Hawaii <--> Alaska

[LHookins 3,103]

I suspect that Mr. Randazzo will be more willing to compromise as the FSX market slowly shrinks while the Flight market grows rapidly. At some point, "good business sense" might mean that Microsoft simply buys PMDG outright.

 

A little speculation: The Flight roadmap probably only extends out two years. As Flight moves forward, the roadmap will change, slowly, and a year from now there will still be a two year roadmap, but different from the one already in place. I'll be very surprised if in 3 to 5 years we don't have something recognizable as FS11.

 

In the mean time, further development on Flight is funded by sales of cockpitless aircraft. I'm not a big fan of them, but plenty of people are judging by the numbers of them seen in multiplayer. I see this as a good thing, that Flight is successful. It won't matter one bit whether people on Avsim refuse to buy them, many people will. And it works out: if you don't like it, don't buy it. No one will be hurt by that decision.

 

In two years we'll have 6 to 8 areas to fly in, and can you imagine NOT being able to fly between them? I can't. I expected an airliner of some kind as soon as a new area was released, and that's still possible, even if it's unlikely. I'm willing to wait and see.

 

Hook

[vonBobo 0]

I'll be very surprised if in 3 to 5 years we don't have something recognizable as FS11.

Man I hope so! Unfortunately, the days of freeware and limitless customization is probably over forever... post FSX of course.

 

Kind of reminds me of the New Coke debacle, when they went from granulated sugar to high fructose corn syrup.

[LHookins 3,103]

If your type of flying is airlines, then please don't consider yourself a niche market just because Josh says so.

 

I don't fly airliners. I have in the past, but generally the closest I got was the Learjet when I needed more range than the GA aircraft would get me. I didn't really enjoy flying it.

 

For the year preceeding Flight I flew a modified Grumman Goose in a charter service. Very detailed, lots of spreadsheets. Aircraft loading and blance, weights and flight planning, full expense accounting including real world fuel prices, maintenance allowances and copilot salaries. Payments on the plane ($9400 per month). Overnight expenses for pilot and copilot when appropriate. I would have included landing and ramp fees, but those are often waived with a fuel purchase, and I seldom bought less than $1000 in fuel anyway. I even had calculations for how much business I'd lose by charging higher prices, and sometimes I had to.

 

Other people are doing similar things using automated programs, but we're even more of a niche market than airliners. I'm well aware of how popular airliners are on Avsim. I see the same ads you do. But the entirety of simulated airline pilots is still a niche market compared to the general market for a flight sim, and probably for the entire market for FSX, and *maybe* even for the entire user base of Avsim.

 

I went into Flight not expecting much and they delivered a lot more than I thought they would. And it's been a long time since I had this much fun with a flight simulator. I knew Flight wasn't going to be anything close to FS11, so I wasn't expecting it to be. I was amazed at how much "serious sim" there was in Flight. I just went in with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised at how well things were done.

 

For example, I couldn't get the Stearman landed without crashing in landing challenge 6. I took a break and flew a couple of gold rushes and the challenge courses. At some point I realized it wasn't just a game, they were teaching you precision flying. After that I landed challenge 6 the first time I tried. Very tricky of them to teach you things when you weren't expecting it. Not much different from the aerocache on the VOR radials.

 

Overall, I'm glad to have Flight, even in it's current limited state. It won't stay limited long.

 

Hook

 

Kind of reminds me of the New Coke debacle, when they went from granulated sugar to high fructose corn syrup.

 

That was an amazing marketing coup. They never intended New Coke to be permanent, or even as popular as it was. It was just a way to change from a higher priced sweetener to a lower priced one without people being able to compare directly. Cola pricing is very very competitive, if you hadn't noticed. :)

 

You can still buy Coke with sugar in Mexico, for example, and it's available in a green cap for Passover.

 

Hook

[RoboRay 126]

I couldn't get the Stearman landed without crashing in landing challenge 6. I took a break and flew a couple of gold rushes and the challenge courses. At some point I realized it wasn't just a game, they were teaching you precision flying. After that I landed challenge 6 the first time I tried. Very tricky of them to teach you things when you weren't expecting it. Not much different from the aerocache on the VOR radials.

 

Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important.

 

(walks away, still making circular motions with hands)

[LHookins 3,103]

LOL!! Good one, RoboRay!

 

Hook

[rhagen 0]

They never intended New Coke to be permanent, or even as popular as it was.

 

Did you mean to say how unpopular it was? From Wiki “The American public's reaction to the change was negative and the new cola was a major marketing failure. The subsequent reintroduction of Coke's original formula, re-branded as "Coca-Cola Classic", resulted in a significant gain in sales, leading to speculation that the introduction of the New Coke formula was just a marketing ploy.” Are you saying “Flight” is just a marketing ploy and they intend to re-introduce FSX as FSX-Classic? (just kidding)

[LHookins 3,103]

Oddly enough, there were people who liked New Coke. I wasn't one of them. I'd heard that enough people liked it that they were going to keep it around after going back to "classic". Well... I don't see it on store shelves now, but I haven't looked much lately. It may have been there for a while.

 

Edit: I hope that article differentiates between original coke and classic coke formulas. It was NOT the original formula, which I discovered immediately upon buying a can and looking at the label.

 

Are you saying “Flight” is just a marketing ploy and they intend to re-introduce FSX as FSX-Classic? (just kidding)

 

That may be exactly what will happen. :D Except that Flight will grow into FS11, although I won't complain if they decide to do a whole new FS11 based on Flight's code. That would be a LONG way off and I'm already 62.

 

Hook

[Guest]

For example: today's aerocache is at the intersection of 3 VOR radials. It's a fun little challenge for someone new to flying and radio navigation.

 

Yeah, specially since they got the numbers wrong. But it IS nice indeed that they add things that force people to learn something, sometimes indeed without them knowing it!

[Guest]

Modern airliners ( PMDG quality ) must come into Flight for the sake of flight meanwhile it would be enough a DC3 and/or a DC4 ( with a religious and super hi-fidelity cockpit ) to fiddle with something new and not the same old single propeller.

 

To be honest I consider the Beaver a Maule with the Icon landing capabilities so IMO it wouldn't add anything new to the game.

[kentoo 0]

For example, I couldn't get the Stearman landed without crashing in landing challenge 6. I took a break and flew a couple of gold rushes and the challenge courses. At some point I realized it wasn't just a game, they were teaching you precision flying. After that I landed challenge 6 the first time I tried. Very tricky of them to teach you things when you weren't expecting it. Not much different from the aerocache on the VOR radials.

Exactly my initial thoughts of flight. They could be more effective in teaching people to fly if they had flying from the VC only.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Exactly my initial thoughts of flight. They could be more effective in teaching people to fly if they had flying from the VC only.

 

Remember that teaching things is just a nice bonus. Making people buy stuff and making a profit has to be the number one goal for any company.

[LHookins 3,103]

They could be more effective in teaching people to fly if they had flying from the VC only.

 

Actually, it was flying from chase view that allowed me to land. The view out the front of the Stearman is pretty limited.

 

Sometimes there's a pleasant bug where you get an additional view that doesn't include the cockpit, and that one is a lot easier to land, even easier than chase view. There's a way to set this view to always be available, search for "cinematic".

 

Hook

[dtrjones 356]

When I feel bad about the possibilities I just go down to our local marina and stare at the water for four hours. Same thing.

Hey just press N :LMAO:

[dtrjones 356]

Modern airliners ( PMDG quality ) must come into Flight for the sake of flight meanwhile it would be enough a DC3 and/or a DC4 ( with a religious and super hi-fidelity cockpit ) to fiddle with something new and not the same old single propeller.

 

To be honest I consider the Beaver a Maule with the Icon landing capabilities so IMO it wouldn't add anything new to the game.

The beautiy of Flight is that Microsoft have the whole world to explore exciting new challenges in aviation. To think they will keep missions consistent and stick to GA planes is really missing the target completely. Microsoft I'm sure will have some new challanges (new as in different types of missions) when we come to Alaska, and yes this will be part of the same global world as Hawaii. Ok we know PDMG planes are never going to be delivered by Microsoft and nor should they, they need to share the possibilities of Flight to a wider audiance than that. But on the other hand could I rule out the possibility of flying PDMG 737NG into Orbx delivered Heathrow airport in Flight in 2015, well no I can't....

 

The thing with Flight is that Microsoft have really set no boundaries at all, the sim can grow into what ever product they choose and I believe our support can help influance this over time.

 

Cheers,

Dave.

[FrankFasi 0]

Hey just press N

 

Doh! You're right. Press N! :)