Endorsed by manufacturer

[Guest cjkawa]

Hello,After reading about the Flight1 Pilatus PC-12, especially the Pilatus endorsement by Tom Aniello, Vice President and CMO, Pilatus Business Aircraft, Ltd(second paragraph), I did go ahead and get it, but that is not the pertinent part. What is germaine is that it was endorsed and it started me thinking of what other simulated aircraft have been graced with equal favor?What other candidates do you know of? Please don't limit this to MSFS aircraft. If at all possible, link to the endorsement, if you can? To the Editors... Would this topic be worthy of its own forum?

[Chock 17,769]

I know the Flight 1 ATR-72 was one such case. The manufacturers of the ATR-72 apparently use the Flight 1 simulated version as a marketing tool for the real aircraft when wooing potential clients, and they worked in conjunction with the developers to ensure accuracy. There was a topic about this in the Avsim's Hangar Chat forum a while ago, with people mentioning other aircraft that had similar connections - I seem to recall one or two Cessnas might have been similarly treated - but I just looked and couldn't find the exact thread. A similar concept is when the owners of a real aircraft simulate their aircraft, which is the case with the Aviodrome Dutch National Aviation Theme Park's DC-2 add-on for FSX and FS9, part of the proceeds of the FS add-on's sales going toward the upkeep of their real DC-2. Mid Atlantic Air Museum do a similar thing with a DC-3 too, along with several other vintage aircraft.Needless to say, official manufacturer's endorsements come in several flavours, they could be a genuine seal of approval with regard to the accuracy of the aircraft in a sim, or merely an official license to use the company logos and shapes of the aircraft in question. Several Boeing add-ons for FS have that sort of approval, including the Ariane and PMDG models, and of course Boeing engineers were involved in the PMDG incarnation of the 747, although whether Boeing would use it in the same way as ATR have done with the Flight 1 ATR-72 is another matter.The above are all complex simulated aircraft of course, but even what might be termed 'lite' simulations have had manufacturer approved licensing, most recently, the Lockheed Electra which appears in First Class Simulations' Around the World in 80 Flights, which is a licensed Lockheed product, even though the systems on the simulated variant you get are not all there, but that is one reason why they can use the Lockheed logo on the tailfin textures. It's the same reason why you sometimes see add-on aircraft missing the manufacturer's logo from the control yoke, when they don't have such approval.Once or twice there have been official airline tie-ins with flight simulation products. You might remember a very old stand alone simulator of the Airbus that appeared for the Commodore Amiga under the guise of 'Approach Trainer', which I seem to recall had some approval from both Airbus and Lufthansa. Lufthansa also gave approval to the old Data Becker Boeing 747 title for FS95/98 some years ago. Another one for FS was the Papa Tango title 'Flight Academy', which was a tie-in with an airline (can't remember which one, even looked at the old product binder for it which I still have kicking around and that doesn't make it very clear). That folder is something of a rarity these days of course, owing to a bit of a spat with Avsim when it misleadingly used an Avsim award logo on the box, and had to have the packaging redesigned to correct it.I'm sure there are many other such tie-ins and I daresay others will be able to remember them.Al

[Bonkster 1]

Hello,After reading about the Flight1 Pilatus PC-12, especially the Pilatus endorsement by Tom Aniello, Vice President and CMO, Pilatus Business Aircraft, Ltd(second paragraph), I did go ahead and get it, but that is not the pertinent part. What is germaine is that it was endorsed and it started me thinking of what other simulated aircraft have been graced with equal favor?What other candidates do you know of? Please don't limit this to MSFS aircraft. If at all possible, link to the endorsement, if you can? To the Editors... Would this topic be worthy of its own forum?

I know that the Flight 1 Mustang was endorsed by (and, I believe, even tested by) Cessna! They gave Jim and the gang quite a bit of resource material for the development and it certainly is, in my opinion, one of the best FS aircraft available! - Alex

[pontiuspilotus 6]

X-Plane's Cirrus Jet was used as a prototype by the manufacturers, and I believe used in their marketing materials as well.

[Guest jshyluk]

I remember "Approach Trainer", because it came with an actual book of Jeppesen charts for Europe (or maybe there was another A300 sim for the Amiga?) I've been kicking myself for years for letting that one fall into the consignment bin. Kenmore Air allowed their logo to be placed on the DH-2 Beaver in FSX, the first time as far as I know that a company that both manufactures and flies their own aircraft as an airline has their livery and logo officialy included in MSFS. Kenmore allowed the ACES team to use their aircraft for measurements and photo research for the visual models. One of their pilots was used as a reference for the pilot model in FSX. They are happy with how their aircraft is depicted in FSX, at least they were the last time I talked with them. As far as human models go, some time ago I asked Patty Wagstaff about her model in FSX, and she said that she thought that ACES made her look good, except that they gave her a strange hairstyle. In the good old days, it seems that the aircraft companies were more willing to endorse flight sim games. I am thinking of all those old Microprose greats, the Chuck Yeager sims, and Spectrum Holobyte's "Flight of the Intruder" in particular. You can find the FOTI manual online; the level of historical detail in that manual is absolutely incredible. As flight sims have become more detailed, and I suppose as people have come to use civilian aircraft as weapons, companies seem more circumspect towards the idea of providing glowing endorsements. Doing reviews, I fairly often come across products that say something like "Recognized by X". When I ask the vendor about it, they often say, yes, Company X has allowed us to use their logo. Then I e-mail Company X, and they say, "We remember Vendor Y. They asked us if they could use our logo in their product. We've never seen the final product, but the people from Vendor Y seemed very nice. We are allowing them to use our logo (or other feature) in Extremely Limited Manner Z." If you want to learn more about how aircraft companies come to endorse FSX aircraft and add-ons, the big ones have PR depertments with e-mail, and generally they seem willing to answer that type of question. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[Peter Clemenko 0]

DCS Black Shark was developed in cooperation with kamovI know that various novalogic games were endorsed by lockheed martin

[Chock 17,769]

Just remembered another one, that being the Antares 20E Glider in the (excellent incidentally) gliding simulator, Silent Wings. That one is endorsed by the makers and used the same CAD drawings they used to make the real thing. By the way, if you want a sim with a really incredibly realistic flight model, give Silent Wings a try, it makes X-Plane and FSX look like a bad joke.Al

[Guest cjkawa]

Just a quick note to say "Thank you" for your comments! :(

[CV990A 0]

Not an endorsement per se, but the (freeware) Project Tupolev TU-154B2 is used as an procedual (sp?) trainer by Tupolev themself.Don't know about the TU-154M though.

[jrhoads 6]

I know that the Flight 1 Mustang was endorsed by (and, I believe, even tested by) Cessna! They gave Jim and the gang quite a bit of resource material for the development and it certainly is, in my opinion, one of the best FS aircraft available! - Alex

The Flight1 Mustang was not only endorsed, it was done in official partnership with Cessna, not just a licensed product. There is a huge difference. In fact, Cessna has not partnered with any 3rd party company ever besides with Flight1 and Microsoft. (for MSFS anyway) By the way, Tom Aniello is no longer with Pilatus. He is with Cessna. :( Jim RhoadsFlight1