MD-11 no longer available

[HighTowers 1,434]

45 minutes ago, Farlis said:

Well the mindset is that it is not a simulation if you are flying a combination that doesn't exist in the real world. For it to be a simulation it has to mirror what is going on in reality.

Umm how many DC-6 aircraft do you see flying in reality? Certainly not mainstream. Yet it was modelled for 2 platforms. There are lots of not so used aircraft that still get released. L1011,717,etc.  Pretty sure if a new MD-11 was released, there would be interest. Look at all the cargo VA's that use the MD11. Clearly from all the previous threads to this missing the MD11 shows that, so its not about lack of interest but rather financials and resources which always trumps everything else. 

[Christopher Low 5,354]

Thank God that the number of flight simmers with this kind of narrow mindset is only a tiny fraction of the total, because if a significant percentage of people thought like this, we could kiss goodbye to anything like (for example) the PMDG DC6 or upcoming Just Flight Vickers VC10 ever being developed for our flight simulators in the future.

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

I flew the MD-11 much more than the 777. The 777 quickly becomes boring, and not having an MD-11 for P3D V4 is, to me, a big loss. I never reinvested on the 777 for P3D (paying twice for the same thing isn't for me), but i would surely reinvest in the MD-11 as it's so old now and simply fantastic with one of the best, if not the best cockpit environments to ever grace the flight sim world.

True shame it didn't takeoff, but i do think it would sell much more nowadays than it did back then. Same applies to the 757/767, if PMDG made those, they would sell like hotcakes.

[vc10man 732]

55 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

upcoming Just Flight Vickers VC10

So, so looking forward to this, Christopher. And I hope they do her justice. Some JF products can be good, soem are right flaky.

[vc10man 732]

Just my take on this topic.

I have purchased many aircraft add-ons since FS5, including all the early Legacy PMDG offerings. At the time their MD-11 came out, it was quite advanced for what was then available in the sim world, allied to the skillset of the then simmers. Perhaps it was too daunting and maybe that is why it did not sell? I do not know that. But then with the advent of a smaller 'bird' the NGX737, simmers started progressively improving their skillsets and carried on that  with that advance through to the 777 release, followed by the OOTS II, which are now so far ahead of what was required for the MD-11.

Now that simmers have advanced their flying skillsets, they feel that they can now accommodate an updated MD-11 too. It would be a Day 1 purchase for me if ever such a thing were to happen. But as a few posts here have commented on, it seems 'the boat was missed'. But we can but hope.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

6 hours ago, HighTowers said:

Umm how many DC-6 aircraft do you see flying in reality?

Using the DC-6 as "evidence" only serves to prove a lack of awareness of our actual development goals, which is what one would be trying to otherwise prove knowledge of in this case. Specific to the DC-6, we made it as a way to test our development knowledge and procedures for aircraft in X-Plane. The DC-6 is old, so there aren't all kinds of systems on top of systems, or FMCs, or CRTs/LCDs to model. That allowed us to concentrate on the basics of the aircraft and the sim: getting it to fly right in the sim, understanding how to code properly for the sim - all of the things that we would have otherwise been distracted from if we were to have to add all of the complexity on top of everything. The JS4100 as a testbed for the NGX also comes to mind. Selling it was somewhat of an afterthought, compared to most of our other products.

If someone would like any credence given to their point, it would be in your best interest to leave the DC-6 out of it. 

Additionally, to the other point that "a lot of people talk about it" means a lot, do keep in mind a lot of the people inclined to comment in a thread about the MD-11 are people who would comment in favor of it. There's a lot of bias in simply assuming "a lot of people are talking about it, ergo importance" standpoint. Additionally, it goes against the actual hard numbers. Numbers win.

[anden145 2,285]

28 minutes ago, scandinavian13 said:

Using the DC-6 as "evidence" only serves to prove a lack of awareness of our actual development goals, which is what one would be trying to otherwise prove knowledge of in this case. Specific to the DC-6, we made it as a way to test our development knowledge and procedures for aircraft in X-Plane. The DC-6 is old, so there aren't all kinds of systems on top of systems, or FMCs, or CRTs/LCDs to model. That allowed us to concentrate on the basics of the aircraft and the sim: getting it to fly right in the sim, understanding how to code properly for the sim - all of the things that we would have otherwise been distracted from if we were to have to add all of the complexity on top of everything. The JS4100 as a testbed for the NGX also comes to mind. Selling it was somewhat of an afterthought, compared to most of our other products.

If someone would like any credence given to their point, it would be in your best interest to leave the DC-6 out of it. 

Additionally, to the other point that "a lot of people talk about it" means a lot, do keep in mind a lot of the people inclined to comment in a thread about the MD-11 are people who would comment in favor of it. There's a lot of bias in simply assuming "a lot of people are talking about it, ergo importance" standpoint. Additionally, it goes against the actual hard numbers. Numbers win.

+1, Kyle!
Well said.

[HighTowers 1,434]

5 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

Using the DC-6 as "evidence" only serves to prove a lack of awareness of our actual development goals, which is what one would be trying to otherwise prove knowledge of in this case.

Kyle , thanks for your response. I gathered you would be here soon enough to shoot it down as before. I have no doubt about the DC-6s development goals as it was made clear before. It looks like an outstanding simulation and one that was very complicated to replicate. I have the utmost respect that it was done. I was just pointing out, that the MD-11 was said to be not so popular because people dont see it at the airports and cant relate to it very much thus the poor sales. Based on that, the DC-6 falls into the same category especially with newer generation of simmers. Of course its an iconic aircraft of old and has alot of history but we still dont see it very much at all. Its cool, but not something I would personally like to fly. I have alot more relationship with the MD-11 because they were prime time when I worked on ramp at the time. Forgive me for being a fan and praising the awesome job PMDG did for it at the time. Hoping for it to be resurrected was surely a dream. (think we are allowed to dream here) Thats all. No discredit to current and future projects. 

Cheers

 

[mosteen 111]

The MD-11 is nine years old, the NGX is six years old. However bad the MD sold back in the day, compared to the three year younger NGX, it's a bit odd to use a low sales as an argument for saying "never ever again".

Markets change, what was not performing well back then, might do well now. Software development gets streamlined to a certain degree, which would propably make it a bit easier making a V2 now than it was to build the original from scratch back in 2006-2008. Of course, making a MD-11 V2 is not a simple porting job, it's a huge investment with associated risks, like every new development project.

The question is; would the existing MD-11 give an headstart when developing a V2? I'm pretty sure that QOTSII has a few bits and bobs from QUOTSI. How much or how little, only PMDG knows. Also, what if there are rights issues linked to the original MD-11 source and data?

Perhaps there are agreements with the original MD-11 developer(s), who are not with PMDG anymore, that makes it impossible to build on anything useful from the old model and its associated data?

We can only hope, one day... Or fly the Mad Dog in XP11 :)

[ubersu 78]

The one thing guaranteed is that software development and testing costs continue to rise. I'm sure that if you were willing to pay the costs, PMDG would be delighted to build the greatest MD-11 of all time. Otherwise, note that the manufacturer couldn't sell it in the real world either, take the fact that it was a poor seller in the sim market as well and give it up. I think PMDG did a great job in FS9 and FSX with the aircraft and there is nothing they could do that would make it more desirable today than it was to begin with.

David Jones

[dgeddesjr 4]

If PMDG is taking a poll:

I currently fly 737, 777, and 747 (all PMDG) in Prepar3d v3, as well as the Level-D 767 (yes it works in Prepar3D, quite well in fact!).  I also have 747 in Prepar3D v4, which means that once 777 and 737 are eventually released in v4 I will keep Prepar3D v3 around only for the occasional flight in the 767, and I may uninstall it entirely. 

What would I like to see?  Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 please.  Pretty please?  So put me in the "wants to fly the latest stuff" camp. 

[PMDG777 231]

7 hours ago, mosteen said:

The question is; would the existing MD-11 give an headstart when developing a V2? I'm pretty sure that QOTSII has a few bits and bobs from QUOTSI. How much or how little, only PMDG knows. Also, what if there are rights issues linked to the original MD-11 source and data?

Fairly sure QOTSII was built from the ground up from scratch and shares nothing from QOTSI. If anything, it shares pieces from the 777 and NGX. 

I think it's safe to say that an MD-11 V2 would be a complete build from scratch, just like the NGX was when it replaced the original 737, and QOTSII was.

[mosteen 111]

2 minutes ago, PMDG777 said:

Fairly sure QOTSII was built from the ground up from scratch and shares nothing from QOTSI. If anything, it shares pieces from the 777 and NGX. 

I think it's safe to say that an MD-11 V2 would be a complete build from scratch, just like the NGX was when it replaced the original 737, and QOTSII was.

Yes, it propably is, and you would surely _want_ to build it from scratch too, to get it into your current "system of doing things". But, if you have built a high fidelity sim of an aircraft before, there must be loads of data you can reuse? All the "factual" data about the model, the different "nodes" where info is collected from and so on? If you twice build a sim based on the same aircraft, my bet is that the second time you do it, it'll be faster.

[Boeing or not going 578]

PMDG could sell an MD-11 early adopter or pre-order, stating they need a certain number of sales to make their development costs back, if all this is about is thinking an MD-11 isn't going to sell. Us simmers can prove that wrong! - David Lee

[harvester21 34]

2 hours ago, 777200lrf said:

PMDG could sell an MD-11 early adopter or pre-order, stating they need a certain number of sales to make their development costs back, if all this is about is thinking an MD-11 isn't going to sell. Us simmers can prove that wrong! - David Lee

That is probably the best idea yet. I would opt in for this.