It is hard to decide what to work on… There are/were so many interesting aircraft as add-ons for FSX and Prepar3D. (Of varying quality, sure.) For most of those there is no knowledge whether the developer is actively working on bringing their creation to MSFS or whether the product should be considered “dead” from MSFS’s point of view.
It would be sad to waste half a year of your precious spare time (or full time, if retired or otherwise not restricted by a day job) on developing some such add-on aircraft from scratch and then the developer of the old one comes out with a (more or less) refreshed version for MSFS that will be “good enough” for most people. How do you others solve this situation? Or is it so that most of you are old hands in this and already had something for FSX or Prepar3D, and you are now working on improving it for MSFS?
(I am obviously talking about small-scale developers here, companies like Aerosoft or PMDG are in a league of their own.)
Should one just look for something exotic enough for which there is no sign of it having ever been available for a previous flight simulator version? But will there then be any market for such an add-on, one wonders…
Do you end-users have any suggestions? (No yet more airliners, please, that market is (or will soon be) fairly saturated by high-quality products from the big companies, anything a small-scale operation can come up with will be ruthlessly compared to those, and lose.)
In my sight, there is a lack of development for older commuter aircraft like F27 or BAC 1-11. Also the Business-Jet development seems to be a little bit skinny, for example the Learjet series.
I think the more obscure stuff that hasn’t really been done yet has a potential to do well. There is so much out there that hasn’t really been done. Mainly, I’d look at some stuff like Chinese and Russian aircraft - besides the An-2 coming and TU-134, there isn’t that much out there.
You don’t need to build yet another airliner or yet another GA airplane. You have to build just ONE airplane, anyone, it doesn’t matter if it already exists. You will get the money if the product is good in quality, in terms of systems, details, cockpit textures, flight model, and DETAILS. A good airplane is built by paying attention to details. Sadly, even a GA airplane could take many months and years to develop for a one-man army, but that’s it. In my opinion, I would buy any of the existent airplanes again, from another dev, if the airplane is more detailed. I like to say “Hey! look at this XYZ airplane, it has this cool feature no other airplane has”. A2A for example, you could repair your airplane, and if you don’t fly it correctly, you could break it. Right now the MSFS market is full of poor quality airplanes for the impatient or inexperienced flight simmer eager to get anything new to their hangars. Honestly, I can count the good ones with the fingers of one hand, a Homer Simpson’s hand.
If you want something mainstream no one has made a p51 yet as far as I’m aware and that would doubtless be popular, but I also expect there is likely at least one in development somewhere!
There’s definitely some mileage in making some historic planes, what about an Amelia Earhart edition Lockheed Vega?
Or even better actually, how about some planes from the Schlesinger African Air Race, along with associated flight plan/bush trip? Some pretty unique looking planes to choose from there (my vote would probably go to the Percival mew gull) and you could even aim to have a full set eventually so people can do the air race together! That would be pretty unique I think…
A2A has a P51 and I would imagine it will eventually make its way here. Wing42 has a Lockheed Vega currently in production and “coming soon”… THOSE are definitely a risk as it pertains to the original question.
You know what would be wicked awesome? A Lockheed ELECTRA!
It’s a default aircraft in P3D and I don’t see anyone making it for anything else.
A C130 is in the same boat. There isn’t even a C130 for P3D outside of the one that comes with it.
I wouldn’t be limited by worrying about what’s already been done. Perhaps let data be your guide? What are the top selling GA aircraft today? Which are most popular overall in the existing fleet? Same thing for commercial if you want to go that route. Lots of opportunity there for a new crop of single-aisle aircraft.
The MSFS platform is ripe for development of nearly every type of aircraft. Not one model that’s been released stands out to me as “that’s about as good as it’s going to get, don’t make another one!” Quality can sometimes drive someone to purchase. I did exactly this with the DC-6. I had NO intention of purchasing that aircraft as it’s not something I would typically want to fly. However I couldn’t ignore how well-done it was so I took the plunge. So happy I did.
There’s a bit of emotion tied to “what aircraft” so I’d imagine you’d get feedback on what to build that is all over the place. Again, perhaps let data be your guide. Another angle, are there aircraft that had some unique capability or feature or contributed in some unique way to aviation? Perhaps that could be a target and I’m sure there is a pool of cool aircraft that people would want to fly if viewed from that perspective.
Hmm. Possibly this Aeroplane Heaven is the original creator and they sold it to MSFS? Depending on the terms of the contract, they might have the right to create a new product based on the same intellectual property for MSFS, or not.
I think you are going to get a lot of people’s pet wants which may or may not be good from a business standpoint if that matters.
You say you are an aircraft developer hopeful but have you developed anything already or is this a first effort you are thinking about? Are you wanting to sell these or just use the donation model at flightsim.to? Donation model might be best way to start especially if you don’t have a portfolio.
If totally new, I would suggest picking a simple first subject and learn while developing it, put it on flightsim.to, and see what user support is like, how much effort it takes, and maybe most important, see how you did. Lots of downloads and likes?
If you have access to a real aircraft and/or good documentation that can make things much easier. You don’t want a bunch of folks who know the aircraft telling you (and others) how much you got wrong.
As to subjects, the more mainstream stuff is easier to document. More unique aircraft could turn into research projects and get difficult fast depending on resources. More complex systems get harder to model and verify, etc. More mainstream subjects may be more likely to be duplicated elsewhere, though.
The decision is really one you have to make based on your own capabilities and resources and how you see your aircraft in the marketplace. As to someone else producing the same thing, there’s just no way to know unless someone has announced something. Good luck!
Just yesterday I saw a post where a user noticed the landing lights of the PMDG DC-6 dim when the engines drop below around 1500 RPM because the generators aren’t able to output enough current at low speed. That is some nice systems modeling!
And completely agree on the details. These aircraft are in some ways historical documentation of the original aircraft. The DC-6 is my own museum. I have bought a few aircraft that don’t measure up - especially if they look like warmed over FSX airplanes. They get deleted and I wait for someone else to do better. Life is too short to drink bad coffee…
If I were a payware aircraft developer I would churn out a bunch of 5-10 dollar fighters, bombers and anything else flashy such as the Concorde or SR71 and aim solely for casual Xbox types.
I’d add the occasional button here and there to make them feel special. I would end up making more money than all of the current developers combined.
