What happened to Lou Betti Dreamfleet?

[duckbilled 310]

That was Paul Golding's project. He was planning on revising it for FSX, but his modeler (Eric Cantu) dropped out of FS and he really didn't want to start over. Darn shame. He's still around on the Aerosoft forums from time to time.

 

DJ

 

Paul Golding was the one that really got me in to FS back in the day of 2d panel. His 707 panel was a masterpiece. His lighting ambiance in 2d panels has still not been reproduced for VC's.

[LAdamson 240]

Lou was on a full size airplane forum that I was a member of, around five + years ago, but I'm not there anymore either. I enjoyed the good old days of Dreamfleet.  Did some beta testing for those airplanes, way back then. 

[MarkW 1,491]

Really loved the Dreamfleet 727.  Amazing aircraft.

[N400QW 205]

Weren't you at the AOPA forums at the time of Lou Larry?

[Orlaam 306]

It's a real shame DF are not around anymore. The 734 was my first pay ware product in FS2002. Such a great product. Their GA aircraft and flight dynamics were unmatched. Such polished aircraft.

[jwenting 20]

These days your browsing/calendar/phone contacts etc are all comunicating with each other. Whenever I go to my doctor's surgery, facebook via my iphone is always asking if I want to be friends with him. It can only be picking that up from registering that his phone is nearby and that his name is in my calendar.

 

 

True. But I'd not visited their website in a decade (since before LinkedIn existed, and several computers ago) and never did have his email in my address book...

Maybe through a common connection, by coincidence, who knows.

 

And preventing what you experience is one reason I won't use facebook or whatsapp (but I repeat myself, whatsapp is facebook) and keep location services on my phone turned off at all times except when strictly needed.

[757FO 143]

Lou moved down south a few years ago, I haven't spoken to him in a while, but last time we did he was doing well, he just wanted out of the FS business

John

[Alan_A 1,650]

Loved the Dreamfleet Archer II and logged hundreds of hours in it - my first high-end FS add-on.  And used to hang out in the Dreamfleet forums, which was a nice community.  I especially remember the retired RAF pilot - was it Peter McClelland? - who was a major contributor.

 

Lou was really cantankerous in a fun kind of way.  He used to like telling the sim pilots that they had no idea what "difficult" or "expensive" meant - try flying a real airplane!  Sort of the opposite of the A2A community, which for me at least gradually took Dreamfleet's place, and benefitted from a slightly more open dialogue between the sim world and the real world.

 

I also started losing interest around the time of the Archer III and the Dakota - they were just too new and clean and expensive.  The Archer II (modeled on Nels Anderson's?) seemed like something you could actually own and fly.

 

The last I saw of Lou was on an aviation history forum, where he was arguing what a terrible pilot Amelia Earhart was.  In other words, he was completely unchanged.  And I hope he never changes...

[Jude Bradley 659]

Excellent aircraft, I had ordered this online,and the shop sent me the 737-NG in error, then sent me the 737-400 too.

Good times back then.

[LAdamson 240]

Weren't you at the AOPA forums at the time of Lou Larry?

Yes

[N400QW 205]

Yes

Thought so...I stopped hanging out there after our flying club began losing members big time and fuel became so expensive. :wink:

[W2DR 1,860]

Last I heard from Lou he was living the good life in Boca Raton, Florida, and still flying the 210N.  -  Doug

[ryanbatc 12,833]

I beta tested with DF and F1 in the early days. My fav was the DF A36 with RXP GNS 530 and the F1 Meridian. RXP did the avionics and I remember wondering how they got those Meggitt instruments so sharp and smooth!

Last I heard from Lou he was living the good life in Boca Raton, Florida, and still flying the 210N. - Doug

Yes, for a time it was thought he'd bring his 210 to FSX but we all know he dropped out of the FS world :(

[ErichB 3,640]

Yup their 737 was my first payware.  Loved it.  Dreamfleet was the business in those days.

 

 

he was disgusted with FS and most folks associated with it.

 

That's a pretty sweeping statement.  Do we know why?

[Paul Golding 92]

The good old days eh? 

 

Lou, I hear from him now and then and yes, he retired to sunny Florida and left the FS world behind for what he felt were good reasons and which I'm not going to discuss.

 

The ATR was a Flight 1 project that Lou happened to do most of the 2d panel artwork for.

 

Thanks for those kind comments about the 727 and I'm really sorry (for me as much as anything) that an updated FSX version never came to be, as well as the never completed DC-8 that was supposed to follow.  The main reasons for this being that doing stuff like this in FSX as a "few evenings a week" hobby, simply didn't work.  For example, the new 727 VC textures were work in progress with new photo realism and higher resolution when I decided they needed to be even higher resolution.  Funnily enough though, I did have a promise from Hans Hartman 3 years ago, that when he finished the coding for the Aerosoft CRJ later that year, he would work with me on the 727....but the CRJ project has still to be finished and I have even less time for FS than I did before....not to mention that Hans' promise was made late in the evening after a beer or two!

 

I'd love to see a new 727 for FSX/P3D with high res VC, shadows and all the rest of it, but seriously doubt it'll have anything to do with the team that did the DF727....sadly.