[Next Project] maybe a 727? please?

[Alaaar 34]

Hello Ryan,

Could you guys please consider releasing the DC-6 for FSX ........It was released a long time ago for Xplane and I am sure you have much more FSX potential customers 

Please 

Best regards 

[scandinavian13 5,192]

4 hours ago, Alaaar said:

Could you guys please consider releasing the DC-6 for FSX

We stated quite a while ago that we would be bringing it to FSX and P3D. Not sure why you were made to believe otherwise...

[rototom 198]

8 hours ago, Anders Gron said:

That's your personal opinion!

Personally I would really love to see a 787 from PMDG.
Yes, yes, I know that QualityWings is developing one - but with the speed their on, PMDG could develop and release one, before they are finished... 

So how many planes do you need that you just program and then sit and watch. They are all the same and extremely boring. Try flying sometime, you might like it. :)

[anden145 2,285]

1 hour ago, rototom said:

So how many planes do you need that you just program and then sit and watch. They are all the same and extremely boring. Try flying sometime, you might like it. :)

We all have different views on how we enjoy flying!! That doesn't make your way of flying the only way, and all others stupid and boring. That's your personal opinion. Please refrain from projecting this to others. 

Please... 

[scandinavian13 5,192]

I get that people are passionate about what they'd like us to take a look at, but do keep in mind that our user base is much larger than this forum. Moreover, you aren't going to sway our observations and path with a single argument (in the "here are my points" sense, and not "argument" as a syn to "tussle, or fight") in a single thread - regardless of how well you make your points. So, state your arguments in support of your viewpoints, but be kind to each other.

1. Your points alone aren't going to instantly sway our decisions; and
2. Convincing someone else with all of the subtlety of a shot to the face with a cudgel isn't either. It won't convince that person to agree with you very well, and they're not the person you need to convince. That would be us, and I'll remind you of Item 1, above.

[rototom 198]

14 minutes ago, Anders Gron said:

We all have different views on how we enjoy flying!! That doesn't make your way of flying the only way, and all others stupid and boring. That's your personal opinion. Please refrain from projecting this to others. 

Please... 

Nobody said stupid. So please refrain from embellishing. And try to relax a little bit. An opinion is just an opinion.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

<--- Wonders if his earlier post went through and was read...

[Ted Striker 338]

9 hours ago, Tabs said:

We'd love to do some classic jets (727, DC-10 and the classic 747 would be my picks)

I'd also love to see a PMDG 727, and more so, a PMDG 707. I'm sure a lot of other older simmers who have flown on these planes would also, I guess there just aren't enough of us around anymore. Being that the 727 is still flying in some countries I would think it would be more popular than an MD-11 but that is just a gut feeling.

Has PMDG considered asking for commitments in advance for a risky project like a 727 or 707? My thought is to set a price and ask for e-mail commitments. If you get enough to warrant the project, then ask for up front payments. If and only after you receive the committed payments, start the project. PMDG is the only addon developer that I have the confidence in to pay in advance and wait a few years for it to be developed.

If you get enough commitments, you get to do a classic jet and us old farts get to fly an exceptional one. If you don't get enough commitments, then you can say "This is why we cannot do a classic jet, so don't ask us again".

I have absolutely no idea what the cost to develop a classic jet addon is. Just a thought,

Ted Striker

[teopereira 25]

The MD-11 is a GREAT plane, but is not a vintage jet... It's buyers are MD-11 affectionates, a very small group indeed... Not to say the pirate copies around, which I think are in much greater number than the legitimate owners...

A vintage Boeing would be a great product for any NGX owner, because it teaches the basics about Boeing aircrafts and how Boeing systems evolved... A vintage Boeing can make you master chart reading and performance calculations and Boeing's history (how Boeing jet systems worked before complex computers)...

 

[Chock 17,769]

Worth remembering here that the Boeing 727 has been out of production for 34 years; similarly, the last Douglas DC-8 was built 45 years ago, and the last completely new Boeing 707 rolled out of Everett 38 years ago (all those USAF tankers and AWACs aeroplanes are pretty much rebuilds or refurbs of existing airframes). These are very old aeroplanes. True, all three of those types are still (just about) flying, either as freighters or with the military in Iran or whatever, but probably not to an airport near you or I on anything like a regular basis, and it won't be long before Iran ditches their 707s and 727s completely, because they have just ordered a load of new A320s and new 737s.

So as far as commercially developing a simulated version of one of them to a 'study level' for FSX or P3D these days, that's going to be a big gamble and almost certainly a losing proposition. What is currently available for a particular sim platform is an issue with decisions like that too: It'd probably be far less of a gamble to make a 707 or a DC-8 or some such for X-Plane than for FSX or P3D, simply because there are not that many quality airliners for X-Plane, so a lot of X-Plane simmers would be inclined to buy anything that was of a sufficient level of quality, but even that is no guarantee of success and would certainly not be the only factor in deciding whether or not to greenlight a development process which might involve years of work and a considerable financial investment because of that. If PMDG started developing a B727 for FSX or P3D tomorrow, realistically it'd be going on sale in four years time, by which point the 727 would have been out of production for almost four decades and would not be in the skies at all, not to mention by that time, there might even be a new sim platform around. Would you want to gamble like that if PMDG were your business? I think you know the answer to that would be 'not a chance baby'.

The PMDG Douglas is a case in point here: 'if we build it, they will come' worked for their Douglas because of the limited number of top notch aeroplanes available for use in X-Plane and a more or less gauranteed status quo of X-Plane users on the increase. Even if that were not so, as a company it was worth PMDG dipping into X-Plane to see what the process was when developing for that platform too. Perhaps more importantly with wishlist threads on Avsim, the PMDG MD-11 was a hard lesson learned by them and one which will be foremost in their minds when people post threads wishing for them to make Fokker Triplane or whatever. We might like to fondly imagine that 'if we build it, they will come' is a mantra which PMDG could make a development decision on and it would always work, but it clearly did not with their MD-11. As we all know (ironically for PMDG too) the MD-11 was the wrong plane at the wrong time and more of an act of desperation from McDonnell Douglas in an attempt to recover from the financial disaster which was the DC-10, eventually seeing them go out of business as they took all their old plane designs and tried to tart them up (DC-9 becoming MD-80, 83 etc) rather than making new types, as Boeing and Airbus did. The lesson is clear, for real world developers of aeroplanes as it is for developers of simulated ones; you gotta move with the times.

So it's all very well for someone as old as me to want to see some of those jurassic jets flying around in my sim because I saw them filling the skies when I was a kid, but the reality is that to anyone into flight sims under the age of thirty, many will just regard those first and second generation jetliners jets as boring old bangers which are 'hard to fly' because they have no FMC, thus not what they are interested in flying. Yes we are passionate about those older jets, but we are the minority as far as paying customers go.

It's not all bad news of course, you can buy a simulated FSX 707, DC-8, 727, Comet, Vanguard, DC-10, L1011, VC-10 (soon), Constellation, DC-4, DC-6, DC-3 etc, you just have to be aware that it isn't going to be either economical, or always particularly practical either (where could you find an operational Sud Aviation Caravelle to record sounds off for example) for a developer to go all out on making a new one. Common sense tells them they will have to build such a thing to a price and level of detail based on how many they think they'd sell.

So you have to resign yourself to the fact that, where such classics are concerned, some will literally never be made in anything other than possibly freeware form because they are too obscure - Dassault Mercure (only 12 ever built) and Convair 880 (only 65 ever built) - some will only be made to a certain level of fidelity and thus a lower price because that's what most flight sim customers want - JF DC-8, Comet etc - and some more complex ones you will have to be content with using an older product; one which was made when the market was better able to support such an effort because those things were still in our skies, even in limited numbers (i.e. CS 727 and 707).

And as far as the arguments about having to 'be a pilot' to fly an older jet without some fancy autopilot which can do everything, or more of a 'computer operator' to fly a newer one which has those clever systems on board. That may be true, but it doesn't make it any less skilful or less fun to fly a modern jet with all those system one has to learn, it's just different.

I do agree that one approach might be to get a financial commitment from potential buyers (i.e. crowd fund) development of an older jet. But whether that would garner enough buyers who'd be prepared to stump up a hundred quid in advance is another matter. It worked for the developers of Elite Dangerous; I and many others paid two hundred quid several years in advance of the product eventually showing up, but that was of course a completely different type of product and one which many many people had fond memories of in its older form.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

8 minutes ago, Chock said:

The PMDG Douglas is a case in point here: 'if we build it, they will come' worked for their Douglas because of the limited number of top notch aeroplanes available for use in X-Plane and a more or less gauranteed status quo of X-Plane users on the increase.

FWIW: Our DC-6 often gets brought up in request threads because people don't understand what it was truly there to serve as, so I feel like I should clear it up whenever I see it.

The DC-6 mainly served as a project to learn about X-Plane development. Having to program complicated avionics, external nav data handling, complex displays, and other modern items would only serve to distract from getting down into the guts of X-Plane to learn about the platform and developing for that platform specifically. Additionally, using an existing product to convert into X-Plane wouldn't have given us an opportunity to build from the ground up to learn how to develop specifically for X-Plane - it would only show us how to convert stuff for it, which usually comes with significant compromises.

So, to not be distracted by a bunch of modern technology that would need to be programmed into a plane, we went vintage since it doesn't require much extra. While going vintage we also went with an old radial since a bunch of us are fans of those airplanes, which helps when you're learning new stuff. It's always good to have a project that you're passionate about as a team, and not simply working on because a lot of people want it, potentially at the cost of your own interest level. There wasn't much aim there other than learning X-Plane. As such, when it comes to decisions about trying to fit into community interests, it really doesn't play a part.

 

Good viewpoints on some of the other items, however - the Caravelle as you mentioned would be very tough to source, Tech, etc.

[DavidP 1,408]

5 hours ago, rototom said:

Try flying sometime, you might like it. :)

 

3 hours ago, rototom said:

An opinion is just an opinion

Perhaps you should remember this when next you choose to mock someone else's opinion. My suggestion is grow up a bit.

[rototom 198]

14 minutes ago, DavidP said:

 

Perhaps you should remember this when next you choose to mock someone else's opinion. My suggestion is grow up a bit.

That was a joke....see the smilie? Again...lets try to relax a bit.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

All of you. See my earlier post.

Then, promptly knock it off.

Not even kidding anymore.

[teopereira 25]

Some people want the NG Max... It would be great, but I would prefer this: 

https://www.360cities.net/image/inside-the-boing-737-200

or this:

http://www.museeairespace.fr/wp-content/uploads/360/727fedex.html