Greetings, Captains!The following news items from PMDG may be of interest to you!Upon completion of the 757 Airliner Series for FLY!II, we made a decision to move away from FLY!II development and toward the more popular and accepted platform of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002!Nearly every member of the PMDG team has, at one point or another developed products for Microsoft's product line, and in spite of our focus on the FLY! franchise during the past three years we are very excited to be involved in development of products for MSFS once again!As we have adjusted our business plan to reflect the change in the market demand, we have had to make some decisions regarding the future of new/existing development for FLY!II products. This process has taken a tremendous amount of time as careful consideration had to be given to each individual project, including those that we have already released. These decisions were difficult to make because we recognize how important our commitment to our products AND the FLY!II community has been to many of our customers. In many regards, the decision to shift our entire development focus to Microsoft Flight Simulator was made more difficult by the very community nature of this forum. As with any endeavor, you never want to offend the people who "made you what you are," but from a purely economic standpoint, FLY!II simply will not support the kind of development costs that are associated with a full scale production airliner.As a company, it is important for PMDG to remain a "For-Profit" enterprise. As the FLY!II community has continued to shrink, it has become more apparent that we must shift our development time and resources into a larger, more well developed market that is capable of supporting the type and quality of work that PMDG has made a reputation for.As such, we elected to cease production on our FLY!II General Aviation product lines. This announcement was made last month, although we did not provide much information as to the status of each of those projects.The TB-9 was in early stages of development. The airplane model was mostly copmleted with a portion of the cockpit interior and panels completed. We have been contacted by ROTW about acquiring this incomplete project and have agreed to provide the source files for this product to them at no cost. If ROTW elects to continue it's development then the FLY!II community will at least have benefited from the work!The SKYARROW will most likely not see the light of day. Although this product was closest to completion, it was being developed under a different set of platforms than our other PMDG product lines and as such it would be extremely difficult for to bring the project to completion.We had planned a mid-stage product update for the 777. This update was planned to occurr immediately upon completion of the 757. The market did not support the 757 as well as had been hoped so we put development of the 777 update on hold to determine if it would be economically worth the time and resources. We have elected not to procede with this update.We have been vague about our plans to patch the 757. There are a few minor items with the 757 that we would like to fix, but at this point there does not appear to be sufficient time/resources available to make those changes.NOTE: The problem with the gear animation when passing through a sunrise or sunset timeframe is a known FLY!II problem that we were promised would be fixed in a future patch for FLY!II. This has obviously not happened, and the problem cannot be fixed without TRI's support. As much as I would like to hold out hope of this fix being made, I do not expect it will be fixed by TRI. We will consider posting instructions on how to eliminate reference to the Night-Lit models within FLY!II, but I cannot promise this will work....All of that being said, we recently made some minor cosmetic changes to the 757 visual model in order to fix the alignment of the front door. We are currently working with Pete Sterling to provide him with some tools that will allow him to release a number of repaints for the 757. I believe that covers all the open questions about our FLY!II product line.... of course, if you have questions- feel free to ask!Robert S. RandazzoPrecision Manuals Development Group http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/coolcap.gifwww.precisionmanuals.com

Ahhh glad to know we will finally get the repaints sometime soon :) I also understand why you guys have given up on the Fly! line and I hope ROTW will be able to take on the project for the benefit of the entire Fly! community.Also... What have you guys made for MSFS before? "we are very excited to be involved in development of products for MSFS once again!" Just curious... I didn't know about PMDG until a few years back some I'm just wondering what you guys were doing before then.Jason

>know about PMDG until a few years back some I'm just >wondering what you guys were doing before then. Jason,I can take crack at it though my answer may not be 100% complete - I believe PMDG was once busy developing manuals (hence the name: Precision Manuals) for some big transport aircraft for the MSFS. Michael J.

That makes sense... Thanks Michael :)Jason

Fellow Captains,I have the new 757 files from Vin but I'am having a bit of a sticky wicket getting the new files crammed into a new pod. Once I've gotten the new model file I'll start adapting all of my repaints to the new model and upload to the AVSIM server. I don't have a time frame for when this will all happen but knowing how long we've waited for some good news regarding the '57, I'll get these out as quickly as I can.My leaning's about the night textures is to eliminate them entirely, as I feel they are not up to Fly2K!'s level. Plus, that will remove one area I feel would lengthen the release cycle.Stay tuned, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel...Pete

Hello Robert, First of all, thank you very much for accepting our offer concerning the TB9 on which we expect to start working on by the end of November as soon as our P51 will be available online.We understand that your company needs a broader market to survive and we wish you a huge success. We have very much appreciated the quality of your creations for Fly! and envy your future customers of the FS2K2 world ;-) As you must have understood, our goal is to keep Fly!2 alive even if commercially speaking, its future looks rather grim. We await your instructions to download (or any other method you may decide for) the TB9 files Thank you again and good luck Ren

Hi,"We had planned a mid-stage product update for the 777. This update was planned to occurr immediately upon completion of the 757. The market did not support the 757 as well as had been hoped so we put development of the 777 update on hold to determine if it would be economically worth the time and resources. We have elected not to procede with this update."-Does that mean that the B777-patch has been cancelled?Bye

Mikeair,I read it as no patches for the 757 or the 777. What you got is all you are going to get (except for the 757 paintkit).Regards,

Captains,Some good news. With Vin's help I've been able to pod the new RR engined 757. The P&W variant should present no problems. There are one or two issues to overcome then I can start repaints in ernest. I've got a Aerolineas Argentinas 707 to finish then the 757's will start appearing.Pete