After Friday statement (reported below), DC Designs showed the first image of the work in progress Concorde for MSFS

"..As of next week, the final, and most complex, conversion project on my list will begin: the Big Fast White Pointy Thing, Concorde, will dominate the workload from now until its MSFS launch, which hopefully will be before Christmas 2021. First images will appear soon for the exterior model, but the interior will probably be some time as it needs a lot of re-modelling and re-texturing to bring it up to MSFS standard."

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/DCDesignsAircraft/posts/3066085347045777&show_text=true&width=500"

Edited September 13, 20214 yr by fra147

I doubt I'll be ever be able to (sim)fly such a bird, but boy, what a beauty she was! All the planes in my hangar have to bow to her.

Kind regards, Michael

With the F-14, F-8e, TF-104 and this bird, we sure seem to have a bunch of supersonic aeroplanes coming out for a Sim that doesn't support supersonic flight.

If an SR-71 comes out it will never be able to stop leaking fuel!

 

Edited September 13, 20214 yr by Stoopy

Looks nice, but that's about it for me. 

So I guess this won’t be study level because it’s coming out so soon.  I wonder if the fidelity will be somewhat comparable to the CRJ from Aerosoft, which has pretty good fidelity, except that it doesn’t simulate failures.

Edited September 13, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

Track record on the dev is pretty meh. I get having basic bland systems and arcade style handling in the fighter jets in a civilian sim. It’s fun to go up, speed around etc. 

But the Concorde is a different beast with some very complex systems and flight regimens to tackle which I don’t think we will see. It will be more of the same I believe which for me means a hard pass as the allure of the plane is mastering those complexities.

I'll be well happy to have this as long as it doesn't insist on mastering the complexities of its systems. I don't mind getting a little bit more complicated than just "ctrl-e/flaps/throttle and away" but not much more. I know lots of you folks want realism in the cockpit and systems, but I just want a good looking machine that I can fly around this rather splendid world in. Ideally, aircraft like this should support both modes, that way we can all be happy.

I don't think anyone is expecting this to be super-realistic and nor is the developer claiming it will be either, since right from the off when they made their first add-on aeroplane - the F/A-18 Superhornet for FSX and P3D - they went on record as saying DC Designs was about making something which was fun to fly, had reasonably complex systems without you having to hit the books for weeks, combined with a pretty good fight model. For the most part they've usually delivered on that aim; sometimes the flight models could be a little better, but on the whole they're alright and are close enough for most simmers to have a bit of fun with them.

There are quite a few nice touches on some of their add-ons which do go beyond what you might expect, for example their F/A-18's avionics tied in nicely with the Simworks Studios carriers in P3D and their MSFS Tomcat has a lot more in terms of whistles and bells than I'd expected it to have. So I think some people might be surprised at what this Concorde ends up with in the cockpit department. I doubt it'll please the purists who want something which simulates everything, but I think it just might float a lot of other simmer's boats quite well, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Edited September 13, 20214 yr by Chock

I've posted a more detailed announcement for Concorde on my FaceAche page, for those interested in the project;

Concorde latest update post

Concorde will not be study level, but will have slightly higher systems fidelity than the Prepar3D version, and much higher modeling and texturing quality. The real aircraft had many quirks and unique features, and all of those will be included ( fuel-transfer for pitch trim and CoG management, functional engineer's station, super-cruise ( Mach 2 ), nose-droop animations, full custom WWise sound, visual effects etc ).

It won't be for hard-core fans of FSLab's excellent version, but will hopefully be perfect for most other simmers with an interest in Concorde.

 

27 minutes ago, DC1973 said:

I've posted a more detailed announcement for Concorde on my FaceAche page, for those interested in the project;

Concorde latest update post

Concorde will not be study level, but will have slightly higher systems fidelity than the Prepar3D version, and much higher modeling and texturing quality. The real aircraft had many quirks and unique features, and all of those will be included ( fuel-transfer for pitch trim and CoG management, functional engineer's station, super-cruise ( Mach 2 ), nose-droop animations, full custom WWise sound, visual effects etc ).

It won't be for hard-core fans of FSLab's excellent version, but will hopefully be perfect for most other simmers with an interest in Concorde.

 

I think that's a wise decision. Obviously some people want a super-duper Concorde, with everything including the cup holders being exactly like the real thing, but I strongly suspect that the game would not be worth the candle in development terms for something like that for the price such a thing would have to sell at to make all the development work financially viable, considering to how many people would actually be prepared to pay for such efforts.

Most people will be aware that FSL put out a question a good while back, which stopped short of actually demanding an up-front purchase, but did ask how many people would be prepared to actually buy a realistic Concorde if they developed one for the current P3D. I was one of the ones who said yes, but frankly, I think they would have been better actually genuinely soliciting pre-payment promises in this regard to remove some of the risk, and of course that was before MSFS was out too, so this will have impacted on any promises potential buyers might have, in all good faith at the time, have made. In all honesty, I think that ship has, if not already sailed, then certainly it is firing up the boilers, and so FSL would probably be better throwing their efforts at MSFS if they are even going to bother making such a thing at all with any prospect of it recouping the development costs.

Thus, something with a good nod to realism which comes in at a more palatable price and requires a bit of effort to fly well and which is for a sim that is the one attracting the cash, but not so hard to fly or so expensive to buy that it puts people off, is probably a much better prospect in terms of sales.

I am waiting with excitement for this one because the model looks outstanding for me on this pics , ( the upper two )

https://www.simflight.de/aeroplane-heaven-concorde-angekuendigt/

but i see a long, long time no update about that.. 🤔

But for shure i have a look on DC Designs as well; i have to as a Concorde lover, this plane is my all time Fav 😎

cheers  😉

When I was a lad, I helped make the windows for that lovely bird - flight deck and visor.  The visor was a special make-up as it would delaminate normal vinyl interlayer due to the heat generated at supersonic speeds.

The de-ice heating film on the visors was also made of gold put down atom by atom on to the glass in a vacuum chamber. 
It took some time as you will imagine!  And one spec of dust under the film, and it would fizzle on first power-up and leave a burn mark - then it was time to start again!  

Working on these Concorde visors was my most demanding job, but also the most enjoyable of my life knowing where they were going, and what they were being fitted in to. 

I will be getting this from DC for sure. 
I know some people like more complexity, but I don't have much time these days to delve into manuals etc.  Just a half decent simulation of the bird will do for me.  (I hope they do the 50/50 British Airways / Singapore Airlines livery!)

 

Edited September 18, 20214 yr by bobcat999

I will be getting this beauty for sure, and I'm relieved it's not a study level aircraft, too much complexity makes my brain boil.

2 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

When I was a lad, I helped make the windows for that lovely bird - flight deck and visor.  The visor was a special make-up as it would delaminate normal vinyl interlayer due to the heat generated at supersonic speeds.

The de-ice heating film on the visors was also made of gold put down atom by atom on to the glass in a vacuum chamber. 
It took some time as you will imagine!  And one spec of dust under the film, and it would fizzle on first power-up and leave a burn mark - then it was time to start again!  

Working on these Concorde visors was my most demanding job, but also the most enjoyable of my life knowing where they were going, and what they were being fitted in to. 

I will be getting this from DC for sure. 
I know some people like more complexity, but I don't have much time these days to delve into manuals etc.  Just a half decent simulation of the bird will do for me.  (I hope they do the 50/50 British Airways / Singapore Airlines livery!)

 

A bit like myself, in my early days working for RR, having a part in making/testing some of the turbines that were going into the Olympus engines which obviously Concorde used.

Edited September 18, 20214 yr by eaim1973

Great! I love these stories, but I am sad at what has happened to our Aerospace industry.