52 minutes ago, Captain Blackbird said:

There's no reason for selling it other than its ready to be sold. We're a small, passionate team of developers, each working on different aircraft. Some take longer than others to be released 🙂 Not to mention we get contracted to do other aircraft for various companies such as the USAF, & Microsoft. Occasionally we WILL sell completed/ near-completed aircraft to other devs out there if it makes sense for our company-and of course, this usually comes with NDA's.. Hopefully this answered your question!

It doesn’t really because it’s a happy glad corporate answer. You may have a passionate team of devs but you don’t seem to have capable project managers or public relations teams that can cater to both your hobbyist and government (and corporate) accounts. You announced aircraft in the years 2020 and 2021 that have not come to fruition, are continually said to be “in progress” or are dropped without a courtesy update to say they were, with an update only received due to excessive prompting. There are devs that “stake claims” towards projects in hopes of warding off competition because of their well-regarded brand, and you seem to be one.

i enjoy the products I’ve purchased from your company very much, but your outreach efforts leave a lot to be desired. Updates can be seen as a nice to have courtesy and not required or owed to the community, but since you’re choosing to do them, don’t drag us along for years by falsely saying that product X is coming soon for MSFS then just never deliver. You’ve missed one sim lifecycle already now that “2024” is out.

Best wishes.

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by STK

15 hours ago, STK said:

It doesn’t really because it’s a happy glad corporate answer. You may have a passionate team of devs but you don’t seem to have capable project managers or public relations teams that can cater to both your hobbyist and government (and corporate) accounts. You announced aircraft in the years 2020 and 2021 that have not come to fruition, are continually said to be “in progress” or are dropped without a courtesy update to say they were, with an update only received due to excessive prompting. There are devs that “stake claims” towards projects in hopes of warding off competition because of their well-regarded brand, and you seem to be one.

i enjoy the products I’ve purchased from your company very much, but your outreach efforts leave a lot to be desired. Updates can be seen as a nice to have courtesy and not required or owed to the community, but since you’re choosing to do them, don’t drag us along for years by falsely saying that product X is coming soon for MSFS then just never deliver. You’ve missed one sim lifecycle already now that “2024” is out.

Best wishes.

Thank you for your candid feedback—it’s genuinely appreciated. We’re glad to hear you’ve enjoyed our products, and we hear your concerns regarding communication and project transparency. Over the past couple of years, we’ve learned the importance of not over-promising or revealing new aircraft too early in development. We recognize that in 2020/ 2021, we were too excited to announce upcoming projects, and we’ve since adjusted our approach. Developing aircraft that fully leverage the capabilities of the simulator requires significant time, resources, and refinement, and we may have been too eager to share with everyone our plans for the future before realizing just how much was left to complete in those projects.

Project timelines can also shift when we take on contracted work, which may require reallocating resources from other in-house or "hobbyist" projects. That said, we remain committed to transparency where possible. We host live streams every few months to share updates on delayed or cancelled projects and make those recordings available on our YouTube channel for those who can’t join live.

We understand how valuable communication is to the community, and while contractual obligations sometimes limit what we can share, we strive to keep everyone as informed as we’re able.

Best wishes.

@Captain Blackbird - I'm genuinely appreciative of this most recent response. It does seem like announcements at least within the past six months are more in line with products that will see the light of day, and I also appreciate the acknowledgement that a few years ago your organization may have been a bit over-eager in representing what's coming. Also understand that timelines shift with various products. 

With that said, are you able to provide a brief but meaningful status update on the following?

• Boeing 737-200: Is this still in progress for MSFS2020 and/or 2024? Is it reasonable to believe that it will be released to the public in 2025? Or, has this project been placed on hold, cancelled, sold, or something else? 
• Cessna T-50 Bobcat: Same questions as given for the 737.
• Mitsubishi A6M Zero: I know this is a more recent announcement and that you've asked for subject matter experts as you are early in development. Is there a rough timeline of say, end of 2026 for this one? (Understanding timelines slip)
• Goodyear FG-1 Corsair: It's a favorite of many in 2020, and my understanding is that it doesn't fully work in 2024 (gauge issues among other problems), and that a comprehensive update is in development. Is that expected (roughly) by the end of 2025? 
• A-1 Skyraider: I understand that this project was sold to another developer. Was there any indication or agreement that this would be released for MSFS by this other developer, or was it sold off to be used by the dev for their own/other software purposes opaque to Blackbird? I understand NDA's are involved, but is there a way to give an indication as to if this was at least supposed to be coming to MSFS?
• UH-1 Huey: As of a year ago this one was "coming very soon", but since then, helicopter developer Taog came out with what many consider to be the definitive representation. Is Blackbird's version still in development for public release in MSFS, or was this on hold or cancelled due to the Taog release?

Thanks again for the explanations and updates that you've provided thus far. Again, they are appreciated. 

Sure, I can touch on those briefly. Speaking of updates though, we actually will be hosting another livestream this weekend to provide more insight into the 'Dirty Thirty' release, as well as update the community on other projects. I'll be announcing that sometime this afternoon.

• 732 is still in development.. Again, I don't want to overpromise its current status because we are heavily focused on the Dirty Thirty & SR-71 right now (as well as contracted aircraft), but what I can say is that we have weekly meetings for it to touch base on where we're at with it. Fingers crossed it can release in the next year but I have to stress, this isn't a promise.
• T-50 Bobcat: As far as I know this isn't currently in our immediate pipeline & if I remember correctly, we issued a statement on it a few livestreams ago. This is definitely something I'll try to remember to bring up this weekend on our next livestream for those who are curious.
• Zero: Very exciting and development is moving quickly on it. We may even see it released before the SR-71 depending on how the next few months go (again, no promises lol).
• Skyraider: I really can't talk about this. Sorry.
• UH1H: Same deal as the Skyraider. No comment at this time.

I just checked with the team and I can confirm that the plan as of now is for the 732 to be 2024 exclusive (this could change).

Edited April 24, 20251 yr by Captain Blackbird

Hey guys, we're hosting a State of the Sim livestream this Sunday, April 27th at 3 PM Eastern!

We'll be sharing more details about our Dirty Thirty Alpha release, providing updates on ongoing projects, and answering your questions live. ✈
We look forward to seeing you there!

Twitch Link: https://www.twitch.tv/blackbirdsims

 

 

Edited April 24, 20251 yr by Captain Blackbird

19 hours ago, STK said:

There are devs that “stake claims” towards projects in hopes of warding off competition because of their well-regarded brand, and you seem to be one.

It would be nice if developers have some kind of clearing house to avoid redundancy among themselves eg. pay-in by the developer to Microsoft or Steam with a promise for exclusive release and placement in the Marketplace or Steam in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, free market capitalism and competition is a double-edged sword.

2 hours ago, Captain Blackbird said:

Hey guys, we're hosting a State of the Sim livestream this Sunday, April 27th at 3 PM Eastern!

We'll be sharing more details about our Dirty Thirty Alpha release, providing updates on ongoing projects, and answering your questions live. ✈
We look forward to seeing you there!

Twitch Link: https://www.twitch.tv/blackbirdsims

 

 

GREAT! During the stream, would you please let us know if the T-38C (or T-38A) is still coming to the sim...?

You had shown it live in-sim some time ago, then later said there were some things to work out to move forward with it...

Would be nice to know where it stands...?

Thank you!

1 hour ago, Matt Sdeel said:

It would be nice if developers have some kind of clearing house to avoid redundancy among themselves eg. pay-in by the developer to Microsoft or Steam with a promise for exclusive release and placement in the Marketplace or Steam in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, free market capitalism and competition is a double-edged sword.

Nah, competition is always better than any degree of monopoly.

I don't want a Low Fi developer locking up any particular plane.

If that happened, arguably, we'd not have BlueBirds 757 in the queue, and either we'd have to be satisfied with Asobo's 737 Max, or not have even that option.

Same/same with very good projects like the FbW A320 & A380, et al.

3 hours ago, Captain Blackbird said:

 

• Skyraider: I really can't talk about this. Sorry.

Skyraider? That was a weird one;

"It's finished, it's fantastic and we're looking forward to releasing it to you shortly!"

Shortly;

"We've sold it to a third party. We can't say anymore"

....and it vanished without a trace...🤔

The A2A Zero was the easiest warbird to fly of all the A2A warbirds in FS9. This was also true of the real plane in WWII, which is one of the big reasons why Japan made so many of them.

Flying low down through narrow canyons in a GA plane is fun and great for sight seeing, but slow. The Zero is almost as easy to handle and zips along the corridors very fast.

 

5 hours ago, Captain Blackbird said:

I just checked with the team and I can confirm that the plan as of now is for the 732 to be 2024 exclusive (this could change).

It would be a really cool feature if the 732 had the gravel kit / guards on the landing gear.   Maybe they all had that?   I'm no expert on the 732 that's for sure.  

Regarding the T-38A/C, I remember one of them (C?) being for sale for a while, and then pulled from sale.  Probably during that wild 2020/2021 period you guys were talking about, it just seemed like it was ninja-pulled from sale and I regretted not getting it while I could. 

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Nah, competition is always better than any degree of monopoly.

 

I can name several situations where that may not be true.

1. Public utilities - infrastructure costs are so high it'll be inefficient to have multiple competitors
2. Pharmaceuticals - companies will do research and dev if they can patent their work
3. Government - one national army under a unified command (a monopoly) instead of private militias

Looking forward to the developer's more comprehensive update on their product line this weekend, though they certainly seem to hold or cancel products very late in development on occasion. We'll see what is said on Saturday. 

2 hours ago, Matt Sdeel said:

I can name several situations where that may not be true.

1. Public utilities - infrastructure costs are so high it'll be inefficient to have multiple competitors
2. Pharmaceuticals - companies will do research and dev if they can patent their work
3. Government - one national army under a unified command (a monopoly) instead of private militias

 

I could easily come up with rebuttals for every single one of those, but that would take us waaaay off topic.🤙