I’ve been flying on various types of flight sims for maybe ten years. Over the years, we’ve seen dosens of developers had their names on the market both with commercial and GA aircraft. I myself, enjoy GA flights more than commercial flights.
With the release of MSFS, the visual quality is at the greatest level. There are new developers who were not on the market before the release of MSFS. This is a good thing to create a competition and challange for the developers. However, it didn’t work that way. As of today, we have A2A, Black Square, Flysimware and SWS having the highest fidelity renditions of GA aircraft. Other devs, including the well known Carenado, they really can’t compete with what the previous devs are providing to the community.
It is good to have highly detailed and accurate simulations of several aircraft. But all these GA aircraft are too old. Why don’t we see the modern GA models like the Diamond DA 50 RG, Mooney Ultra Acclaim and so forth? SWS is on the right track to keep up with the new generation aircraft, e.g., Kodiak 100.
Don’t you really feel like the number of available “high fidelity or study level” GA aircraft (like what PMDG and Fenix offers in commercial jets) is not enough? Development can take time and effort. But we’re ready to pay what it takes. We’ve been waiting for A2A Comanche for years and it totally worth it. They did an amazing job. Especially the A2A and SWS are taking the competition to a higher level. I wish to see all the other devs also do that with modern aircraft.
New high quality aircraft are always welcome, but as it stands right now, there’s not enough hours in the day for me to fly all of the high quality stuff I already have. Still want to see more, as variety is the spice of life, but it’s not exactly tearing me up inside.
I would say firstly the selection of aircraft in the game matches what you really see on the apron unless you are parked somewhere like a ski resort where everyone pops in with a Vision Jet or Citation for the weekend. Your average GA apron will have a batch of 50 to 70 year old aircraft with minimal glass but otherwise well maintained.
Aside from the Comanche which is in a class of it’s own there are actually quite a few well detailed GA aircraft in the game.
The following all stand out as well above average:
I already stated these aircraft are good. But they’re all too old except the Sting S4 and Kodiak. We want to imitate the regulations and rules in aviation. I think this is the meaning of “realism”. Not seeing modern aircraft in the sim just because they’re not common to see in real life GA apron as well is a bit of overkill.
That’s an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.
I’d also include FSReborn with its Sting S4 and Blackbird’s Cessna 310R (and it seems like BB is trying hard to bring the PC-6 up to spec) to high fidelity renditions. Although I don’t own the 310, by all accounts it’s up there in quality with the Kodiak. If anything, the devs you mention have stepped into the Way-back Machine to deliver top quality modules. Why? I don’t know, you’d have to ask them, but it seems like the community (including me) heartily embraces the older stuff just as much as the newer aircraft currently flying.
Regarding Carenado and others, I like Carenado’s MSFS aircraft. They look good, sound good, and from what I can gather, fly fairly close to the numbers. And they’re cheap. No they’re not perfect, and they certainly lack the features that the devs you mentioned provide. The thousands of folks who fly in this sim (and probably don’t frequent this forum or AVSIM) probably love the Carenados of the MSFS world. They don’t care about save states, functioning circuit breakers, etc. They just want to fly, have fun and not break the bank on add-on aircraft. There’s definitely room for both.
FSReborn is working on the Piper M500, and SWS is developing the modern version of the PC-12. I’m not sure what floats your boat, but they both fill the modern requirement and should provide plenty of fidelity.
I like the Ultra Acclaim mention, btw. I’d love to see a high fidelity version of that aircraft.
Well you also have recent releases like the Visionjet and Honda jet that are both pretty good.
But to be honest, the game is meant to be a realistic flight sim and not a flying equivalent of one of those car games where you get to drive Ferrari and Lamborghini.
Yes there is a place for newer aircraft but the huge success of the Black Square Steam gauge remakes of the Glass Bonanza, baron etc shows how much interest there is in real aircraft versus the million dollar glass cockpit rarities .
As a case in point, I see older Citations regularly, there is one that flies out fo my local airport. However only ONCE have I ever spotted a Visionjet in real life and it was unusual enough that we walked around it and even had a chat to the owner.
Btw I forgot to mention about the avionics. Not only aircraft, but we also need to see Garmin G500/600, G500Txi, Txi EIS kind of avionics. Imagine that we can replace the steam gauges with these. It is way more immersive to customise your own aircraft. You can see great examples of 50 year old GA aircraft equipped with modern glass cockpit avionics either by Garmin or Dynon. Piper 28 Arrow is a great joy to fly and is IFR certified. But the autopilot it has is a single axis autopilot. In real life, you can see an upgraded 2 axis autopilot Piper Arrow.
What I’m saying is that there’s too much potential in the near future of the flight sim. Just need to fill those blanks. All these developers are great in what they do.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes a lot of time to create these things. However it’s a lot quicker than actual aircraft development so the more time goes by the more aircraft that exist IRL will come to the sim.
I also agree that you missed Blackbird and FSReborn from that list and probably also JustFlight.
the OP has a point - It might be that what is being reflected in the current list is the relative age of the civilian flight simulator market - both on the developer side and on the customer / user side.
It takes an age to gain the experience needed to model these aircraft from beginning to end and so far most of the developers have been at this awhile. That might mean that their favorites are older types of aircraft. Then you have the bulk of US, the consumers - you might not be surprised to learn that most of us were born quite a while ago and have our preferences too. In time, and soon enough we’ll see the more recent new aircraft types make their way into MSFS but the OP is right.
Another thing to keep in mind is when MSFS2020 came out, one of the biggest complaints was that most of the default GA aircraft were glass cockpits. I’m sure 3rd party developers heard this feedback as well, and opted not to add yet more glass cockpits. Even SWS heard criticism about the glass cockpit in the Kodiak (nevermind that’s what’s in the real plane). My guess is that 3rd party developers don’t think there is much demand for modern glass cockpit aircraft.
I really like that Diamond & Mooney you suggested.
Living close to Shobdon and getting a healthy variety of both based and visiting aircraft, it seems to me that the vast majority of the newer types are either helicopters or ultralights as opposed to the more traditional GA class(es) of aircraft, which will probably soldier on for ever or at least as long as the economics allow.
The more traditional types within the sim ooze character and this is more rarely the case for me anyway, when faced with a wall of glass much the same as any other. Now, where did I leave the keys to the Jag?
There is a distinction to be made here between actual new aircraft types and an old aircraft with a more modern glass cockpit. A lot of the so called new aircraft you can buy today are old airframe designs with the steam gauges replaced with glass. Lots in the Cessna and Piper ranges like that.
I personally prefer modern GA aircraft with state of the art glass cockpits. And I would be very happy if there would be for example a Diamond DA50 or a Cirrus SR22T on the level of the first class A2A Comanche.
Hopefully a top developer will take on these modern GA aircraft.
I don’t really understand your point what the age of the aircraft has to do with rules and regulations in aviation.
Having fewer modern aircraft in the sim isn’t only due to the fact that there are less of them available on the apron but also the GA market is switching more and more to UL. And after my latest visit to a GA fair tgis year I got the impression that those UL aircraft are becoming more and more generic. Same weight, same engine, same three or four types of avionics, similar layouts and looks.
Also I get the impression that the MSFS community in general are still big fans of those venerable old GA clunkers.
In addition the low availability of many modern aircraft makes it more difficult to create an accurately simulated model.
There must be a reason why there are so many high quality analog GA addons available and why several projects (like the DA50 RG) seem to have been abandoned.
Supply and demand.
Wait, so the sim needs to be realistic by “imitating the rules and regulations of aviation”, but having a realistic selection of GA aircraft is bad?
I’m not complaining anything about having all the great steam gauge old aircraft. What I’m complaining is that the missing number of modern aircraft. I myself also enjoy steam gauge cockpit. Just because the majority of the GA aircraft among the world are too old, does not mean so should be in the flight sim. Tecnam P2006T was a great example of having a modern twin (even though 80 hp on each engine destroys the performance, but that’s the issue of the real aircraft itself) on the simulator.
God knows whether is it possible or not for many of us to own a modern aircraft, e.g., Diamond DA50 RG in real life. They’re so expensive. But we always have the option to enjoy them in the simulator. Diamonds are great because they use FADEC and they consume jet fuel. Why not fly them in the simulator? Because many of us can’t fly them in real life.
I disagree the term “realistic selection of GA aircraft”. Yes, the majority of GA aircraft are old, but not restricted to steam gauges.