Five options spring to mind for what the premier (note i spelt it right this time!) civilian flight sim will be in 5 years time.

 

Here's the list:

 

X-plane

Aerofly FS

DCS World

P3D

or still FSX

 

My vote:

Aerofly FS. Rapid progress towards being a 'real' sim, this one came out of nowhere and seems to be powering along. Beatiful engine.

 

I'm talking civ sims here. I've included dcs as people have talked about the possibility of civ aviation within it. Think it will be brilliant but still almost all military in 2017.

 

X-plane - has had 20 years...progress seems so slow! I think it'll still be lagging in 2017. I hope not - i've just bought my first x-plane oayware addons to support the devs.

 

P3D - again, really slow progress. I've got 1.4 and in a year plus they haven't advanced far past fsx. P3d v2 - who knows, but the licencing seems to stress consumers and if it loses fsx compatibility... I'm not convinced this'll be the one.

 

FSX - will still be on my harddrive but that engine is already SO old!

 

Flight - coulda, shoulda, woulda...doesn't make the list.

 

So there's my thoughts. If you're in the mood, cast your vote!

 

 

 

 

Personally, I really like the look of Aerofly and I'm seriously debating whether I should buy it or not. I'll probably have FSX still installed, too, after all the addons I've purchased for it. Would be interesting to see X-Plane develop in the future.

 

Regards,

What we as a community could hope for are 2 things....

 

1. Microsoft get their rear in gear and have their heads removed from their rears, and make a proper Flight Simulator, like FS2015

 

2. Microsoft sells off the engine and licensing from Flight to a 3rd Party developer who makes it what it should have been.

Crimtye, aerofly is 60% off (I think) on steam at the moment - action your thoughts and fly it.

 

Spartan, i would dearly love a FS11 - but after the disaster that was MS Flight I can't see MS getting back in the game any time soon. Maybe in ten years...

DCS World, and Aerofly FS.

 

I look fwd for the promissing updates on the work being done for Aerofly FS. Their future projects look amazing, and the experience I had with the present version was good. In terms of flight dynamics I think that nothing can really compare to the quality available in DCS World with their p51d, BlackShark KA-50 and A10C. I am also looking fwd for the UH1 by a 3pd. System-wise the quality / detail and accurcay of the DCS platform is also unique...

 

DCS World will allways be a military-oriented platform though, and although I am completely dedicated to it now, having a complementary one, based on civil aviation, both leisure and commercial, would be great.

 

FSX is still a great platform, even if getting old... Great add-ons, in areas ranging from scenery and weather to aircraft add-ons make it still a great option. X-plane10 was a big disappointment for me, and I don't think I will embark on another version anytime soon.... Regarding any MS future incursion in the flight simulation arena, not only don't I believe they will get into the market of flight simming again in the near future, nor will I be willing to invest on anything from them in that future, given the mess they did with MS FLIGHT - not the sim, but the fate...

I think it'll still be FSX or P3D, if LM ever allows its use for "entertainment" purposes. The reason, why I think that is quite simple and kinda materialistic: Many of us have invested an awful amount of money in FSX addon, most of which are compatible with P3D, but not with any other sim.

That said I think that there are some other platforms that seem to have a high potential, such as Aerofly or X-Plane 10 (or Outerra, but since it's still in development, and it's not primarily planned to be a flight simulator, I shouldn't count it here), but for various reasons they have not yet convinced as many people as has Microsoft with their Flight Simulation series, and thus they won't be able to beat FSX in the next years.

 

Regards,

Flo

I think the next in line to the throne is going to be X-Plane. It has a lot of developer support at current and will do for quite some time especially when FSX users make the swap. Aerofly FS is definitely on its way up however I don't think its ready to be a fully fledged simulator yet. I think things are only getting worse for FSX I have definitely lost patience with constantly tweaking it for so little gain. I just want a simulator that works out of the box. P3D may last a bit longer and will work for the commercial industry however I think everyone else will move on.

My only problem with any products based on either MSFS or even X-plane is that both platforms are flawed by problems on their flight dynamics , engines, systems modelling that not even the best add-ons can solve.

 

X-Plane is still under development, and that can be regarded as positive, and I myself still have a 1% hope that Austin will fix the bugs related to simulation of prop aircraft, ground handling, etc... before v10 comes to an end, while FSX is quite a differemt story. Unless you use your own external flight dynamics model and SIMCONNECT to FSX / ESP just for the display, you will be tied to bugs / limitations that we couldn't even get rid of in MS FLIGHT, like the flight dynamics model limitations, the bugs in the prop and turbine engine models, etc....

 

With new platforms, like DCS World, which started very well, we can still hope that the base for further devlopment will only get better, and 3pds will start looking at them. AeroFly FS new version already "announced" at the IPACS forums is also promissing, although AeroFly FS flight dynamics aren't, IMHO, comparable to what we get in DCS,,,,

In my honest opinion, I really cant see Microsoft getting back into developing Flight Simulators. We have a much brighter future for awesome and exciting -true to life- flight simulators from other companies just like we've seen with Aerofly and Xplane. I mean look at the realism in textures and 'Google Earth' type images in Aerofly. I dont own the product I have only seen videos on Youtube and pictures from their site, but If they can stretch their development skills into the RW commercial aircraft side of things, and produce a world just like FSX but in a much greater form, then I can see it progressing into a full realistic flight simulator.

 

Although that might seem like a distant and unrealistic thought, I can clearly see a really good... Game Developer?! on the horizon that will meet our long awaited needs for a Flight Simulator. Patience will pay off *someday (soon).

Think FSX will still be dominant, but X-plane will hold its own and be a good option. There software companies out there could make civilian sim we don't know of yet. Google flight sim could cut into Xplane and FSX user base if modifications to improve it are made. Do not see mircosoft making fs11 unless there shake up at the top of company foodchain or Bill Gates loyalist takes over as CEO. It was Bill Gates in 98 that prevented management from dumping the flight simulator project.

My money would be on X-Plane 11 or 12. XP ticks all the boxes - it's a "live" product in development, it's got the entire world modelled, it has a growing user and developer base. X-Plane 10 is already a very good base and if it ever gets anything like the attention from third party devs like FSX has received then it can really be something quite special.

 

FSX will definitely be around for a while yet but at some point people will abandon it as both hardware and operating systems move on.

 

P3D could be a real contender but I don't believe LM are either willing nor able to market P3D as a consumer entertainment product. That very much limits its uptake by the wider community and support from developers.

 

DCS - as fantastic a simulation platform as DCS is, it is still essentially built on an old engine that has been around for some time. Given the limitations of the current engine used in DCS I doubt it will ever be able to render anything like what the best FSX scenery addons can produce right now. What's more I don't believe the DCS engine can support contiguous global scenery like MSFS or XP. If DCS is going to be a real contender it will require a totally new engine.

 

Aerofly FS - It looks very promising but still has a very long way to go. Another sim that does not feature contiguous global scenery which I think is an absolute must for any sim wanting to make it big in the civilian flight sim world.

 

Then of course we don't know what will happen between now and the end of 2017. Five years is a long time and we have no idea what new developments will occur between now and then. Cast your mind back five years to December 2007 - who would have accurately predicted then where we find ourselves now?

Unless X-Plane takes off (or someone develops a real good new one), we'll still be flying FSX in 2017.

I don't believe that five years will be enough to replace FSX as #1. There has been great improvements in FSX by both freeware and 3rd party developers. In addition, in my opinion, none of the other possible replacements have been focused enough to attract and keep customers.

 

Airbus

P3D, DCS World and Aerofly FS, in that order

My money would be on X-Plane 11 or 12. XP ticks all the boxes - it's a "live" product in development, it's got the entire world modelled, it has a growing user and developer base. X-Plane 10 is already a very good base and if it ever gets anything like the attention from third party devs like FSX has received then it can really be something quite special.

 

FSX will definitely be around for a while yet but at some point people will abandon it as both hardware and operating systems move on.

 

P3D could be a real contender but I don't believe LM are either willing nor able to market P3D as a consumer entertainment product. That very much limits its uptake by the wider community and support from developers.

 

DCS - as fantastic a simulation platform as DCS is, it is still essentially built on an old engine that has been around for some time. Given the limitations of the current engine used in DCS I doubt it will ever be able to render anything like what the best FSX scenery addons can produce right now. What's more I don't believe the DCS engine can support contiguous global scenery like MSFS or XP. If DCS is going to be a real contender it will require a totally new engine.

 

Aerofly FS - It looks very promising but still has a very long way to go. Another sim that does not feature contiguous global scenery which I think is an absolute must for any sim wanting to make it big in the civilian flight sim world.

 

Then of course we don't know what will happen between now and the end of 2017. Five years is a long time and we have no idea what new developments will occur between now and then. Cast your mind back five years to December 2007 - who would have accurately predicted then where we find ourselves now?

 

I did a bit of reading last night. Was excited to see that DCS has a brand new engine (EDGE) coming out this year. The screenshots available are old ones of nevada, but it looks beautiful.

 

They certainly are thinking broadly. It'll just need the new emgine to support an easy enough to use SDK so that 3PD and the community can easily create scenery. MS certainly got that right.

 

Is x-planes's user base increasing much? I see developers wanting to give it a go in the wake of the management disaster that was 'Flight', and in the absence of other living platforms. But the payware output for it is still a fraction of that of FSX. Personally, having sat on the sidelines of this one i'm finally at the point of giving XP10 a try.

 

Aerofly did model a whole country - and say v2 changes to a different coordinate system which sounds like they want to make whole-world possible.

 

I would love dcs and aerofly to work with fs genesis, for example, to modify their terrain mesh so that fits with the new engines and then we'd have worldwide topographic coverage. cover the whole thing with one green texture if you have to and let 3rdPD provide the landclass and other terrain details later.

 

There's so much other data out there from fsx - tens of thousands of hours work - that would be great to see integrated into a new sim with a next- gen engine.