Simon has in the aftermath of MsFlight, ahem, been digging around in FsX over the past few days, so look for some coverage of interesting new developments in the next few days! One thing is certain: MsFlight HAS been axed, and most of the development team let go. What did we say two weeks ago about change being the one constant in this little universe of ours? Well, if MicroSOFT has canned Flight because it wasn’t performing up to expectations ( “as we predicted” ), just what else can this possibly mean other than MicroSOFT has regrouped, recalibrated, and is about to turn our little world upside down once again. Think not? Well then, consider this. They’re simply not going to abandon a genre they created, and that they have constantly refined – for decades. There’s simply too much money to be made, too much is at stake for MicroSOFT’s reputation to ignore. Flight is now a stain on their record, and they’ll simply not let that be the final word on the matter.
Best guess on our end?
Look for an announcement concerning a true successor to FsX…soon, perhaps within weeks but more likely this autumn. It’s either that or they’ll assume a leadership role in mass-marketing a rebranded PrePar3D in cooperation with Lockheed Martin and one or more of the major third party add-on developers. The implications for XP in such a shift could be very interesting indeed. Regardless, whatever begins to take shape in Redmond – you can be sure we’ll be covering these developments closely.
FlightTime56 outlined interesting new developments for beta 5 coming out of the WizardWorks in South Carolina, including some needed changes to cockpit views. Beta 5 is shaping up to be an important one, and for many reasons including those outlined above. How well XP is perceived between now and the vital Christmas holiday season will be crucial to Laminar’s success, but you can take it for granted that once MicroSOFT announces a successor to FsX – assuming they do – all eyes in the flight simulation world will drift away from XP unless these beta updates continue to introduce truly groundbreaking enhancements. Playing catch up to FsX simply won’t cut it, will it?
Getting a core SIM in place that takes full advantage of modern hardware and operating systems has to be a huge priority now. Doesn’t it?
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So, have you heard of The Trident Group? Well, these are the guys behind the Am-X, and they’re involved in a new project that looks well worth taking serious interest in:
Ooh, that wing! We’ll have some new screenshots for you soon, but early word is that after much work these guys have got a good handle on the transsonic flight regime. If this sounds trivial to you, just step back and consider that variable geometry wing, and then think about the implications of all those varied angles to the flight model. This is hard work, and not for newbs.
Okay, let’s look at some other news before I go ballistic! The Tornado is one of the coolest strike fighters ever, and that video has me very interested indeed. So…onward…
- Members of the Airplane Geeks podcast are covering the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis. Benet Wilson from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association joins Scott Spangler fromJetwhine.com and other aviation experts. Peter Moll, the director of the Wittman Regional Airport, discusses how the airport has prepared for AirVenture. Airplane Geeks Podcast
- The Piper Cub celebrated its 75th birthday at the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis. The celebration attracted 181 of the vintage aircraft to an event on Tuesday. “We have never had that many Piper Cubs here on the field at one time, so it’s really cool to see that much yellow,” said H.G Frautschy, executive director of the Vintage Aircraft Association. WLUK-TV (Green Bay, Wis.)
- Michael Huerta, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, visited EAA AirVenture for the first time this week. Huerta says he wants general aviation pilots to be aware of safety. “We all have our routines,” he said. “We just want them to take some time to sit back and ask the question ‘am I doing everything I can to maintain the maximum level of safety?’” General Aviation News
- Ernie Edwards, president of Embraer Executive Jets, said 2012 could turn out to be “a pivotal year to recover market growth” for business jets. Edwards made the comments at the EAA AirVenture on Wednesday. He also announced that the first flight of the Embraer Legacy 500 jet is expected to take place in September. AVweb
- The SocialFlight application can help pilots find airshows and other aviation events near them. “We believe that by providing pilots with a great resource to see all the wonderful events going on around them, they will fly more and strengthen general aviation,” the creators of the free app said. The application is available for download for iPad, iPhone and Android devices.AVweb
- The U.S. National Championships and Great Texas Balloon Race are taking place this week in Texas. Hot-air balloon pilot Bill Bussey encourages people to enjoy the Great Texas Balloon Race over the weekend at East Texas Regional Airport. “Just come out and see it,” Bussey said. “[People] will enjoy it. … The kids will love this thing.” Longview News-Journal (Texas)
- Gulf Coast State College in Florida has partnered with Precision Flight Training to provide a ground-school course. “From this experience you can become a private pilot and fly for your own enjoyment or you can start working on becoming an airline pilot or a military pilot,” said George Rampulla, co-owner of Precision Flight Training. News Herald (Panama City, Fla.)
- A declining pilot population, onerous helicopter regulations, airport funding, user fees, and aircraft flight training privacy issues are some of the top issues general aviation associations have worked on together to protect the community. AOPA Online.
Well, some great new paint for the Leading Edge DC3 out for the weekend, and some seriously interesting new scenery files. Let’s dive in.
Leen de Jager has been focusing on making new liveries for the Leading Edge DC3 over the past few months, and the efforts have been extraordinary indeed, and his latest – for an Air Atlantique 50th Anniversary Dakota – is a serious must have effort. Let’s take a look…
This was not an easy livery to cobble together…even a cursory glance will tell you that. Any time you wrap stripes under the fuselage and get custom logos involved you’re seeing evidence of some serious work, so be prepared to feast your eyes when you get this one!
Leen also tweaks textures, adds new panel colors, even takes on retexturing a few mechanical elements in his DC3 paints. You have to take time with these installations, but getting them right yields interesting dividends.
Well, obviously Leen de Jager continues to make some of the very best paints in XP, but there’s been no doubt about that for some time now, and this file will certainly be of serious interest to DC3 users in the UK. Most highly recommended it is too, as are all Leen’s files.
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Chris K and Dr Ropeless (that sounds like a new punk rock group, doesn’t it?) have got their YSSY Sydney Airport and PhotoScenery out for XP10, and the wait was worth it. If interested, you’ll need to read the warnings at the Org’s DM page on hardware requirements and settings recommendations (and take them bloody seriously too), and just consider right here and now that this is an XP10 only file and the exercise of downloading this one will be pointless if you don’t heed the hardware requirements. 512 Mb cards and higher only, folks – as 256 Mb cards aren’t invited to this party.
I kept objects and detail maxed out here and opened this one with basic res at High, and trying this one at Very High simply drove a nutronium-tipped spear through Godzilla’s heart. Even at High, Peter’s 380 prompted a warning from XP that we were treading along the razor’s edge of a hard crash. Surprised? Well, you shouldn’t be. When you combine a large, hyper detailed airport with a dense cityscape the results are pretty much a foregone conclusion. Adding OSM for the city would be pointless with this file in place – at this point in time anyway.
And this is still a works-in-progress file, too. I’d expect things to get more detailed, and more refined, over the next few weeks or months…but even as is this is a mouth watering file. It has the capability of becoming the next freeware EDDM…and if you’ve been following our posts for a while you know that very few freeware files have earned higher praise than that one. This file truly has so much going for it right now – as is – that there’s no reason not to try it out. Assuming you have the hardware on your end, go for it.
Ramps, static aircraft, the area around the airport – including the cargo ramps and adjacent parking areas – are all so well executed that it’s easy to see this file being payware quality. And the weeds!!!
I’d truly love to be able to use the A380 and with objects and settings so high (look at the exhaust in the 380 image, above), but until I can just note that the default 744 and the EADT x737 both worked very well here, and both have very well executed Qantas liveries available!
Large images below, so have a look-see:
Now, a few night images:
The x737 was fluidly smooth here, and frames were in the high-20s at their lowest – and still with res at High. And once again I’m finding High res to be much better than Very High was before installing MacOS10.8. This is just one more fringe benefit to owning a mountain lion, wot?
So I’m still just exploring this one, and I’ll have more to say over the next few days about the file. Needless to say, a conditional recommendation at this point. If you don’t have the hardware, so sorry. Just remember there are other YSSY airports made for v9 that work decently in 10, and think about an upgrade if you can. If you do have the hardware, this is a most highly recommended file. Period.
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anthony d’s EGPD + Aberdeen Dyce is a handy revision that now includes a fair amount of OSM derived building data, and the area around the airport is much improved as a result.
Just keep in mind that as the surrounding cityscape is relatively small that performance is excellent, and so we’ll recommend you add this one to your growing collection of Scottish airports in XP10.
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teacher’s KCVG + Cincinnati International Airport is an MsFS conversion (Daniel French’s FsX file) that works quite well in many regards but that falls short when working up close to the gates. Still, this is a most important hub in the Delta network and having this one in your Custom Scenery folder outweighs almost all other considerations. There’ve been a few other attempts here, all for v9 and earlier, but until someone tries a Lego-Brick version you might as well try it and see if you like or need it.
Terminals are quite stretched and blurry, there are no Jetways, ramps are barely marked at I don’t think they’re mapped for AI a/c, but still as you can see below the airport works from a distance. We can just recommend this one, but you’ll only want this one if you can live with these limitations.
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Another worthwhile revision to consider this weekend: chris noe’s Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon.
Hard to imagine just how much MacOS10.8 has helped out on the rendering chores, but looking this latest revision over and comparing images made last week to this one are instructive. The wires that hang over or in front of the face of the dam and that are seen from even a few thousand feet above the river are now resolved clearly. Before they weren’t, and this was with res at Very High. Now, with res at High, the wires are cleanly resolved.
Large images here and worth a close look, so click to enlarge.
I think this file is just glorious, and though for use in XP10 only it’s files like these that add real depth to the experience of using a SIM in the first place. Mount Rushmore, anyone?
Well, it’s a most highly recommended file, and we’re done for the day. Y’all have fun with the rest of your weekend, and we’ll seeya soon. Hasta later – C
“There’s simply too much money to be made, too much is at stake for MicroSOFT’s reputation to ignore”
But is that really true…? I keep getting the feeling that most of us WAY overestimate the financial importance of the Flight Sim series to Microsoft. Microsoft is a massively huge company. How many copies of FSX ever sold? I doubt we’ll ever know, but I also doubt it’s any comparison to, say, the Halo series.
My guess is that Flight’s cancellation was the result of crunching the numbers and realizing that there’s just not much financial return on investment. Just like when they canned the ACES team (and ended the Flight Sim series) back in ’06. It just doesn’t make that much money.
According to sales figures for FSX during ’06 and ’07 it had sold an estimated 270,000 copies for the combined 2 years, even for a PC title those numbers aren’t very good. Just to put things into perspective, Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million copies in it’s first 24 hours. Considering we are in a recession, Microsoft is clearly not in the business of subsidizing our hobby.
As for Prepar3D, it’s not a guaranteed thing. Microsoft still owns the Intellectual Rights, therefore they are the ones who dictate licensing terms. Furthermore, we do not know how committed Lockheed Martin is to Prepar3D. After all they are in the business of making Fighter Jets for the US military, not game software. If they determine it’s not worth their time then Prepar3d could easily be nixed.
Yet with all that being said, Microsoft still stepped into our playing field. In response, we looked that gift horse directly in the mouth and walked away. Few, if any major players will give our self important little niche a second glance again.
Slight correction: the ACES team was shut down in ’09, not ’06.
My $.02… it’s pessimistic, but I think realistic:
I sympathize with the idea that Laminar needs a fire lit under its collective butt, from outside competition. But it isn’t going to happen with FSX or P3D rising gloriously from the ashes.
Microsoft is in the middle of a battle with the other major players for the future of domestic TV distribution and social media, while trying desperately to hang on to their legacy corporate cash cow with Office. There is no desire to “continue a legacy” in the tiny niche market of flight simulation, or else Flight would have been given more than a paltry year of funding before dropping the axe.
Windows 8 will be an attempt to leverage the OS into Microsoft’s version of the Apple app store for “entertainment software.” There were hints of that in Flight. You think a successor to FSX will fit comfortably on a cell phone? That’s the future of gaming on Windows.
Lockheed Martin is going to be dealing with massive cuts in defense contracting after the wind-down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the continuing stagnation of the global economy. P3D may continue to develop, slowly, in the direction Lockheed wants it to, as a dry and serious trainer with the legacy code base. That’s not what the FS community is really looking for, but it will prolong the agony until MS finally releases an OS version that can’t run the old code. Or advances in CPU/GPU speed just make every other contender look and fly so much better that there’s no reason to hang on to the old platform.
X-Plane isn’t perfect, but I think it has the right combination of small team, independent funding, and multi-OS support to be the main civilian sim platform going forward. I’d love to see some competition, but it won’t come from dinosaurs like MS or Lockheed.
I agree with Parafin, MS is not going to spend any money developing a flight simulation just to please a legacy audience that doesnt make them much money. If they spend any money on flight sims at all( and I doubt they will) it will be towards the X-box. They are far to busy competing with apple over Tablets, smartphones and OS’s to worry about a flying game for a few die hard fans. X-plane needs compition, but It wont come from MS. Maybe DCS world will branch into civil simulation, but thats the only thing I see on the horizon that might be a player down the road.
Echoing the above comments – Microsoft has a lot else to worry about beyond flight sims, not least it’s financial loss and ability to pivot and respond to market threats in mobile, tablet, cloud services etc. On the other hand, Laminar really doesn’t have that much to worry about. It’s essentially a very successful niche home business primarily designed to support the lifestyle of one indidual. I doubt it carries any debt. When all is said and done there seems to be little interest in scaling the business, instead it relies on a loyal purchase base, iterative improvement and technology obscelescence to provide predictable sales.
This is just a fleeting thought, and so may be largely unfounded; but allow me to make an analogy (or rather project my understanding of RW onto the Sim realm)…
Aviation isn’t cheap.
Ground school, flight school, and all that training adds up fast. Sure it costs less than a college degree, but for what? So you can make barely $40k(USD)/yr flying a Q400 for Comair, only getting paid when the doors are closed and the engine is running, getting penalized for WX delays, etc…, sharing a “crash pad”? How about making a couple hundred dollars (after expenses) shuttling fresh seafood from port, inland?
Aviation pays if you are one of the relatively few who land a sweet gig flying around a corporate jet, or arduously work your way to the very narrow top of the ATP pyramid and fly trans-oceanic routes in the Triple Seven.
Pilots are smart.
Pilots, traditionally, are quite good at math. They must estimate TOD based on ground speed and time to IAF; fuel consumption and endurance based on weight and balance, wind correction angles, and god knows what else. Sure the POH has charts and the knee board has the E6B, and if you can afford it, some nice avionic can help. Much of the advance planning must be refined in the pilot’s head once (s)he get vectored around some traffic or WX.
The point is pilots are not fools who think they are making a mint, when they are sometimes overworked and underpaid.
I think it’s about the love of flying. The wonderful burn in the nostrils from Jet-A. The cool mornings when the ramps are still wet with dawn just barely beginning to break and the dew is heavy on the windshield. Hearing the rumble of prop as it accelerates to 1800 rpm, beating the air into submission. The pre-flight checklist replays in the head like a familiar tune, like the chorus of an old hymn, the same each time; but the pre-flight briefing, the weather and the flight plan, like the verses of the hymn, different each time.
It’s about the rumble of the gear on the runway beneath you, followed by the thump of the gear when they retract. There’s nothing left when you’re flying solo. It’s just you, alone, like the sun, rising up and beginning its course though the sky. The sun, casting it’s light; you casting a shadow. Watching your shadow vibrate and flutter as it transits the landscape below.
It’s about watching the hazy mist in the distance, and watching the cities, prairies, farms and woods emerge from that distal veil, as though you are now stationary and it is the world rotating beneath you, presenting its wonders to you, one at a time, in proper order. The ever higher sun reflecting flashes of light as you sail over the lakes and streams below, as though it were signaling you. Perhaps it is jealous. The sun’s flight plan varies little; but you can go wherever you please.
It’s the sound of the flaps extending and the turbulence that causes. It’s the anticipation of the changes in lift and airspeed — the bounce. It’s the joy of getting to the right place, at the right time, at the right altitude with the right speed, and seeing runway, the destination before you. Laid out in perspective, white over red. Ever nearer. The gear extend and you can feel the drag. It’s the smooth, perfect landing. The sun sets.
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Our thoughts are still with you and your fam, Chip.
The implication being, just as in RW, *good* sim aviation is a labor of love.
Jeff, your analogy stands. Flight is about, I think, passion. Not unlike medicine or playing the piano or violin. Boring down the runway in a twin for the first time, feeling lift build and the transition to flight in your gut is a powerful moment for some people, but I understand that to others it’s a nonevent, an aircraft is simply mechanical contrivance doing it’s thing. Those who know, know, and it’s fair to say those who can’t relate after living through the experience never will. Looking over the comments today I feel a little saddened, and I think because for some reason the real magic of flight has in a way dissipated over time and as simulations in general have taken on a life of their own…and a new kind of reality has been created…for some. Not unlike kids who have been shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan, their minds almost programmed by role playing video games, after a full dose of close combat “reality” in a firefight many of these kids are simply falling apart under the full weight of their misconceptions.
Flight SIMs are, due to their very natures, the ultimate antithesis of “instant gratification”, but we’re living in an age where almost every paradigm is being reshaped by this ethos. Yet yesterday I read about pilot shortages within a few years once again, and only this morning about a looming shortage of physicians in this country, so what’s going on? It’s now almost impossible to find public schools with thriving music programs that aren’t in some way tied to athletic programs. Piano? Violin? (Well, I studied the viola…) What is going on? Are we raising entire generations of children to be in effect unable to concentrate on these kinds of endeavors without soaking them in chemicals designed to ward off ADD or ADHD?
And isn’t this trend in a more than direct way tied to the decline of flight simulation as an avenue for learning and, yes, entertainment?
If, as some as these comments would seem to imply, flight sims are a dying breed, a tiny niche market not worth being developed and marketed for, then I fear we have a good deal more to worry about than where our next ACF is coming from. And if further development continues to be focused on exploiting the paradigm of instant gratification? Well, we’ll reap what we sow, won’t we?
Maybe that’s why getting the word out about XP and Flight and FsX and whatever comes along next (well, it could happen!) is a big deal. Maybe that’s why we need to foster the curiosity and development of each kid who shows up in our forums, and not belittle them for perceived ignorance.
Thanks for your post, BTW. It means a lot to hear from someone who “gets it”.
C
when is the tornado coming out?
any progress on the Torndao, this is the same video posted months ago about this project?
It will come eventually… it doesn’t come out over night…
well posting the same video with no progress status seems silly. eventually in the xplane world usually means extended delay.
Chris, we’ve been in touch with one of the principals the past week, and there’s been good progress. We don’t have much more news we can tell you right now, other than the team feels the progress made on the flight model has gone well.
well thats at least good news, not exactly and eta or anything but for sure better than saying canceled like FS flight
no only if santiago would come out of hiding
imo, the tornado looks great and looks flyable from the video which should be a beta or release
As its payware I am sure they want it to be as near perfect as possible before release or no one will buy it as it is an uncomplete model.
These things take time.
+1
yes yes they do, just so many juicy cool things coming makes stagnant waiting hard. Hopes to that by thanksgiving /christmas season all in calendar 2012, we will have these awesome planes and more, solid 10.20 64bit plus, those new art assets that of course got delayed…, butnarus ohare and more. 2011 winter xp 10 hits. 2012 christmas winter- xplane 10 excels at what its capable of,
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