Is it just me? Or does it seem like RealAir Simulations and PMDG have abandoned the Fly! community?RealAir has been hyping their FS2K SF.360. And PMDG have a new announcement on their homepage promising news about an upcoming FS2K TurboProp.What happened to the Seneca, TB9, and SkyArrow? I can only guess that the Fly! community has crossed the economic event horizon into the vast economic black hole of a dying product. Seems a tragedy. It really is a great simulation engine. Too bad we couldn't get it into open source or something like that...Ah well, at least we have the great folks at ROTW...

Don't be disappointed Tony (-:Look it from a bright side! :(There are many projects going on for FLY! III know for sure there are a lott of people working hard on add-on's specialy for FLY! II, including me. Here's a project I just started. It's a BAe systems 146-300 I'll gona make it in a Buzz scheme. I released a second version of the Beechcraft aswell some days ago have a look in the AVsim's Library!! ;) Cesar did some repaints for it!Take care :-wave

Hi Tony,I completely agree with you. PMDG is not even answering posts in their forum. It is a shame. Hopefully the folks at ROTW can keep the 'torch' burning on this great sim.Regards,Bob L

>Is it just me? Or does it seem like RealAir Simulations and >PMDG have abandoned the Fly! community? >There is currently a thread running on the MSFS forum regarding freeware versus payware. As is implied in this thread, many aircraft models are now becoming extremely sophisticated & takes a group of people up to several thousand of hours to produce one. With the research, design, & support required........... it's more of a job that takes away from other activities, as well as hobby time. For some, the amount of time is nearly full time & a lot of part time for others. The reality of this, is that it requires an income to make up for it. Given the user base between FLY & FS2002, it's easy to see how it adds up economic wise!Fact is, like it or not, most of the best & complete aircraft are from those who have been in the business awhile & have a number of designer/programmers to share the load. Some freeware examples such as the ROTW TBM700 & Falcon 50 for FS2002 are the exceptions. But how often do these examples come along?L.Adamson

Mmmmmmm - I wonder what ever happened to the patch that was expected a few weeks ago (fixed the LDG Gear / visual model with the night lights for the PMDG 757, amoung other things...). Nobody has heard from any of the Beta team members on this forum in months and I'm not talking about the beta work, but just in general discussion???Oh well, I'll be uploading a complete database overhaul for Australia (Airports & Runways V1.1, ILS, Waypoints and Navaids) as well as taxiways for A-L and some higher res elevation data for each of the States around Australia, starting with New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria (Now have some mountains and hills to look at). If anyone is interested in Terrascening Sydney and Adelaide, please let me know and I'll upload the data packs required for you.Cheers,Danny VickersAustralian Fly! Group.

There is still work going on with the PMDG 757, both related to the general Fly! II patch and on the product itself.Pete

Sorry Tony - I don't agree. It's true that both groups are involved in or considering projects for MSFS, but there are also things in the wings from both groups for Fly!II.There is work that needs to be completed on a patch with the Beta Team before PMDG can proceed with some of the things they're trying to accomplish. The Beta work has been somewhat delayed for very necessary personal and business reasons but the work is still proceeding.RealAir (through several posts by Peter Sidoli) has made it clear that work continues on the Seneca, etc.As Larry states, it takes thousands of man-hours to complete sophisticated projects like this. Both groups need to produce for MSFS for simple economic reasons, but they have also stated they enjoy working with the Fly! SDK and wish to continue.

Time is the biggest thing, I'm still working on stuff for Fly and Fly2, DC-3 inards, DHC-2 for both Fly's getting the C140 and the Aero Commander converted to Fly2, even got the specs, pics, etc on a Diamond Katana where I'm taking my flight training, but getting the time to actually sit down and work on them right now is almost impossible. Think there is still plenty being developed, only thing needed is the time to get them done.c ya :-waveBart [email protected]http://bartsflyplace.tripod.com/pics/ryans...ight/flight.gif http://bartsflyplace.tripod.com/bart_logo3.jpg

I am very happily using FLY2k, and will for the foreseeable future. However, I fully admit that FLY is a dead sim. It is also the best sim I have ever used in all my time since MSFS v1.0, FU, x-plane, ATP, etc. I try not to think about what I will be using when I finally upgrade hardware, but I am putting off that day in hopes something really good comes along again; or by some miracle I get lured back to MSFS.

I am not sure whether PMDG abandoned the FLY platform for good but their non-participation in their forum is very telling unless they all went for vacation on Santorini ... On the other hand they had stated before their continuation of the FLY-line would greatly depend on the sales of their 757. I suspect the sales of the 757 were very disappointing - I judge it by the forum activity and how it compared with other forums after similar product releases.Whatever they decide about FLY I am absolutely ecstatic about their upcoming Jetstream for FS2002. First, they deserve better economic returns, second I suspect this product has potential of being an absolute gem - Robert flies this plane professionally and if you realize that Eric Ernst flies 767 for living and what it did to the quality of his famous 767PIC - well, you can figure out the rest.Best of luck to PMDG on this turboprop. It is a great team and I believe the best from them is yet to come.Michael J.

Danny,Randall is correct; some of the PMDG issues rely on updates I am working on for a future build. I don't have any dates for this as of yet, so that may be holding them up.Rich

Maybe we can band together and start a few open source projects for flyII. I would like to be able to help, I just don't have the know-how to create an aircraft. Anyone know of any good docs for those who want to give development a try??-dajackman

Well, Tony,just to bring a ray of good news into the gloomy picture you're painting:I am preparing a new(er) version of Squawkbox for Fly!2. I am hoping to get some more stuff corrected, and get another significant feature going for it, namely the ability for SB to auto-find the appropriate active servers for VATSIM and/or IVAO and populate its table entries.That does NOT mean it will be ready anytime soon - I just wanted you guys to know that I haven't given up on Fly!2 at all... ;-)FS2K2 - not a bad sim at all - I just wish it had the development environment that the Fly!2 SDK provides...

>or by some miracle I get >lured back to MSFS. Mike,Consider the eye-candy of FS2002. It is really amazing if you explore all the possibilities. But then you probably hate the aircraft. Then consider 767PIC or .. wait for the PMDG's Jetstream. :-eekMichael J.

Lefteris, thanks for the update on SB.tony