I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is only ONE option for a "study level" Concorde in the 64bit versions of P3D, and that is FSLabs. I would love to be proved wrong by another developer, but I just can't see anyone else spending the insane amount of time, money and effort required to do the aircraft full justice.

Thanks Ray, shame though.

@Christopher Low, I agree completely. The only downside is they have yet to decide which sim to develop it for given they will do it for only one 64-bit sim. Either P3Dv5 or MFS. Until they decide I see no point buying v5 as it could end up redundant and I'll not have two sims installed.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Christopher Low, I agree completely. The only downside is they have yet to decide which sim to develop it for given they will do it for only one 64-bit sim. Either P3Dv5 or MFS. Until they decide I see no point buying v5 as it could end up redundant and I'll not have two sims installed.

You missed a bit here - they may not continue to develop at all... 

In my personal opinion, FSLabs are the only people with the knowledge base to do a proper job of it, other developers probably see a quick, inaccurate rendering of the flight model with some eye candy as a quick buck maker because of the gap in the market. 

Plus, just like Concorde was in life, she is a minority in the minority of simulation. 

The other developer that has been mentioned might be better because they appear to have military jet experience. 

5 minutes ago, trumpetfrazz1 said:

You missed a bit here - they may not continue to develop at all... 

In my personal opinion, FSLabs are the only people with the knowledge base to do a proper job of it, other developers probably see a quick, inaccurate rendering of the flight model with some eye candy as a quick buck maker because of the gap in the market. 

Plus, just like Concorde was in life, she is a minority in the minority of simulation. 

The other developer that has been mentioned might be better because they appear to have military jet experience. 

I didn’t miss that option at all. Until they specifically state there will be no 64-bit version I’ll take their last statement as still valid.

Yes, I think they are the only team who can produce an accurate model. Whilst any 64-bit version may not achieve the sales of an Airbus they could be significantly higher than some may expect given how many compromises were made to the VC in the 32-bit version plus it had to be run at 1920*1080. That prevented a lot considering it. With those limitations removed who knows how many will be tempted?

47 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I didn’t miss that option at all. Until they specifically state there will be no 64-bit version I’ll take their last statement as still valid.

Yes, I think they are the only team who can produce an accurate model. Whilst any 64-bit version may not achieve the sales of an Airbus they could be significantly higher than some may expect given how many compromises were made to the VC in the 32-bit version plus it had to be run at 1920*1080. That prevented a lot considering it. With those limitations removed who knows how many will be tempted?

It's interesting because I never viewed the VC or running at 1920*1080 as limitations as at the time of initial release, it was a reasonable standard to be running at.  Now, it would be seen as below par but I've always wanted better performance over looks.   

I don't agree that the VC and screen resolution stopped people considering it, people who want to fly Concorde would have spent the money on Concorde X regardless and people who want top notch looks (nothing wrong with that btw) probably wouldn't be the people who want to fly Concorde around.  Concorde was always a compromise and it would seem she is in the sim world as well.  

Unless of course you have evidence of a market survey that shows those two points prevented sales?

 

Regardless, I think AH are to be admired for their honest and forthright reply to Ray. 

52 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

Regardless, I think AH are to be admired for their honest and forthright reply to Ray. 

Yup. Of course when one is really into an aeroplane as much as Ray is with the Concorde, it's going to be disappointing to learn a forthcoming stab at it from a developer is not going to be a full on go at replicating everything, but there is kind of a way around that to some extent if one is prepared to modify things, for example with creating one's own panels for various switchology simulation, and I would tend to think that this might be a path worth exploring for those seeking more than what the forthcoming Concorde simulates 'out of the box' maybe even merging aspects of more than one of the several forthcoming simulated Concordes as well. This used to be something we flight simmers did all the time after all.

Reading between the lines of the reply Ray received from AH, it sounds to me like the contradeal is still on with Just Flight which they had in place when the Caravelle was still a joint project with Just Flight, i.e. for the most part JF's team would be doing the avionics and AH would be doing the 3D modeling. JF's INS which they've built anew for their 747-100/200 and which I understand is going in their VC-10 as well, would therefore be suitable as the basis of the one which the  Caravelle would use, along with presumably their Concorde too since all these aeroplanes (as far as I'm aware) used the Delco Carousel IV-A which they have modeled. This therefore, is at least one aspect of their Concorde which would be as good as it possibly could be, since it appears JF have really 'gone for it' on their 747 development.

Perhaps therefore, it might be possible to persuade/petition AH to make their Concorde's VC at least capable of switching out gauges as a product feature designed to please those who wish to tinker further. This has been done with some recent P3D models for that very reason, for example the very-recently released Lionheart Bellanca Viking, which eschews the use of 3D modeled gauges for older 2D ones specifically to make it possible to modify the VC six-pack avionics fit if one wishes to do so, and it is of course a common feature of products to allow the inclusion of TPD GPS units on many add-on aeroplanes. Maybe even doing this with the entire flight engineer's panel to allow an enterprising modder to at least simulate the switchology even if it isn't doing everything under the hood, so that the cockpit procedural flows can be performed. I should think that could even be pushed as a useful product feature in the marketing of it.

Edited May 10, 20206 yr by Chock

2 hours ago, trumpetfrazz1 said:

It's interesting because I never viewed the VC or running at 1920*1080 as limitations as at the time of initial release, it was a reasonable standard to be running at.  Now, it would be seen as below par but I've always wanted better performance over looks.   

I don't agree that the VC and screen resolution stopped people considering it, people who want to fly Concorde would have spent the money on Concorde X regardless and people who want top notch looks (nothing wrong with that btw) probably wouldn't be the people who want to fly Concorde around.  Concorde was always a compromise and it would seem she is in the sim world as well.  

Unless of course you have evidence of a market survey that shows those two points prevented sales?

 

Neither did I as I changed from a 27” monitor running 1920*1200 to a Sony 32” TV at 1920*1080. But that was many years ago (2013) when FullHD was the norm. In recent years 2K (2560*1440) and 4K (3840*2160) have become far more popular especially after P3Dv4 was released with the 4Gb limit on VAS removed. It’s impossible to run Concorde at those resolutions without running out of  VAS.

As has been discussed on the FSL forum many would have no problem with the existing VC being converted to 64-bit as it allows powerful computers to use more of their resources on extra scenery detail and higher resolution of course. That would appear to be a decent compromise over waiting a long time for a fully fledged 64-bit version. Requests for that have fallen on deaf ears.

If you’ve ever seen a 4K monitor downsized to FullHD your opinion may change. Even with a quality monitor the image quality reduction is obvious.

No survey done. I don’t sell the product. Just reading posts over the years from those with higher resolution displays who expressed disappointment the aircraft wouldn’t run. Fewer complained about the poor VC graphics especially the overhead but that was a necessary compromise. But I’m sure that alone prevented a sale in many cases.

I did a bit of research on the FSLabs Concorde OOM issue before I bought it. I would not have bought it if I didn't think I could run it at 4k. I do have to make sacrifices but as Ray stated, to operate at 1080 on a large 4k monitor is not acceptable. For scenery I only have ORBX global and the departure and arrival airports enabled. My P3Dv3 settings are mostly turned down to medium. Fortunately you can save the entire panel state of this aircraft so I do that at mid-flight. To clear some of my virtual address space I then restart the sim, reload the flight, and finish the flight. I am hoping that FSLabs honors their word and provides a 64 bit version as one of the reasons that I bought the 32 bit version in the first place was to show support and provide them funds to help develop the promised 64 bit version. If they don't, that will most likely be my last purchase from FSLabs.

Ted

I couldn't cope with having to restart the sim in the middle of a flight, it breaks the realism for me.   I have two older HD TVs running a 1080p with one being the 2D instrument panel and the positioned above being the VC but mainly looking out the windscreen obviously.  I haven't even considered upgrading to 4K partly because I never upgrade with every new development because I think it's a waste of money, and I don't earn enough to do so.  I have a 4K TV for watching TV but it won't be moving into the SIm room any time soon. 

At the end of the day as I've always said, everyone wants different things from their sim experience and that's fine.  I wish we could do a survey to find out this kind of thing though, rather than us going on word of mouth examples. 

Must admit I'm at the stage now after waiting this long, I would rather a fully fledged version than a port over - which would have happened by now if it was to be quick and easy.

1 hour ago, trumpetfrazz1 said:

I couldn't cope with having to restart the sim in the middle of a flight, it breaks the realism for me...

I presume you don't do any subsonic long haul flights? Or do you have the sim run overnight and pause prior to TOD? Not judging, just curious, as you rightly say everyone wants different things from their sim and their experience within it.

26 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

I presume you don't do any subsonic long haul flights? Or do you have the sim run overnight and pause prior to TOD? Not judging, just curious, as you rightly say everyone wants different things from their sim and their experience within it.

I’ll just add my six penneth if that’s okay. I’m sure Frazz will soon be along.

Concorde had a range of around 4,000 statute miles and at an average speed of 1100mph no flight was much longer than four hours. Overnighters didn’t exist. 9 hours London-Barbados in a 747 at Mach 0.85 is 4 hours in Concorde at Mach 2.0.

Subsonic long haul would be too heavy on fuel and the aircraft was never designed for  those type of flights.

Leaving the FE panel unattended for even 15 minutes could be dangerous if managed manually and even when the VFE handled the fuel the CG would go too far rearward and needed managing. That just in the sim of course.

The beauty of Concorde flights was there was rarely a dull moment. Lots of checking and calculations to perform as the aircraft climbed throughout until it was time to decelerate and descend. Quite different to the machines we have today.

53 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

I presume you don't do any subsonic long haul flights? Or do you have the sim run overnight and pause prior to TOD? Not judging, just curious, as you rightly say everyone wants different things from their sim and their experience within it.

As Ray has said, flying Concorde was really medium haul in crew hours, not long haul.  If I were to fly long haul which I rarely do (on 747 for example) I would do it in P3dv4.5 which doesn't have the same issues with VAS.  Even when I do fly the slow way, I tend to set Mach number manually on the MCP and get it up to maximum because compared to Concorde it is just sooooo slow! 

I mainly do short haul Airbus European flying to keep my hand in with modern systems, (still altering cost index to get more speed) but Concorde is the ultimate.

If I can get there in three and a half hours, I see no point in taking seven!  I once flew London - Hawaii in a flight time of 7 hrs 18mins (simulated obviously) and did that in a day with stops in New York and Vancouver, in my 747 I'd have only just arrived at New York!

7 hours ago, trumpetfrazz1 said:

As Ray has said, flying Concorde was really medium haul in crew hours, not long haul.  If I were to fly long haul which I rarely do (on 747 for example) I would do it in P3dv4.5 which doesn't have the same issues with VAS.  Even when I do fly the slow way, I tend to set Mach number manually on the MCP and get it up to maximum because compared to Concorde it is just sooooo slow! 

I mainly do short haul Airbus European flying to keep my hand in with modern systems, (still altering cost index to get more speed) but Concorde is the ultimate.

If I can get there in three and a half hours, I see no point in taking seven!  I once flew London - Hawaii in a flight time of 7 hrs 18mins (simulated obviously) and did that in a day with stops in New York and Vancouver, in my 747 I'd have only just arrived at New York!

Just my "747 afficianado" input. I am still on 4.5 HF2 and fly exclusively long distance (10 hours +). Yes, I fly overnight. I get established at the cruise FL, then go to bed and come back in the morning to land. I set about 250 nm on Radar Contact as the pause distance, so I can see what is going on and handle the descent procedure.

Ian