I think this must’ve been airline dependent too - an old colleague of mine who used to fly them as Co-pilot for BOAC in the ‘sixties told me that the pilots used to have to obtain a navigational rating themselves so that no additional navigator was required - they typically flew them with a flight crew of three. Pilot, co-pilot and Engineer In the way of these things, the pilots used to refer to the Flight Engineer as “the greaser”. All anecdotal from one of the DC9 Captains I knew well.
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I don’t understand you guys ! We were complaning about the fact nobody is making this iconic aircraft and now FINALLY one is coming you are not happy. As for me, I’m super super excited to get this baby, my favorite plane of all time in real life. I’m so eager to get it. The DC 3 to me is very well done, so I’m expecting something very decent about the B707. Thank you sooooooooooo much Asobo for this really nice suprise. Even if it not perfect, all the systems are not fully operationnal, at least we will have the B707.
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Different people want different things. I am sure a lot of people will find the 707 from AH to be exactly what they want and hopefully they will surprise a few of the doubters as well.
What I want is a 707 that looks like the real deal, sounds like the real deal and behaves like the real deal, with enough system depth so that I can learn exactly what makes the 707 the 707. If it doesn’t have all of these elements I don’t see the point in having it. But this is just my opinion, it shouldn’t detract from anyone else wanting and enjoying it as much as they like. I certainly won’t tell other people how they should feel about it, but I am allowed to have own opinion and preference. We are just different and that is perfectly ok.
I am looking forward to having to eat my words when AH steps up their game and deliver a 707 of exceptional standard of course 
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Oh boy…
Who knows? Maybe AH can produce a complex old airliner with plenty of custom systems and very particular flight characteristics in a decent package we can all enjoy without a lot of bugs and without any gross errors.
Ok no, forget it.
I sincerely hope it matches what you expect.
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Maybe AH can produce a complex old airliner with plenty of custom systems and very particular flight characteristics in a decent package we can all enjoy without a lot of bugs and without any gross errors.
As they say in my native language “Nice fairytale, did it have dragons though?”
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I don’t think anyone is expecting high fidelity here. It’ll be $10-$15, and built for mass market. Simplified systems, complex enough to enjoy for most people.
The problem is that AH doesn’t really reliably deliver on even that.
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There are at least 3 versions I can think of for the A320 that were released even though the base game shipped with the Asobo one. If this isn’t a study level plane or comparable to the more detailed planes in the sim, someone will certainly work on one.
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This may very well be true, but the A320 is and will always be a significantly more attractive aircraft to develop because of a huge market for it. A 707, however awesome will never have the same market value.
On top of that, MS/Asobo hired iniBuilds to create the new A320Neo, which in reality means we have only one independent developer delivering an A320.
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A good point but I can’t agree with the ‘certainly work on one’ comment.
History has shown that a 3rd party developer will be put off and cease development (for obvious reasons) when another developer has beaten them to launching an aircraft e.g. Milviz with the ATR-72. If Asobo hadn’t commissioned another developer to undertake this project my guess is that we would now have a much better version of this very interesting AC.
Furthermore I am not seeing yet any other developer saying they are developing a more high fidelity version of the AC than we already have. A real shame imo.
This is why I am not a fan of the Local Legend/Famous Flyer products. They very often preclude much better versions being developed.
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“Better versions” is just relative. I think the most people who bought MSFS want non-study level airplanes - just start engines with Ctrl+E or whatever is the shortcut and fly. With my own eyes I’ve seen people complaining that IniBuilds A320neo doesn’t follow the flightplan made in the MSFS flightplanner and they must bother with some typing into the MCDU. For me it’s absolutely baffling that there are people who don’t want to learn the aircraft systems and try to fly it as close to the real ops as possible but each to his own, it is what it is. But I get your point, Milviz ATR is a huge loss and I still hope they will reconsider.
I have no experience with AH, so I’m looking forward to this legendary airliner and I’m expecting IniBuilds An-225 level. So there’s a bigger chance that I’m going to be nicely surprised than disappointed 
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Only one? FlyByWire and Fenix.
Anyway, even if you don’t expect something hi fidelity, it will be much better thant the free one that I really love. No animation, no lights, no textures, no interior, not the correct cockpit, no contrails but looks very nice and superb sound. I love it. So the AH’s one will give me all this and I’ll love it much.
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FlyByWire have done an amazing job, but it’s not the same .They are essentially freeware developers, If you are making a freeware product you don’t have to cater to a market at all. It’s made on the basis that you won’t make a profit in the first place.
The likelihood of freeware developers like FlyByWire making a high fidelity 707 is rather slim.
Maybe if this 707 has been in the wind among developers, then Captain Sim may have begun upgrading the 707 they made for FSX (and which I’d covered a lot of the ORBX-ified FSX globe with). Their Herc with the VC seems to be an update of their FSX version. I’d probably prefer their 707 if they offered it.
So I’m going to wait on this AH attempt. The Thunderbolt and Hurricane have turned out to be very underwhelming–the exterior and interior texturing is lifeless, very middle-of-the-road freeware quality. Developers like AH need to remember that those of us with a long knowledge of this hobby are aware that the Ants Moth everyone loves so much and Indiafoxtecho’s T45 began as FSX freeware that was payware quality. It’s not good when one of Microsoft’s favored developers is going in the opposite direction. (Frankly, the fact that AH ended up among the MSFS 2020 developers’ in-crowd has always mystified me.)
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When you play a game such as Halo, you choose a difficulty setting?
Flight simulator add-on aircraft are the same. Meet a certain user difficulty level.
The Famous Flyer range of aircraft are created by 3rd party developers by contract for Microsoft and Asobo. The requirements of the contract is to create a realistic enough aircraft that users with no previous experience in flight simulation can enjoy and screenshot and show off to their friends and family.
These aircraft are built for the typical users who play games like Halo on lower difficulty settings. No need to read a manual. To load a flight on the runway and fly away.
Unfortunately this isn’t good enough for this community who’s unrealistic expectations on add-on developers to produce semi-complex integrated systems, semi-complex flight dynamics and etc on every add-on aircraft because you need to feel and see it working is wrong. That is elitism and childish and is disappointing to see within this community. The sky of flight simulator are for everyone and no one should be excluded because of lack of skill because of this demand for ‘so called study level aircraft’ on everything. That closes the door on new users.
Developers should be coming out with basic nice looking aircraft. PMDG/A2A/Fenix Basic range of aircraft. PMDG/A2A/Fenix level of model quality but with basic systems and basic flight model.
For example, PMDG Basics Boeing 777, PMDG Technical Boeing 777.
Same aircraft visual model, different user difficulty level and price range.
Anyway, I want to buy and see and play with this famous flyer aircraft. This aircraft is famous.
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That’s a new low. People wanting Captain Sim to rescue their airliner from the claws of Aeroplane Heaven.
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Did you read this entire thread?
There are many of us who do not feel that is true. Many of us who are displeased with some of these Microsoft-branded add-on aircraft are so due to the buggy nature that they end up being released and kept in.
I stated earlier in this thread that the benchmark should be the base pre-40th anniversary aircraft developed by Asobo. None of them are high fidelity (however WT has certainly gotten a couple of them pretty close with improvements over time), but all of them are nearly bug free, whose implemented controls and features function as they should do.
Much of the, justified, frustration is over the fact that some of the FF/LL aircraft from specific developers are sub-par as compared with the original Microsoft/Asobo aircraft supplied with the sim.
The track records don’t lie.
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Sometimes I wonder about our community…122 comments, mostly negative about an airplane that has not even been released yet!
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Yes.
Isn’t this your expectation on add-on developers?
Is this a realistic expectation on add-on developers?
When you were at high school in class, you noticed students with better skillsets than your own. Every add-on developer is restricted by their own skillset and sometimes it can be hard to create aircraft to meet a certain level.
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It is my expectation that an aircraft sold with Microsoft’s branding meets a minimum standard of functionality and quality as set by they themselves via what the sim shipped with, so yes.
It is absolutely a realistic expectation that if a developer chooses to model a functioning control/lever/switch etc. that they implement it so it works. If they cannot do this then either don’t implement that specific control/lever/switch, so yes.
Look, I knew precisely nothing about the SDK or how to build an aircraft for MSFS. I spent one month learning the SDK and building a mod to fix nearly all (I’m still struggling to make sense of how to manipulate sound) the bugs and issues that exist in the Microsoft Boeing 307. 90% of why it took me a month was due to my own mistakes in my coding Reverse Polish Notation — a syntax I also knew nothing about. Adding to my struggles was having to reverse engineer someone else’s code on a completed aircraft. I didn’t have any of the tools available via Developer Mode and, thus, no debugging, etc.
If it only took me a month to do all that work from knowing nothing, it would take the developer of the aircraft, who knows the SDK and knows the code they wrote to fix these same issues in, what, a week?
Many, many, many of the errors I found were silly, sloppy mistakes in the code and not fundamental errors in understanding how to code.
This developer did a ton of things right, they just didn’t finish the job properly and left it with issues they, absolutely, have the skill to rectify. I know this because I see all that they did right and I see all the code they wrote.
There needs to be a modicum of quality and making excuses for professionals is the wrong way to go about looking to see quality standards met.
If this is too hard, or too above your skill set then offer your products for free with the caveats that you are a beginner or not really skilled at this. Aeroplane Heaven is absolutely capable of better.
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