Quality Wings devs haven't logged into forums for months?

[abrams_tank 7,395]

Hi. I was watching Chewwy and he said a few interesting things about Quality Wings. One thing Chewwy mentioned was that he had heard from others that the Quality Wings developers hadn't logged into their own forums for months:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1820545675?t=02h26m37s

Chewwy said he couldn't confirm whether this was true or not, but it was just something he heard. I myself can't log into the the Quality Wings forums because I don't own a Quality Wings product.  I am interested in this though, and if somebody does have access to the Quality Wings forum, if you can confirm how active the developers are, that would be interesting to know.

I think this has ramifications for MSFS because Quality Wings originally estimated their release for their 787 for MSFS would be Q2 of 2021.  It's Q2 of 2023 now, so QW kind of missed their estimate by 2 years. Would like to know what is up with Quality Wings and what's going on inside their forums. Thanks.

[mspencer 422]

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Hi. I was watching Chewwy and he said a few interesting things about Quality Wings. One thing Chewwy mentioned was that he had heard from others that the Quality Wings developers hadn't logged into their own forums for months:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1820545675?t=02h26m37s

Chewwy said he couldn't confirm whether this was true or not, but it was just something he heard. I myself can't log into the the Quality Wings forums because I don't own a Quality Wings product.  I am interested in this though, and if somebody does have access to the Quality Wings forum, if you can confirm how active the developers are, that would be interesting to know.

I think this has ramifications for MSFS because Quality Wings originally estimated their release for their 787 for MSFS would be Q2 of 2021.  It's Q2 of 2023 now, so QW kind of missed their estimate by 2 years. Would like to know what is up with Quality Wings and what's going on inside their forums. Thanks.

It's 1000% dead. When you miss your estimate by a year, and don't bother to tell the community anything about it, I'm assuming that you're literally or figuratively dead.

Doesn't surprise me at all, they've been absent for 5 years or so now? Even the P3D 787 had major unaddressed issues with LNAV/VNAV. Loved it cutting me off the downwind direct PHOG about 5000 feet high. 

Maybe the AAU2 update can turn into a good freeware studio developing the B788 and B789 from the WT avionics. I'd gladly take that over anything QW tries to sell me at this point.

[abrams_tank 7,395]

2 minutes ago, mspencer said:

It's 1000% dead. When you miss your estimate by a year, and don't bother to tell the community anything about it, I'm assuming that you're literally or figuratively dead.

Doesn't surprise me at all, they've been absent for 5 years or so now? Even the P3D 787 had major unaddressed issues with LNAV/VNAV. Loved it cutting me off the downwind direct PHOG about 5000 feet high. 

Maybe the AAU2 update can turn into a good freeware studio developing the B788 and B789 from the WT avionics. I'd gladly take that over anything QW tries to sell me at this point.

Oh, you have access to the QW forums? Nice.

It's that quiet in their forum, right? Hmm, that's not a good sign ...

[chapstick 2,757]

Ernie Alston hasn't logged in since late February of this year. Not that bad, right? Well, Lars Roennig, who is apparently their "Vice President," hasn't logged in for a year. Corey Ford, who is supposedly the President and member of the dev team, hasn't logged on since January 2022. This isn't the best way to judge a dev team's progress, but it speaks volume. I for one think QualityWings is dead. Such an incredible amount of disrespect to their customers who bought their products and have been following them to not be clear and honest about the status of their team. 

[Ricardo41 5,948]

QW are dead. 

[btacon 1,786]

11 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

QW are dead. 

Long Live QW!

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

Maybe they have "Real Jobs" and moved on from the gaming industry? I really liked their 752 in FSX.

[Kevin_28 164]

Yes most haven't posted anything in a long time. The earliest I have seen is Ernie (QW dev). He posted in January of this year but nothing about the msfs 787. He's the last person to speak about the MSFS 787 in March of last year saying they are still around and are in active development. The main guys I think of with QW are Corey and Lars and they haven't posted since Jan/Feb of last year. A couple have at least logged on sometime this year. Most of the posts on QW forums are users inquiring if they have ceased operations.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Kevin_28

[threexgreen 3,138]

QW are AFAIK part time devs with other day jobs, so if life gets in the way that's understandable. But one of the team could at least post a short notice on what's going on if some have at least logged in this year.

[abrams_tank 7,395]

48 minutes ago, chapstick said:

Ernie Alston hasn't logged in since late February of this year. Not that bad, right? Well, Lars Roennig, who is apparently their "Vice President," hasn't logged in for a year. Corey Ford, who is supposedly the President and member of the dev team, hasn't logged on since January 2022. This isn't the best way to judge a dev team's progress, but it speaks volume. I for one think QualityWings is dead. Such an incredible amount of disrespect to their customers who bought their products and have been following them to not be clear and honest about the status of their team. 

Thanks, that's very useful information!

That's a significant list of people, even critical people (like the VP and President), who haven't logged into their forum for a while. Imagine Randazzo not logging into the PMDG forums for some time, or Lefteris not logging into the FSLabs forums for some time? Not normal, IMO ...

[abrams_tank 7,395]

23 minutes ago, Kevin_28 said:

Yes most haven't posted anything in a long time. The earliest I have seen is Ernie (QW dev). He posted in January of this year but nothing about the msfs 787. He's the last person to speak about the MSFS 787 in March of last year saying they are still around and are in active development. The main guys I think of with QW are Corey and Lars and they haven't posted since Jan/Feb of last year. A couple have at least logged on sometime this year. Most of the posts on QW forums are users inquiring if they have ceased operations.

Thanks for the update!  I assume that QW is even ignoring the posts where the users are inquiring if they have ceased operations?

[Kevin_28 164]

1 minute ago, abrams_tank said:

Thanks for the update!  I assume that QW is even ignoring the posts where the users are inquiring if they have ceased operations?

Pretty much yea. Apologies! Didn't see chapstick say basically the same thing earlier.

[Fiorentoni 4,211]

They - like anyone else going AWOL - will most probably never say "we ceased operations", hoping that still someone buys their products. It's free money after all.

[Cognita 1,075]

It is not that surprising to me; I kind of stopped thinking about them a year or so ago. I suspect the actual work of bringing over and coding the 787 in MSFS was daunting, particularly to try to do it well. Either they abandoned any hope of doing so or just decided it is something to tackle much in the future. There is also a 787 in the sim; maybe, not unlike Milviz/Blackbird and the ATR, they just doubted how much the sales would be, and have put it all on hold.

In any case, it is unfortunately to see a longstanding developer fade off from the scene. Their 787 in P3D did have some issues but I found them to be a dedicated team.

[james42 257]

That's unfortunate. I spent a good few hours in their 757 and BAE146 back in FS9 and FSX. Never really got into their 787 despite it being decent enough. I think there's definitely a market for a payware 787 within MSFS as im sure they would of included all the models and engine options and not just the -10 we get with the sim. Shame they've decided to distance themselves from the FS scene. Anyone remember the 737 classic they had in development? It was looking super promising before it totally disappeared.