I noticed that MSFS is acquiring a lot of "good" airliners quickly.  By "good," I mean at least medium fidelity and above, so at least the fidelity of some iniBuilds airliners.  Obviously, the iniBuilds Tristar was just released.  But also recently, the Aerosoft-Toliss A340 was released too.  If there are no more delays this year, the Bluebird 757 and the Vector 787 could also be added to this list (although we have to wait and see the fidelity of these two airliners when it's finally released).

Assuming the Bluebird 757 and Vector 787 are released this year, I think for modern airliners that are Boeing + Airbus, there aren't that many left for MSFS that haven't been done?  Off the top of my head, for modern airliners that are Boeing + Airbus, that would leave the 747 (PMDG working on it), A220 (Synaptic Simulations + iniBuilds working on it), and 767 (Bluebird Simulations working on it) left.  If I am missing a major modern airliner that is Boeing + Airbus, feel free to post what else is missing.

But if it's only the 747, A220, and 767 left for Boeing + Airbus, that's not too bad then, we will have a "good" airliner for everything else, by the end of 2026.

I also suspect that once all the modern airliners for Boeing + Airbus are covered in MSFS, developers will probably start to work on version 2.0 of their current airliners, which would be the high fidelity versions of their airliners, so they can sell those as an upgrade, or sell the version 2.0 as a new product.  I can totally see iniBuilds working on version 2.0 of many of their airliners, which would then bring them to high fidelity, and then sell the version 2.0 for another new round of sales.  And I would guess Fenix is working on another high fidelity airliner, but they haven't disclosed this to the public yet. This would follow the pattern of 3rd party scenery developers - a lot of 3rd party scenery developers are working on version 2.0 of the various major airports, because version 1.0 of a lot of major airports have already been released.

Edited April 1Apr 1 by abrams_tank

The biggest gap I see is the A330. There's Headwind, LatinVFR, and Aerosoft, but none of those are at the level that I'd like to see.

No study-level Concorde either. FS Labs are so tight-lipped about what they’re working on many people have no idea if one for MSFS is even coming.

A recent post on their forum asking about some news was removed yesterday. Speaks volumes.

36 minutes ago, weaklink said:

The biggest gap I see is the A330. There's Headwind, LatinVFR, and Aerosoft, but none of those are at the level that I'd like to see.

There is the A330 from iniBuilds that comes for MSFS 2024. The community thinks the iniBuilds A330 is decent (not excellent, but decent given that it is free).  So we’re just missing a high fidelity A330, but the iniBuilds A330 is filling the gap now for medium fidelity and above for an A330.

 

55 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No study-level Concorde either. FS Labs are so tight-lipped about what they’re working on many people have no idea if one for MSFS is even coming.

A recent post on their forum asking about some news was removed yesterday. Speaks volumes.

I think FSLabs knows they can work on the Concorde for MSFS whenever they have the time.  There isn't another developer out there that has done a high fidelity Concorde, so FSLabs has that avenue locked in for themselves.

My guess is, there is another Airbus that isn't high fidelity in MSFS, but may be medium fidelity in MSFS, that FSLabs wants to complete and release to the market, before another competitor comes and beats them to it.  For example, the iniBuilds A330 for MSFS 2024 probably isn't high fidelity, so there is space for FSLabs to come in and release a high fidelity A330 for MSFS, before another company, say Aerosoft-Toliss, does it.

Other Airbuses that FSLabs could do for MSFS would be the A220, A350, and A380.  There isn't a high fidelity version of the A350 and A380 yet in MSFS yet, just medium fidelity versions, and the Synaptic-iniBuilds A220 hasn't been released yet.  And there is a possibility that Aerosoft-Toliss may do the A330 next for MSFS, because Toliss already has a good A330 for XP.  So FSLabs would be in a race to complete one of the remaining Airbuses that doesn't have a high fidelity version yet.  Maybe after that, they would come back to focus on the Concorde for MSFS.

Fokker 70 and 100 coming soon also.  I'd like to see somebody do the 717.  Haven't heard TFDi show interest in redoing theirs.  

3 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I think FSLabs knows they can work on the Concorde for MSFS whenever they have the time.  There isn't another developer out there that has done a high fidelity Concorde, so FSLabs has that avenue locked in for themselves.

The problem with that is which sim do they develop for? It took so long for the 64-bit one for P3D to be released it was only compatible with v5. A v4 one was originally planned but it took them so long even with a mature SDK it had to be abandoned. Will they make one compatible with both 20 and 24? Who knows?

6 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Other Airbuses that FSLabs could do for MSFS would be the A220, A350, and A380. 

That could potentially be something rewarding for them providing the aircraft data is available. If there's an iniBuilds A330 would it be worth their effort to work on that instead of a new generation one. The A350 might be a better choice than the A380 which is being slowly withdrawn from service.

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Will they make one compatible with both 20 and 24? Who knows?

 

I hope not.  Going exclusively to 2024 has huge upsides in what you can do with the model and the add-on overall.  2020 is not the current sim anymore, and most developers aren't actively doing anything for it anymore.

27 minutes ago, ATRguy said:

I hope not.  Going exclusively to 2024 has huge upsides in what you can do with the model and the add-on overall.  2020 is not the current sim anymore, and most developers aren't actively doing anything for it anymore.

That is why they should announce their intentions. But they hide behind a wall and any announcements are locked with no opportunity for potential customers to ask questions.

Any questions in their forums get responded to with the stock answer. “When we have something to say we will say it.” 🙄

5 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

That is why they should announce their intentions. But they hide behind a wall and any announcements are locked with no opportunity for potential customers to ask questions.

Any questions in their forums get responded to with the stock answer. “When we have something to say we will say it.” 🙄

Oh it drives me nuts too, don't worry haha.  

They are straight up the worst FS company out there for news.

5 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No study-level Concorde either. FS Labs are so tight-lipped about what they’re working on many people have no idea if one for MSFS is even coming.

A recent post on their forum asking about some news was removed yesterday. Speaks volumes.

If they do release one, as long as it has a virtual flight engineer as an option, I'm sold.

2 minutes ago, 3catcircus said:

If they do release one, as long as it has a virtual flight engineer as an option, I'm sold.

The P3D version doesn’t have that option so it would be strange if the MSFS one did. You have control with some switches. But you’re more of an observer than a FE.

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

But you’re more of an observer than a FE.

Never understood why FSL made that design choice. Why not give simmers the option. Half the fun-factor of the concorde is making sense of the FE panel, particularly balancing fuel.

PMDG 747 completes my fleet.

6 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No study-level Concorde either. FS Labs are so tight-lipped about what they’re working on many people have no idea if one for MSFS is even coming.

A recent post on their forum asking about some news was removed yesterday. Speaks volumes.

Honestly if IniBuilds turned their attention to Concorde I'd be all over it. We know by now that visuals and sounds wise they are extremely good at what they do.

I really like what they've done with the Tristar. Obviously not directly comparable (nothing is), but the way they've implemented traditional navigation methods (INS) and the Flight Engineer functions but made them accessible to the average simmer via the Paper Flight Bag, without diluting the experience for those that want to turn all the help off and fly it completely manually, I think is really well done.

IniBuilds have really stepped up in my book. This and the A340-300 I think are superb, and the A350 now it's seen several updates is also very solid.

Edited April 1Apr 1 by Tom Wright