Today third-party developers had some interesting news to share about Microsoft Flight Simulator Add-ons, including aircraft and airports.
We start with IndiaFoxtEcho, which provided a series of updates on some of its projects, including the M-346 Master, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Tornado, the A-4 Skyhawk, and more.
M-346 MASTER RELEASE
Our latest internal build seems to be satisfactory in terms of quality and we believe it is ready for release. However, given a number of problems that Sim Updates created in the past, we have decided to postpone its release until SU10 is officially released and the plane has been fully tested in the release build. We believe the release date will be around September 25th-28th.
SIM UPDATE 10 – FLEET UPDATE
We will take the chance of SU10 release to update ALL of our aircraft. They all seem to work with no (or very minor) issues with SU10, but we’ll take the chance to release some minor tweaks to all of them. ALL means ALL: Long-EZ, SU-31, MB-339, T-45C and F-35 (although the latest build of the F-35 and the T-45 are already fully compatible with SU10).
EUROFIGHTER TYPHOON
Many have been asking us if we are discontinuing our Eurofighter Typhoon project after the surprise announcement of a competing product. Answer is NO. Competing models are very bad for revenues, and very good for customers – and we try and take the customer’s perspective. We will NEVER comment or criticize any competitor for any reason. The only thing we want to do is to do a really good job on the Typhoon (as we want to do with any of our products).We do no like making claims of authenticity, realism or detail… as we think it is marketing BS. But rest assured we will try our best to do a good job: if the project will sell well fine – but in the end our focus is quality. Speaking about quality, as we are definitely NOT HAPPY with the quality of the commercial meshes, which have blatant mistakes in several areas, so we have decided to take the hard path and make a completely new 3D model – this will take time, and it is highly unlikely that the product will be ready for before 2023. But as usual “IT IS DONE WHEN IT IS DONE”. Screenshot is a render of the WIP mesh.
TORNADO
Basically the same story of the Typhoon. Yes, another company has announced a competing product, and NO we are NOT stopping our project! And much like the Typhoon, we were not happy with the 3D model we have shown in the previous screenshots, so we are reworking it and adding a lot of details. Screenshot is a render of the WIP mesh. And yes, “it is done when it is done” (that could well be our company motto)!
A-4/TA-4 SKYHAWK
Guess what? We are not happy with them either. Yes, we could have done a lazy port of our P3D models… and grab some cash, but we do not like working in that way. So, we are completely reworking many parts of the model, and we will be redoing all the textures from scratch. Also, we will redo all the cockpits from scratch and retexture them completely.
F-14 TOMCAT
You may have noticed that we dropped the “D”. VERY BIG news coming – hopefully we will be able to show something soon.
AND THAT IS NOT ALL FOLKS…
And well, that is not all. We are also working on other projects which include historical Italian aircrafts: the MB-326, but there are also other projects that we cannot discuss at the moment (for contractual reasons). For all of these projects, we do not have firm release dates, but one firm committment: we will never rush a product, or release it if we are not convinced it is a good product. Also, products will be primarily developed on PC – but we will try and deliver Xbox versions too, with minimal compromises and only if strictly necessary.
Moving on to airports, LatinVFR announced Baltimore (KBWI) in the United States.
It’s a rather relevant and busy airport both on the passenger and cargo sides, so it’s a very welcome addition to the sim.
The screenshots below are still work-in-progress and many details are missing, including jetways.
Last, but not least, Fly2High announced Copernicus Airport Wrocław (EPWR) in Poland. It’s the 5th-busiest airport in the country and a rather popular destination.
No release date has been announced, but this developer tends to reveal its airports quite close to release so it should be coming sooner rather than later.
