the Baron's instrument panel. Mostly old-fashioned round dials and gauges, but with a nice Garmin 540 GPS unit in the center radio stack. That single addition makes such a huge difference, in positional awareness. I learned to use the Garmin GNS430 and GNS530 units many years ago, after they started showing up in our flying club airplanes. I was excited to find that Garmin had made a GNS430 software simulator available, and that helped me immensely with learning to use it, while not under pressure of completing a flight safely.

This view allows me a closer look at the primary flight instruments, and still see the GPS moving map display.

This is my favorite view for landing. With the instrument panel lowered, it gives me the best view over the nose, while still letting me see the most important flight instruments.

This view lets me see the autopilot control panel, while still showing me the primary flight instruments, so I can keep the plane rightside-up while messing with the autopilot settings. There's no view outside, so the idea is to only be looking at this view for a short time.

This view gives me the best access to all the radios, with everything large enough to clearly read and change settings. The tradeoff is having no view outside, so I can't spend much time on this view, unless I'm sitting on the ground.

This view gives me the best perspective on the entire cockpit, including engine control levers, the three trim wheels, and even the cowl flap levers that are barely visible in front of the seats. Again, there's no view outside here, so it's only useful for a quick look at something I can't see otherwise.