Some more info on DTG Flight School 
 

Introducing Dovetail Games Flight School

Since acquiring the rights to develop and publish new titles utilizing Microsoft’s genre-defining flight simulation technology back in 2014, Dovetail Games has been clear about its intent to make headlines in the flight simulation category. Today, it is pleased to announce that it will launch two brand new flight simulators in 2016.

Dovetail Games Flight School is first to arrive, and is set to release in April 2016, with Dovetail Games Flight Simulator scheduled for launch in the latter part of the year.

Flight School is a carefully crafted and rewarding experience designed to teach would-be pilots the basics of flying a light aircraft as well as the essential premises of flight simulation. It will offer newcomers to flight simming an engaging and accessible introduction to aviation, whilst also being highly realistic and authentic. Players will learn to fly in iconic training aircraft, undertaking a series of tutorials and training missions, which will provide the perfect introduction to the genre. There will also be a Free Flight mode, for those players who want to head off and explore the entire world. 

“Flying an aircraft is a rewarding, awe-inspiring experience unlike any other and we want to give more people the opportunity to enjoy that by breaking down the barriers that make flight simulation feel inaccessible,” said Stephen Hood, Creative Director at Dovetail Games. “By empowering players to handle the controls of the aircraft, we will help them to immerse themselves in the very best and most thrilling aspects of flying in an up-to-date and technically cutting edge environment.”

Paul Jackson, CEO at Dovetail Games added, “People have always dreamt of being able to fly and through Flight School we aim to satisfy that dream and give people the opportunity not only to learn to fly, but to really soar as they explore the world. Flight simulation has always been important in the world of gaming but it hasn’t kept up - the core experience hasn’t progressed since the launch of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X back in 2006 and that means we’ve missed at least one or maybe even two generations of players who would have adored flight simming, but for whom it wasn’t appropriate. Our aim is to get back to that place, to restore the former glory of flight simulation as an enjoyable and engaging pastime. Consumers today expect a much slicker experience across all genres. They want simulations that are realistic but also accessible. They want to be led to a place where the focus can be on reaching great levels of accomplishment, rather than struggling to get to grips with the operational aspects. And that’s precisely what Flight School will deliver.”

Dovetail Games Flight School and Dovetail Games Flight Simulator will both be available on PC.

Not only their default aircraft are embarrassing. Those simulators themselves, no matter which version, are.

I'm guessing that you never had the privilege of using the simulators available in the 80s and 90s.

 

Just check out some videos of what flight simulators before FS2004 looked like and I'll bet you'll change your opinion about FSX and P3D.

 

Opinions are based on experience and perception, however, so I can see where a lot of folks are underwhelmed by FSX.  It is, after all, 10+ year old technology.

 

I, like many here, am hoping some developers will come along soon who completely rewrite the flight sim engine and give us a simulator that has all the features that we've been wanting for years now.

 

Dave

64 bit and DX11 sounds interesting! Really hope they can deliver and make a sim that "uses modern hardware". Seems like I'll have to add another sim to my collection... =) 

Hey that sounds great DoveTail!

Fantastic news. I will stop purchasing Prepar3D addons at once!   This sounds like it could be a bigger leap forward than what LM has accomplished so far with the MS technology. The future of flight simulation is bright!

Fantastic news. I will stop purchasing Prepar3D addons at one!   This sounds like it could be a bigger leap forward than what LM has accomplished so far with the MS technology. The future of flight simulation is bright!

very true, all purchases for p3d v3, fsx se and xp10 have stopped 4 me as of today............DFS will be amazing!

 

 

Opinions are based on experience and perception, however, so I can see where a lot of folks are underwhelmed by FSX. It is, after all, 10+ year old technology.

 

10 years, and still the best out there for this genre. Even Aerosoft when they were looking for an engine for their own planned flight sim, could not find one that had all the capabilities as the FSX/ESP engine. Except for maybe X-Plane there is not an engine out there proven to be able to handle the expanded world that a global flight simulator requires.

64-bit finally, this is what I'm sure most have been waiting for. I'm a little sad it's going to be DirectX windows only, but I wasn't really expecting any different from them. 

 

I also like the idea of the flight school app to get people interested in the main sim, it's a very nice idea and should attract lots of new simmers.

Screenshot posted on Steam

This is great news.  I'm glad they chose to essentially update the FSX platform.  Here's what I wrote back in May of last year - it looks like DTG actually did listen not only to me of course, but to the many others who chimed in about what they wanted in a new sim:

 

 

If indeed DTG does develop a new flight simulator, it doesn't necessarily have to be a complete departure from the FSX overall model.  FSX is actually an extraordinarily good platform if you stop to think about it. It includes a base round earth model with terrain mesh, landclass, vector-type scenery, and a scenery region classification which provides some additional variation, ~25,000 airports, 3-d vegetation and buildings, ai aircraft traffic, air traffic control, ground vehicle traffic, weather, lots of default aircraft, decent flight dynamics, etc.  Pretty darn good for under a hundred dollars.

DTG could simply take the FSX model and make it a 64-bit program, rewrite the graphics engine, fix the bugs, and add features that so many of us have asked for over the years. They could offer the base simulator for a reasonable price and then make certain features, like ATC(much improved of course), downloadable content that one has to pay extra for.

Perhaps Microsoft Flight had a better model, but I never bought Flight so I don't know anything about it.

The point is that a lot of work has already been done over the past 30 years, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel.  Take what works and improve it and build upon it.  This seems to me a better strategy than spending immense amounts of time and money trying to design a brand new flight simulator from scratch.

 

 

Hopefully they'll also add the features I requested back in May 2015 (they already took care of #1, and ORBX may have taken care of #7 except for the true round earth model):

 

 

1. Better graphics engine - 64-bit, better memory management, DX11 or DX12

2. Improved ATC - automatically assign SIDs and STARs where available, improve vector approaches by fixing bug where ATC gives multiple course headings causing one to turn back and forth unnecessarily and fixing the issue where ATC makes you fly 30+ miles from the airport before vectoring you to final approach, have ATC more realistically give altitude commands instead of the current model where they do this only within 300 feet of the currently assigned altitude, add speed instructions, add the ability to use different voices based on location.

3. Add the ability to easily update the sim's database of navigation aids, waypoints, SIDs and STARs, airways, etc.

4. Improved AI traffic behavior - prevent go-arounds due to planes trying to land on the same runway at the same time by having ATC actually manage AI aircraft speed and spacing, add the ability to easily change the speed of ai aircraft when taxiing, and the speed of cars, ships, and trains.

5. Add AI trains - make this like AI aircraft and ships so that users can make custom models and route plans.

6. Improved weather-related graphics - volumetric clouds, VC rain drops and effects(e.g. water running down the windows), cloud shadows, ice/snow accumulation effects.

7. Improve the sim's scenery model - allow the use of custom autogen for any number of areas instead of having to refer to a single master autogen file or single master terrain.cfg file, allow the use of custom landclass for any number of areas by allowing multiple landclass lookup tables, use a true round earth model and stop the stretching and shrinking of the scenery tiles as the latitude changes.

8. Interactive ground crew - communicate directly with ground crew for pushback, power hook-up, jetway extension/retraction, etc.

9. Runways that conform to the underlying terrain, i.e. sloped runways

 

Dave

Hey, who knows. It might be the next big thing, or not. The more choices we have in the flight sim world the better.

No mention of third-party support, but I do hope they allow third-parties to mod the simulator without needing approval or a license

I approve the idea of Flight School.

 

At least 64 bit is coming.

Step in the right direction, we will have to wait and see from Third Party what this means to them of course

Sounds good to me ! 

 

Going back to School will also be freesh air!!!!