Went from a helicopter I flew all the time to now can’t remember last flight. Turned a good helo with great capabilities into another dud.
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Luckily we have a lot of other very good and well made helicopters (that are well worth paying for from 3rd parties if you enjoy helicopters), to the point there is no need to look back to any of the default helis any more.
But at least the base Chinook is still OK
Cowan sim products are now almost free in the marketplace. Grabbed a 206b to fill the gap until this is fixed (maybe forever lol)
Any source? Or is that the infamous “just trust me, bro” thing of delivering imagination as facts?
From my knowledge nobody at Asobo signs off any first party aircraft they didn’t create on their own (why should they?), nor do they “integrate” them as it’s not their job at all (they only partner with WT (so also Microsoft as WT is part of MS) on some aircraft). They integrate their own assets and aircraft and they provide the SDK so developers like iniBuilds can create and “integrate” their aircraft.
Microsoft is the owner of the PI, the sim and the product ini creates. They are also the owners of the whole server infrastructure, the roadmap and business, so they are the instance to sign of things. Asobo is just another sub contractor alike iniBuilds who builds the foundation of it all (based on what Microsoft asks for).
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I noticed the same thing on a flight yesterday! The B407 multiplayer helicopter only appeared when I was about 0.20 nm away!
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My understanding is that in order for any individually developed aircraft to become an integral part of the base Flight Simulator software, that would need to be done by Asobo as they are the ones who control the base software itself. They write the actual game code. For an aircraft to become part of the base game, that would require a small amount of coding to do so. No matter how much access to the SDK I have, I can’t make an aircraft I create become part of the base software by default, can I? Neither can Inibuilds. If I’m wrong here, please do tell me how a developer can add something universally to the base software without Asobo’s involvement.
As you said, Microsoft are the owners of the product. Hence they make the decisions on “the original Bell 407 helicopter is rubbish, let’s put a new default Bell 407 instead”. They therefore have some responsibility for not doing something about it when this new helicopter turned out to be useless.
I don’t know why you brought up WT (presumably Working Title?) who don’t appear to be particularly relevant to this aircraft.
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This is not correct. Aircraft developed by first party partners (Got Friends, iniBuilds, Carenado, etc) are functionally the same as their third party counterparts - Asobo is only involved if/when Microsoft assigns them to develop the aircraft. And Asobo aircraft are few and far between in MSFS 2024 these days.
The simulator uses individual packages for each aircraft or scenery. It’s the same package structure like on any third party aircraft (which you can see by exploring the files using the virtual file system (VFS). The only difference is that base packages are loaded before all other files and flagged as “mandatory”, this however is defined in a likely automatically generated configuration file you can also open and even edit (using the package reorder tool to be found under Advanced Options within the general settings).
The Bell 407 even is not flagged as being mandatory but instead is handled like any other third party release:
The packages themself are bound to anything found within the official SDK written and managed by Asobo. Whenever a developer (first party or third party) uses this as a guideline it’s assumed things will work within the base simulator also across updates. Other than that to have an aircraft to be considered as “base content” you likely only would have to upload it into the correct folder on a server to which specific Microsoft employees have access 
Historically this is also not anything new - at least since FS98 (maybe even earlier but I cannot remember) the base simulator aircraft were in no way different to third party releases. They always were their own packages with the same structures, files and features like every other aircraft, so modularity was always a goal. The only difference to now was that they all were created by ACES so there was nothing to validate by anyone.
Validation on MSFS 2024 is (from what I know) also done in a similar way to every other third party release: the package is uploaded for review and signing off by Microsoft (maybe even by the general market place team) which (also likely, so take it with a grain of salt) is a semi automated process that checks if anything could cause an exploit or other unintended behavior (like crashing the simulator) especially on Xbox consoles.
This is also part of the reason you’ll find base simulator aircraft which are “half baked”: they don’t crash the sim and they don’t cause exploits - so technically (when talking about purely functional testing without specific quality gates) they are good to go as any other bug is not critical or high priority.
Because of this the project as a whole relies heavily on actual user feedback to find and resolve in detail bugs and unrealistic behavior due to the overall size.
So now we are searching for who broke the aircraft lol
Are people really not grasping what I’m saying here? Are you actually reading what I wrote or just what you think I wrote? Follow this sequence of events.
I load up Flight Simulator 2024.
In my list of aircraft, without me having to do ANYTHING within my library or the marketplace, is now an aircraft that wasn’t there before.
This aircraft was made by Inibuilds.
By what process does this aircraft now automatically appear as a default aircraft for every FS2024 user? Choose (a) or (b).
(a) Inibuilds created it using the SDK and somehow were able to make every copy of FS2024 load it up as default without any input, permission, or knowledge of Asobo.
(b) Inibuilds created it and Asobo set FS2024 to stream it to all users by default.
It’s like when Apple Music forced everyone to own that U2 album without opting in. Yes, U2 created the album, but they couldn’t jam it onto everyone’s ipod without Apple Music’s help. No matter what Inibuilds do, they cannot install an aircraft into my Flight Simulator as a default aircraft without Asobo allowing it. If you want to disagree, please tell me the mechanism by which 3rd party developers can just pop their planes into the simulator as default aircraft just whenever they feel like it.
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@MucusTech
I’ve not attempted to read the entire thread to get the background on this, but when you say " …is now an aircraft that wasn’t there before."
Is this
- A new aircraft (not a Bell 407)
or
- A new Bell 407, and you now have two - the default Bell that comes with the Standard MSFS 2024 edition + another one by inibuilds.
or
- Something else.
Note that if you own MSFS 2020, it may be related to a 2020 aircraft that has been ported over to your 2024 installation.
Screenshots of what you are seeing in the free-flight aircraft selection page and your My Library would help too, I think.
For reference, this is what I have on my 2024 installation:
I’m confused about what the issue is, so need help understanding what the problem is about - Thanks!
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Again, you misunderstand the roles of Asobo vs Microsoft in the sim. Just like Asobo has no involvement in the Marketplace, that’s all Microsoft, publishing a default aircraft can and is done without Asobo’s intervention. The first party partner developer works in conjunction with Microsoft to incorporate the aircraft into the base sim.
The only exception might be if it’s a brand new aircraft and is part of a base sim activity - a Career certification mission, a discovery flight, etc. and then Asobo would be involved for those elements.
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I am having difficulty understanding the issue here. I don’t think Asobo has anything to do with the Bell 407. I believe that it was developed by iniBuilds for Microsoft as a default aircraft. So iniBuilds develops it and gives it to Microsoft who publishes it. What am I missing?
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I think I understand what you’re trying to express. Up until recently you never saw the Bell 407 in your list of available aircraft to buy. Then suddenly you see it, I’m guessing since SU 5 or 5.1 update?
This was/is a bug of MSFS2024 where not all aircraft would show even though they would show as streamed within my library.
I noticed this when I bought the Blacksquare baron and bonanza and they never shown up at all. Only when I installed them, then they would show up. I also noticed the Chinook never shown up either and had to install it. This was in SU4. Once SU5 hit or maybe 5.1 (after 5 went live I stopped using it because it was so bad) I noticed my black square planes were showing up whilst streamed. (I always delete reserved data when starting a new SU). I have not checked whether the chinook is now showing now that it’s set back to streamed because I never use it anyway.
But yeh, long story short you should have always had the bell 407 available to you but due to that weird bug, it probably never shown up for you up until now.
It seems as though some users may be frustrated. Perhaps no one is arguing about the toothpaste cap…
I give up.
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