https://majesticsoftware.com/forums/discussion/1571/majestic-software-q400-july-2026-progression-update/p1?new=1

Oh goodness this is fantastic news

50 minutes ago, Nandengo12 said:

Oh goodness this is fantastic news

There isn't really any news here, except confirmation that it is still a long way off.

27 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

There isn't really any news here, except confirmation that it is still a long way off.

I think their last update included just renders too. But this time we have a youtube video (which is a little confusing because their post mentions no flight deck modelling have begun but its a video of the flightdeck). I'd say a long way off too

Edited Sunday at 04:39 AM5 days by rick celik

I think it’s no coincidence of the timing of this posting, given the military variant of the dash by one dev and the announcement of a fairly far along dash 1-2-300 series by another. I think they felt a need to state that they are still in the game. It takes a great deal of time to make aircraft at a high level as they have but the demands of other roles and work obviously limit the pace they can go at. That’s understandable to me but I don’t know how they will keep up at this pace. Inadvertently I think the tone comes across as almost casual, like saying “well, we’re busy with other more important things but we are chipping away at it…”. It’s honest, but it doesn’t particularly land as inspiring or exciting to me. And the screens they showed are still indicative of very early work. They have set the bar high with their work but I think there is a strong opportunity for others to fill the space very quickly here.

Pinging @micstatic , you might want to read about this update, since this is your most anticipated plane for MSFS 👍

2 hours ago, St Mawgan said:

There isn't really any news here, except confirmation that it is still a long way off.

I wasn't aware they were even this far along until today, so...

Majestic is super slow, especially if you compare them against iniBuilds. They first announced the Q400 for MSFS in 2020 but they were waiting on SDK improvements first. So I guess it's been 6 years since their announcement?

From the coding perspective, they said that they are "updating systems functionality in the flight deck." They didn't say more than that, but the logic for the Q400 systems code is already done if they are just porting over the logic from their P3D code. It's a matter of integrating their systems logic code with the MSFS SDK.

If I were to guess, I think the Q400 from Majestic will be released by 2028, so within another 2 years. 2 years is still a long time when compared to the speed of iniBuilds, but for Majestic, I am going to guess that they are probably at the 75% completion mark of their project?

Edited Sunday at 06:36 AM5 days by abrams_tank

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

Majestic is super slow, especially if you compare them against iniBuilds. They first announced the Q400 for MSFS in 2020 but they were waiting on SDK improvements first. So I guess it's been 6 years since their announcement?

From the coding perspective, they said that they are "updating systems functionality in the flight deck." They didn't say more than that, but the logic for the Q400 systems code is already done if they are just porting over the logic from their P3D code. It's a matter of integrating their systems logic code with the MSFS SDK.

If I were to guess, I think the Q400 from Majestic will be released by 2028, so within another 2 years. 2 years is still a long time when compared to the speed of iniBuilds, but for Majestic, I am going to guess that they are probably at the 75% completion mark of their project?

iniBuilds is developing projects as a standalone business. The Majestic posting specifically said they are working on this on the side, so regular job and family etc. get in the way. There's a big difference in development time between full and barely part time.

I predict that it will take Majestic so long that, when near release, there will be a step-change in the base simulator and their work will no longer be forwards-compatible with it. Then there'll be a "we're not sure what to do.... release for the old simulator (2024) or do all of the work to make it compatible with the new simulator" message. They'll decide the latter and a 6 year timer will start again.

I honestly don't think it's possible to release a complex addon, at the pace they work. Technology advancement overtakes their rate of work.

Edited Sunday at 08:15 AM5 days by JYW

10 minutes ago, JYW said:

I predict that it will take Majestic so long that, when near release, there will be a step-change in the base simulator and their work will no longer be forwards-compatible with it. Then there'll be a "we not sure what to do.... release for the old simulator (2024) or do all of the work to make it compatible with the new simulator". They'll decide the latter and a 6 year timer will start again.

I honestly don't think it's possible to release a complex addon, at the pace they work. Technology advancement overtakes their rate of work.

I echo what you are saying and can very easily imagine it happening. If the progress is too slow that a new simulator version will launch before they can launch their plane, then that means the whole development cycle is out of sync with the simulator cycle and they can never catch up. If they're developing this plane as a hobby during their free time and they enjoy this, then that's fine as long as everyone is at peace that this plane will not launch for MSFS2024 when MSFS2024 is still the latest simulator.

FBW on other hand, which I assume are a larger team, seem to make it work somehow while being volunteers and offering their products for free.

I'm in no way criticizing Majestic but I just find it sad that they can't launch a quality product in time for them to benefit from the sales and for us simmers to benefit from their product.

Edited Sunday at 08:49 AM5 days by xsever

29 minutes ago, JYW said:

I predict that it will take Majestic so long that, when near release, there will be a step-change in the base simulator and their work will no longer be forwards-compatible with it. Then there'll be a "we're not sure what to do.... release for the old simulator (2024) or do all of the work to make it compatible with the new simulator" message. They'll decide the latter and a 6 year timer will start again.

I honestly don't think it's possible to release a complex addon, at the pace they work. Technology advancement overtakes their rate of work.

Very fair point

In parallel, SimWorks Studios builds the original Dash 8 family, the 100, 200 and 300, for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, under the name "The Classic 8 Series". See their 2026 roadmap

The term “ you snooze, you lose “ springs to mind.

17 minutes ago, jon b said:

The term “ you snooze, you lose “ springs to mind.

Does anybody know how good SimWorks Studio airliners are? Can SimWorks Studio match the fidelity of Majestic?

Edited Sunday at 11:37 AM5 days by abrams_tank