Sometime after the release of the first public version of x-plane ( 1995 ), which costed around $700,00 initially ( WOW !!!! ) but had a time limited demo version I used for years before buying my first copy of X-Plane ( XP7 ) if I'm not wrong, Austin announced X-Rotor, as a separate project dedicated to the simulation of rotary wing aircraft.

After a while the new version of X-Plane was on hold and eventually came to live announced as full platform ( I no longer recall which exact version ... ).

Truth being said, helicopters, even more than all other sorts of aircraft, always felt particularly detailled / realistic, and it only got even better with the latest updates to the Experimental Flight Model in XP11.

Maybe LR should concentrate, again, on a product focused mainly on rotary wing ?

It could be a niche, but simmers like that, specially if they can feel that detail / accuracy / study-level production acompaign it.

How many users, for instance, use DCS World just for the sake of profiting from it's excellent Ka-50, UH-1H and Mil Mi-8 ?

Maybe it could be extended to the  emerging "drone-based" designs, as well as good old but still much present autogyros...

 

Edited November 22, 20196 yr by jcomm

80% are pmdg spoilt but not me.   But as a training sim for these real training pilots for the airliners it can be a helpful tool. same goes for rotary. I wouldn't want a sim which only supports a particular type of aircraft. 

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

Maybe LR should concentrate, again, on a product focused mainly on rotary wing ?

An interesting idea, but not a good one for what I think are the following reasons:

• Austin doesn't fly rotary, so it would never get the same enthusiasm and expertise he puts into the main XP development. He's interested in his new whirligig big drone project, but the dynamics and flight controls are very different from conventional helicopter ops.
   
• You and I may love flying helicopters in the sim, but the reality is that it's a tiny part of the flight sim market. The current automated user survey shows only 4.1% of flights in XP11 are in helicopters. 
   
• The only recent non-combat helicopter sim -- Take On Helicopters -- made a very small splash in the sim market, and died a quick death with no follow-up. 
   
• For the first one or two years of the new MSFS, the existing helicopter fleet in XP11 is likely to give it an advantage over whatever is available in MSFS. No need for a separate sim for that.
   
• One reason people like helicopters is for sightseeing, and if Laminar isn't going to drastically change the scenery modeling to compete with MSFS in XP11, there isn't any point in having a separate sim for it.

Finally, I just don't see what a separate rotary wing sim would bring to the table that we can't already do in XP11? Maybe helicopter-specific scripted missions, but that was tried in Take On Helicopters without much success. 

Edited November 22, 20196 yr by Paraffin

Focusing development on a particular type of aircraft would be a freaking awful business decision and needlessly limit its market appeal.

Edited November 22, 20196 yr by Bjoern

2 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Focusing development on a particular type of aircraft would be a freaking awful business decision and needlessly limit its market appeal.

pretty much....