Why don't developers take a cue from the tried and trusted Real World methods of building planes?

 

An aircraft company builds planes...  it doesn't build the instruments.

 

The instruments are made by companies specialising in making instruments and bought by the aircraft companies who then fit them to the aircraft. Maybe making some adjustments for the type/spec of the aircraft.

 

So some good developers in the Flightsim world could do the same...  specialise in making Proline XX's or Garmin Gxxxx;s etc. then the Flightsim aircraft builders can buy them at wholesale prices...  and Joe Public can buy them as retrofits etc as well, at a higher price.

 

That way us,  the end user can have quality aircraft....

...because the plane would be 2x the cost to the retail user?

 

The price point for detailed aircraft is about $40-$75.  That price, at an expected volume, is enough to pay the developers and hopefully a profit in the end.  With two separate companies, one makes the airplane and another makes the instruments, each would have to recoup costs and hopefully make profit.  Detailed avionics and detailed planes each require thousands of hours development, now you have a $80-$125 product.  A single company would be better off doing it all in house...so why not?  Costs.

 

Whether you manufacture boats, lawnmowers, or flight simulator airplanes.....it's the same principle: what is purchaser willing to pay for?  There is not enough money in a $40-$75 produce to support two companys.  Yes there are cooperative examples out there with several different companys joining team to make a single add on, but it's probably simply licencing or tech agreements.

 

Oh and this is before the frame rate hit of two highly detailed systems running, which requires high end computers.....which limits your volume.

One NAV system manufacturer selling to multiple aircraft manufacturers....  volume of sales.  

 

Many many simmers here would pay $80+  for a quality aircraft that had great looks and system fidelity. A quality aircraft is one to treasure and enjoy without wishing that critical NAV functions would work or that should work or where is the plane going now,  every time you fly....  

 

Some of the aircraft developers make great looking planes but systems are woeful and that totally spoils the experience.

 

If off the shelf type systems were available to aircraft developers they would be making their planes faster and therefore more of them could be produced and the overall aircraft would be so much better.

 

Some developers are very capable of making an aircraft structure etc but the technical aspects of the systems is often beyond them and results in great disappointment to the purchaser in many cases.

 

They could run a two tier sales system, one aircraft two different system fits.  

1-  They make an in house version as a quick basic  'get you in the air'  type of thing   

2-   A well modelled 'fully' functional system that can be used to fly all the fancy procedures etc, made from a specialist.

 

Their sales figures go up and customer satisfaction goes up as well.

Just a thought... 

 

As to frame rates ,  they would probably go down because the specialist would be writing better code and concentrating on reducing frame rates.

 

A lot of planes take a long long time to eventually get to market and I suspect a great portion of that time is down to nav system coding, this time and effort could be saved by an off the shelf solution.

 

Why have every aircraft developer that's making a type of plane that uses a xxx type system individually building that xxx type system when they could get it off the shelf,  made one time.

 

 

Many many simmers here would pay $80+  for a quality aircraft that had great looks and system fidelity.

Replace $80 with $200-$300 (just a guess) and perhaps your idea would have a merit.

Replace $80 with $200-$300 (just a guess) and perhaps your idea would have a merit.

 

You seem to be suggesting silly figures to throw the idea out of hand....

 

Flight1 do an excellent G1000 rendition in their Cessna Mustang and Kingair, although it could be updated with more features like vnav etc, it is a very good system and the Mustang   - (Aircraft and good NAV system)-    sells for $34.99 TOTAL !

 

If Flight1 were to make their G1000 available to other aircraft makers surely they would profit ?  

Even if they were to make a unit that's usable in other aircraft that a simmer wants to upgrade they would probably generate good sales.

 

If they were to make a Proline as good or better than their G1000 that would probably sell too...   think of all the different aircraft using those two systems alone.

Ignore the silly figures given by Michal. What you are proposing has actually been done by a company named RealityXP:

 

http://www.reality-xp.com/flightsim/index.html

 

Some aircraft addons used to have RealityXP instruments bundled with them. I don't know what is the current situation though.

RXP works only in FS9/FSX. It has not been updated to work with FSX:SE, nor P3D v1, v2, or v3...

 

...nor will it ever be since Jean-Luc seems to have left the development world.

Thanks for the update about RXP, didn't know that. I just mentioned it because I think it's very similar to what the OP was proposing, so his idea is not as odd as has been suggested. I remember back in the days, Reality XP products were praised all over in the flight sim community. :smile:

Providing 3d support for third-party avionics is certainly no walk in the park! Just providing options for using Flight1's GTN units, Mindstar GNS units, and RXP's GNS units has generated no fewer than seventeen unique model and panel folders...

 

...not to mention a truly convoluted installer script to handle all of the variations. :He He:

Ok... there's quite a few misconceptions in this discussion.

 

1 - The G1000 is not 'plug-n-play'... each airframe has it's own custom G1000 system. They are unique.

2 - The Proline 21 is most definitely unique per airframe. Even more so than the G1000. It's absolutely not generic.

 

Given the two facts above, and they are facts... each airframe would require custom software. I assume you think that's cheap, right? Because for $35 for one aircraft with it's unique G1000 installation... how much do you think a third party might get for said G1000 in that $35 aircraft? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Even at fifty percent... that's not enough gross income per aircraft to cover the actual development cost.

 

A generic avionics item... that's one thing... but airframe specific... sorry, that's around $100 per.