The A2A Simulations Community

Eggcellent point, TJ.

Does anyone else feel almost a twinge of sim-guilt sometimes? I do when it comes to military aircraft. For example when I tool around in my SuperBug, I kinda feel guilty about flying in it - I didn't go through Navy flight school, and that's a plane for the top of the pyramid also... so I won't fly any other livery other than line aircraft, no CAG or CO paint schemes. Kinda like sitting in the captain's chair... a small feeling of I haven't earned the privilege, you know?

I have a bit of it flying the P-51D, (although i can't resist climbing in.) That's another one.

"I tell ya we got two kinds of pilots around here. We got your prime pilots, that get all the hot planes. Then we got your $#$^@ers, who DREAM about getting all the hot planes."

Am I nuts? Too much time in the military?

_________________

Haha, great quote from Pancho. I watched that movie a lot, even when I was little. Pancho helped improve my swearing ability a bit

You are right, we aren't exactly qualified to fly many these airplanes in real life. A big reason why pilots are type rated or qualified in a parictular airplane is to ensure that this very expensive peice of equipment is handled properly, thereby significantly reducing the chance for an accident that results in loss of life or property damage.

In FS those consequences don't happen, so if you fly your Superbug down the Las Vegas strip at mach 1, you don't have to worry about loosing your wings or facing arrest. If you accidently or intentionally crash into the MGM Grand, oh well...reset the flight

With the question of what everyone thinks A2A should make as a project whether Warbird, Liner, GA..etc. Ulitmately it is up to A2A and regardless of the project, we know it will be well received by the community. There have been a few FS planes done by A2A and some of the other top developers that I hadn't really considered 'liking' or 'wanting' when those projects were announced. Knowing the reputation of the developers and getting to experience quality simulations of these aircraft, my opnion of the aircraft not only changed but I have a whole new appreciation for the real world counterparts.

There was an intersting demographics survey done over at avsim
http://forum.avsim.net/topic/373683-the ... ic-survey/

There was a definate preference to medium and short haul airliners. I think that is partly due to Avsim also hosting PMDG's support forums. If you were to take the survey at other places such as FTX, you would probably see a jump in GA. If you took the survey at SOH, you would probably see a jump in military aircraft.

It will be interesting to see how well PMDG's DC-6 sales do in comparison to the MD-11 and NGX. I think Robert mentioned there was a favoritisim toward well known popular aircraft vs more obscure aircraft with unique capabilities from their sales records.

The future for FS addons is very bright regardless of the projects we 'wish' for are done or not.

Cheers
TJ

_________________
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

TJ - you are right about PMDG results. Rob Randazzo talked in Munich on the Aerosoft conference about many things, including, as an answer to an audience question I think, what do people actually buy.

Basically, he told that people want the aircraft that they see on their local airport, that they flew to their holiday on. An extreme example would be the 737, which is everywhere to be seen, from Alaska to Zimbabwe. Another group of planes that people buy, are planes that are not a daily sight, but really iconic planes - on the level of Concorde, the 747 (as an aside, as much as 777 is popular these days, I would bet that PMDG 747X total sales will surpass 777X total sales), or, indeed, Spitfire or the Mustang.

A case named was the MD-11. A technological marvel of its era, beautifully crafted by the best modern airliner add-on makers in the world, and almost univocally loved by her owners.
Yet, the aircraft did not sell in real world very well, has almost fallen of of passenger use by the time of add-on release, and is definitely not the plane you would see on every other major airport - and it was a (relative) flop in the line of PMDG flagship airliner. Exactly because people thought "MD11? What is that?".

I guess similar thoughts would be going through minds of many people on mention of the 377 ("Surely you mean the 737, right?") - and my guess is with many other old propliners, maybe apart from Douglas DC-3/C-47/R4D/Dakota(/Li-2/L2D).