I waded through all the updates at Dino Cattaneo's Indiafoxtecho's Facebook page and made a pdf transcript for anyone that wishes to read all the updates during the past month or so. The short version as posted by Dino is he is waiting for a promised update from Asobo to handle the flight dynamics of canard airfoils. It was expected in the 0.9.3.0 update but now is expect in the next or maybe the following update.  Then the Long EZ can be modeled with the Modern flight dynamics, tested, fine tuned, submitted to Asobo, accepted and finally placed in the Marketplace for purchase. Price has not be set, but, will most likely be less than $20.00. (guess)  

The Rutan Long EZ has excellent pilot visibility and an outrageous range, on par with many private jets.  Fortunately, it has an autopilot.

This discussion exposes some of the steps that have been taken by Indiafoxtecho and Asobo and for the first time details some of the hoops and loops the devs have to overcome to get an addon to the Marketplace.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UWPqTj-LZhTxUfdNQyf4Vod1NNwhAzLO/view?usp=sharing

This was the status about a month ago when it was expected to be in the Marketplace a week or so after launch.

A quick development update for LONG-EZ for Microsoft Flight Simulator following feedback from testers and commenters.

- The cockpit has been redesigned, so that the instruments are now larger and more accurate and the main panel has been redesigned (taking the traditional "big 6" instruments approach). Some liked the "worn out" look...others did not...but I like it and will keep it. I have also removed all non-functional controls items for simplicity.

- The outer model is done...but I am a little undecided about the liveries. The idea was to embrace the MSFS approach, that is have generic liveries with player-selectable registration number...so I made a few based on real-world aircrafts. Unfortunately, the dynamic registration texture does not seem to work for this plane, so may be I'll be switching back to baked-in registration numbers... In any case a paintkit will be provided.

- We had a few Long-EZ builders/pilots in the initial test who provided interesting feedback on the flying qualities. In general the planes flies well, but it is a tad slower than the real world one, and it is too difficult to slow down. I'll see what I can do to improve this, but my target for this project is to have a fun sight-seeing aircraft that is easy to fly for everyone.

The aerodynamic model must not be that great if Asobo has to add specific support for a canard vs the dev just being able to define an airfoil of a given set of parameters and at a given station location on the aircraft and have it work accordingly.

If every interesting configuration required Asobo do work to add it, it will really limit the aircraft available.

Edited October 8, 20205 yr by marsman2020

2 minutes ago, marsman2020 said:

The aerodynamic model must not be that great if Asobo has to add specific support for a canard vs the dev just being able to define an airfoil of a given set of parameters and at a given station location on the aircraft and have it work accordingly.

If every interesting configuration required Asobo do work to add it, it will really limit the aircraft available.

The way I read it, Indiafoxtechno had the Long EZ completed and ready for market but, was forced to use the Traditional flight dynamics due to the limitations of the Asobo Modern dynamics package.  Asobo probably read that as having a big hole in their SDK and MS, most likely, told them to fix it so Canards could fly properly in MSFS.

I wasn't there, but, it is obvious that MS/Asobo wanted the plane to fly using the Modern dynamics and were willing to fix their limited coding.