Why isn't there a LOT more study level aircrafts?

[Nyxx 6,993]

5 minutes ago, Boomer said:

This debate, had core versus light weight jets, has been going on for 2 decades in the combat sim communities and never ends well.  The benchmark hardcore tactical combat sim is Falcon BMS.

wow, Chris, I loved that Sim. It was amazing.

@Ray Proudfoot BTW Ray, Like you I'm looking forward to Concorde being on that list. I think a lot of people will need your advice on that one Ray. You will be the goto man for sure. I only have to think of FSL Concord and your name comes to mind  🙂 

Edited January 12, 2019 by Nyxx

[Holdit 551]

33 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

I did not say it did count, did I? [...] Did I say they were not Study level?

 

Well it does seem like that when you say "Study level P3D" and then go on to "I'm not going to include...".

 

Quote

I just keep small jets and GA out of my list. ofc many GA and small jets are study level but its another class of aircraft. That personly I don't care for, so am not writing a list that's not my type. Better for GA flyers to do so.

Understood (and agreed) - thanks for the clarification.

[Patco Lch 1,465]

I'm content. I have enough high level simulations to keep me busy a life time. I believe most of us just scratch the surface of the capabilities of these add-ons. I for one prefer routine flights and don't use options such as service failures, or emergencies. The kind of things a line pilot might face on a sim cheack ride. But I like knowing thoose capabilities are there and all the failure potential of the real aircraft is  simulated.

Edited January 12, 2019 by PATCO LCH

[Christopher Low 5,354]

I am one of those in the "barely scratch the surface of available features" club when it comes to flying the complex airliners. However, I agree that it is nice to be able to fly something that I know is simulated incredibly accurately in all departments. I would love to get my hands on the Flightsim Labs A320-X at some point, since that has all of the features that are most important to me (like a detailed FMS, autothrottle, and navigation display).

[jon b 2,050]

I buy quite a few study level aircraft simply because I want study level flight dynamics modelling and am happy to pay for that. I don’t have the capacity to learn all their systems in detail so like Vic says I also just do routine flights and enjoy the aerodynamics, most of the time I’m happy just flying circuits with a good aircraft. Likewise I’m happy to buy expensive DCS aircraft simply for their exceptional aerodynamics and never flip the the master arm switch out of SAFE.

My current favourite is flyjsim 737-200 in x-plane which I fly VFR up and down the coast line. The best handling aircraft I’ve ever used though would have to go to the DCS A10-C, that thing is a real aircraft somehow trapped inside a computer.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,958]

51 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

wow, Chris, I loved that Sim. It was amazing.

@Ray Proudfoot BTW Ray, Like you I'm looking forward to Concorde being on that list. I think a lot of people will need your advice on that one Ray. You will be the goto man for sure. I only have to think of FSL Concord and your name comes to mind  🙂 

That's nice of you, thanks David.

[virtualstuff 758]

58 minutes ago, Boomer said:

The benchmark hardcore tactical combat sim is Falcon BMS.

Memories there 😉

[Chock 17,769]

Of course 'study level' is one of those how long is a piece of string definitions isn't it? There isn't one I know of that is truly 'study level' in the sense that everything is simulated, even the really fancy ones for example, rarely have the circuit breakers simulated. The Majestic Dash 8 being a notable exception to this, in that it does indeed have working circuit breakers, but it's rare that pilots would even touch those, so as a study feature, it is one of more use to airline engineers who might want to study that aspect of it, and of which, the Majestic Dash 8 has other such features of interest to service personnel, so it is indeed an impressive thing and perhaps more of a 'study sim' than any other offering in this regard at least, especially for the price.

Thus we're back to 'it depends what you want to study'. You get a lot of people trotting out that PMDG is better than this, or FSL is better than that, but this is often said by people who simply regard that as the default opinion to have without them really knowing if it is entirely true, a good example of this is the iFly 737 and 747, which does indeed have some things replicated more accurately than its PMDG alternative, and, to be fair, vice versa.

On most add-on airliners, you can cheerfully hit shift+E plus a number, and the cargo doors will open even if there is no electrical and hydraulic power, whereas on the real thing you'd have to hand crank the hydraulic pump to do that, and I don't know of any simulated airliner which has that manual hydraulic feature actually working. So if you were 'studying' ground operations of your airliner, then it wouldn't be as useful as it could be. Now it is true that some airline pilots you come across haven't got a clue about that sort of thing, but they really should have, and by the same token, you do often find that the decent ones do take an interest in every aspect of their aeroplane, as they quite rightly recognise that it is prudent to do so.

None of the simulated airliners I know of have the fueling panel simulated either, which is another really important thing on the real aeroplanes. Likewise, do you know of any which have the little red marker in the doors to warn you that the emergency slide is armed? This is very important on the real things too. Similarly, do any of them have the little green window markers on the cargo doors to confirm the latches are shut and locked properly? These are things the crew must check on a walkaround and are important for air bridge operations too, so this is certainly something which should concern an airliner crew in real life. The real Boeing 787 is supposed to have three ground power plugs connected if it needs to do a ground power start (two from the FEP and an additional GPU plugged into an inlet socket at the wing root), does the QW 787 do this? Since it is a Boeing recommendation to do that; it is what I would regard as a 'study' feature in the truest sense, and there are similar aspects to this with other airliners and their operations which would really be items to study if you were operating them for real.

So how far should developers go with all this to be able to claim it is a 'study sim'? Should you be able to pull up the carpet in the cockpit of your 737 NG and look through the little viewing port window in the floor to confirm the landing gear position if the gear indicator lights are not working, or can we regard going to an external view in the sim as an acceptable substitute for that?

In the end, the more of this stuff which goes into a simulator, the more research and development if will require, and thus more time to do that, and we'll (quite rightly) pay more for that too. No dev team is realistically gonna knock out a pretty realistically-simulated complex modern airliner in less than about four years from start to finish. That's why there are not more of them around.

 

Edited January 12, 2019 by Chock

[SunDevil56 183]

8 minutes ago, Chock said:

Of course 'study level' is one of those how long is a piece of string definitions isn't it?

Bingo.

Sort of like the the recent discussion of the "professional" label....

[ShezA 176]

20 minutes ago, Chock said:

Of course 'study level' is one of those how long is a piece of string definitions isn't it? There isn't one I know of that is truly 'study level' in the sense that everything is simulated, even the really fancy ones for example, rarely have the circuit breakers simulated. The Majestic Dash 8 being a notable exception to this, in that it does indeed have working circuit breakers, but it's rare that pilots would even touch those, so as a study feature, it is one of more use to airline engineers who might want to study that aspect of it, and of which, the Majestic Dash 8 has other such features of interest to service personnel, so it is indeed an impressive thing and perhaps more of a 'study sim' than any other offering in this regard at least, especially for the price.

Thus we're back to 'it depends what you want to study'. You get a lot of people trotting out that PMDG is better than this, or FSL is better than that, but this is often said by people who simply regard that as the default opinion to have without them really knowing if it is entirely true, a good example of this is the iFly 737 and 747, which does indeed have some things replicated more accurately than its PMDG alternative, and, to be fair, vice versa.

On most add-on airliners, you can cheerfully hit shift+E plus a number, and the cargo doors will open even if there is no electrical and hydraulic power, whereas on the real thing you'd have to hand crank the hydraulic pump to do that, and I don't know of any simulated airliner which has that manual hydraulic feature actually working. So if you were 'studying' ground operations of your airliner, then it wouldn't be as useful as it could be. Now it is true that some airline pilots you come across haven't got a clue about that sort of thing, but they really should have, and by the same token, you do often find that the decent ones do take an interest in every aspect of their aeroplane, as they quite rightly recognise that it is prudent to do so.

None of the simulated airliners I know of have the fueling panel simulated either, which is another really important thing on the real aeroplanes. Likewise, do you know of any which have the little red marker in the doors to warn you that the emergency slide is armed? This is very important on the real things too. Similarly, do any of them have the little green window markers on the cargo doors to confirm the latches are shut and locked properly? These are things the crew must check on a walkaround and are important for air bridge operations too, so this is certainly something which should concern an airliner crew in real life. The real Boeing 787 is supposed to have three ground power plugs connected if it needs to do a ground power start (two from the FEP and an additional GPU plugged into an inlet socket at the wing root), does the QW 787 do this? Since it is a Boeing recommendation to do that; it is what I would regard as a 'study' feature in the truest sense, and there are similar aspects to this with other airliners and their operations which would really be items to study if you were operating them for real.

So how far should developers go with all this to be able to claim it is a 'study sim'? Should you be able to pull up the carpet in the cockpit of your 737 NG and look through the little viewing port window in the floor to confirm the landing gear position if the gear indicator lights are not working, or can we regard going to an external view in the sim as an acceptable substitute for that?

In the end, the more of this stuff which goes into a simulator, the more research and development if will require, and thus more time to do that, and we'll (quite rightly) pay more for that too. No dev team is realistically gonna knock out a pretty realistically-simulated complex modern airliner in less than about four years from start to finish. That's why there are not more of them around.

 

Well said. This whole 'Study Level' definition is a moving target dependent on the expectation of the user...

[jon b 2,050]

On that note the flyjsim 737 has quite a few peripheral  cabin functions and panels modelled. 

So for example for an enhanced realistic experience at “study level” I can get my wife who is RW cabin crew to go through the virtual  cabin opening individual window blinds, closing overhead lockers, dim the cabin lights and then retract the airstairs using the correct panel and close the door. I can then send her off to the RW kitchen which can double as the virtual galley to get me a cup of tea!  Of course I don’t really  do that, but I could if I wanted!

[Boomer 1,619]

2 hours ago, awf said:

Memories there 😉

Why in the past ...it's still around and a great sim...

[vc10man 732]

Logical output, as usual, Al. And spot-on more to the point.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

19 hours ago, mustiej said:

Would much rather pay 100bucks for a couple of them

And therein lies the problem. It is not worth it making them. If this would be a high value or even a mass market, then we would have had the big names of the gaming industry in this pond all the time. But we don't. If the average simmer would pay 1000 bucks for a single aircraft, as a recurring license fee every year, matters would look a lot different. Or if there were millions of simmers. That would get the big players in the software market interested too. But it isn't and so they aren't.

The market is so small and the effort to make these addons is so huge, that there just isn't a business case. And that reduces making flightsim addons to a task for enthusiasts. There is only a precious few developers who can actually make a living off this, and even they are struggling to get their new products done in a reasonable time frame. Which usually means that they don't have enough money to pay a larger workforce to get things done more quickly.

From past experience my rule of thumb goes like this: find a thread on AVSIM that is discussing a product release. Look at the number of views. Divide that figure by the number of pages that the thread has. 10% of the result is usually the number of people who will seriously consider buying the product. Multiply with the price you have in mind for a product and then think hard if that is really worth it. "Mega - hypes" and "works of love" excluded of course. 

Best regards

Edited January 12, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[TextRich 88]

16 hours ago, signmanbob said:

 

• Eaglesoft Development Group (Soon to release the Challenger 605 and Citation X for P3Dv4 )

 

15 hours ago, Chapstick said:

Doubtful... they haven't released anything in like 10 years and all they do is post screenshots on Facebook while "considering the possibility of thinking about maybe" making add-ons for P3D V4.

 

Last I heard EagleSoft decided to make the Citation X version 3 in 32 bits first, then they will think about a version 4 for 64 bits (P3D v4).