Is there a list of aircraft available for the new MSFS

nebojsa

It's literally in the official release date announcement.... https://www.flightsimulator.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-set-for-launch-on-august-18-for-pc-also-with-xbox-game-pass-for-pc-beta/

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by ckyliu

Interesting to note that in stark contrast to P3D, there are no military types at all in the list, unless we include the few GA aeroplanes which have also served as military types, so I guess the C-172, in T-41 Mescalero guise kind of counts as one in that case. Nor any helicopters either. So right off the bat there's two things the TPDs can get on to.

 

Helicopters have been deliberately left out because Asobo don't consider the new aerodynamics engine to do a good job with them yet. So any TPD that completes development of a helicopter before Asobo have released one is foolish.

The biggest gap I can spot, given that FSX has traditionally been a civillian aviation simulator with only a small military following, is regional airliners. Not aware of sales figures for military addons on FSX+P3D but I imagine they pale in comparison to most other genres.

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by ckyliu

10 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

Helicopters have been deliberately left out because Asobo don't consider the new aerodynamics engine to do a good job with them yet.

Apparently the same is true regarding seaplanes.

 

10 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

So any TPD that completes development of a helicopter before Asobo have released one is foolish.

Not necessarily. Since they said the legacy aerodynamics engine is included as an alternative, helicopters might work as good - or bad - in MSFS like in FSX / P3D.

For seaplanes however I'm afraid the water physics of MSFS come into play as well.

10 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

 

The biggest gap I can spot, given that FSX has traditionally been a civillian aviation simulator with only a small military following, is regional airliners.

... and seaplanes (except for the amphibian Icon A5, which we haven't seen in action yet).

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by RALF9636

@RALF9636 The Icon A5 amphibian is shipping in MFS basic version on release day, so it seems the water physics are there in some capacity. Haven't see any mention of float planes though.

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by ckyliu

1 minute ago, ckyliu said:

@RALF9636 The Icon A5 amphibian is shipping in MFS basic version on release day

You were too quick for me to edit my post. 😉

True, but we haven't seen any seaplane action so far. Would be a welcome surprise if it's possible at release but then I wonder why they didn't add one or two real floatplanes.

Whilst it is true that the FS franchise has more GA and Commercial stuff than military stuff, the FS franchise has included military stuff much of the time as default aeroplanes. The F/A-18 and Mustang in appear in FSX, and if we go back far enough, you could actually indulge in combat in many of the early versions of FS courtesy of the Sopwith Camel and a dogfighting option which was built into the sim (particularly in the SubLogic variants of it).

Beyond this, and given the desire to appeal to console buyers too with the new sim, I would have thought throwing in an F/A-18 or F-14 at the very least, particularly given the timing of the release being close to the release of the new Top Gun movie, would have been a smart thing to do. These things have a big appeal to casual simmers who just want to 'kick the tires and light the fires'. I strongly suspect their omission will impact on some console players deciding to not click that 'buy' button. If I'd have been supervising the list of planes to include, I'd have insisted they put a bit of a 'rocket ship' in there for this very reason, probably an F-35 or an F-22.

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by Chock

This is beginning to remind me of a certain user who said there were no undulating runways. 😄 

Hook

4 minutes ago, LHookins said:

This is beginning to remind me of a certain user who said there were no undulating runways. 😄 

Hook

Okay, I won't mention seaplanes any more - until August 19th. 😄

@Chock It's a fair point that particularly the console crowd would want some kind of military jet. I wonder if Asobo deliberately left it out to either sell as DLC (like FSX Acceleration) or they were concerned the higher speeds would cause issues - although they could always go for a subsonic jet if that was the case.

But all the examples you mention are defaults and we're talking about DLC sales, the hardcore fans amongst the customer base (i.e. Avsim users) don't seem to have much interest in military stuff, and the casual players won't spend on DLC like us. So it's definitely a niche and someone will probably fill it, but I believe it's likely to be a low detail low price product, with the likes of a Milviz quality military addon probably some way off.

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by ckyliu

The thought occurred to me that they might offer a jet as a DLC payware, however, the logic falls down a bit with that since anyone interested in buying such an add-on, would have to already be hooked, and if there was no fancy fast jet to hook them in the first place, then that's a bit of a problem in terms of appeal. Flawed marketing if you ask me, but, since the thing isn't a release candidate, there is still time to shoehorn a jet in there specifically to appeal to the console crowd/more casual simmer.

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by Chock

9 minutes ago, LHookins said:

This is beginning to remind me of a certain user who said there were no undulating runways. 😄 

Hook

No evidence of undulating runways until Asobo provided it. But I understand the distinction might be a little subtle for some people. 🙄

29 minutes ago, MatthewS said:

No evidence of undulating runways until Asobo provided it. But I understand the distinction might be a little subtle for some people.

For what it's worth, I've seen ONE flat runway so far. 😄 

Hook

4 hours ago, Chock said:

Beyond this, and given the desire to appeal to console buyers too with the new sim, I would have thought throwing in an F/A-18 or F-14 at the very least, particularly given the timing of the release being close to the release of the new Top Gun movie, would have been a smart thing to do. These things have a big appeal to casual simmers who just want to 'kick the tires and light the fires'. I strongly suspect their omission will impact on some console players deciding to not click that 'buy' button. If I'd have been supervising the list of planes to include, I'd have insisted they put a bit of a 'rocket ship' in there for this very reason, probably an F-35 or an F-22.

I agree it's curious not to have at least one fast mover. I suspect it might be due to one of two reasons, or both together:

First, any modern mil jet has a complex cockpit if modeled anywhere near accurately. There may not have been enough resources to do it right, when they're also modeling a complex airliner. A stripped-down model would generate complaints from the diehard military aircraft fans, so they're leaving it to TPD's

The second reason might be that the scenery engine can't yet support mil jet speeds when zooming over towns and cities at low level. At least not yet. I don't know if that's the case, but it might be a factor. There is also the question of modeling a realistic supersonic transition and extended supercruise for the F-35 or F-22.

I'm bummed about helicopters, but they shouldn't be in the sim yet if they can't be done at least as well as in other sims. I'll wait for them to get it right.