When I was a docent at the WAAAM museum we had a definition for what years were considered antique vs. vintage vs. classic aircraft. I have forgotten what those “boundaries” are, and doing a web search turns up no clear definition. But it is roughly as follows (please don’t jump all over me for being wrong – it’s not critical). Antique = prior to about 1930. Vintage = about 1930 to about 1942. Classic = about 1942 to about 1955.
So what’s the point? Well, the reason I have MSFS is to fly those aircraft. Many of these types were available in FSX, but have not been ported over to MSFS versions (for a variety of reasons). So with this posting I am asking (no, begging) third party aircraft makers to please create some antique/vintage/classic aircraft. I have everything currently available, which is only a handful. I (and presumably other historical aviation lovers) would love to have the experience of flying these great planes in MSFS, which we would never get a chance to fly in real life.
I prefer older aircraft too, although I must admit more 50’s to late 70’s variety.
I think they will come. There are only so many 737’s and A320’s one can fly, and for me at least, the Hunter, 146 and the soon arriving F28 are all very much my type of era.
I think we’re seeing developers who have now gotten to grips with the tools, and having launched mass market airframes starting with more interesting aircraft. I’d love to see a Vickers Vanguard, or HP Herald (although I suspect they’ll be a bit too niche for many.
A lot of those older birds had some really cool, innovative at the time systems that deserve to be fully and properly modeled, as well as interesting quirks to their flight models that should be included.
The Do J and Ju 52 are not made by Carenado. But still they are certainly not very deeply modelled.
I guess if you want old and realistic your best choices currently are the Boeing 247D and the Milviz Corsair. They really bite you in the butt if you don’t treat them right.
Also the C310 is a 1950s design (the Milviz 310R is from the 70ies though)
Very true. I’m mostly salty about them snapping up two of my favorites, the Staggerwing and Twin Beech- especially after being burned by them with the D17 in XP11.
Both D17 and D18S aren’t bad at all. Love the Twin Beech. Carenado have really upped their game in MSFS. Especially considering what AH have done to the Electra and some others for twice the money.
Carenado will never be high fidelity, though. But their flight models for the Staggerwing, C337, and several others are far better than what I expected compared to FSX times.
So I think you get quite some value for money - especially with the 15,- versions commissioned by MS.
My hopes for the DC-3 are less favourable currently.
For more complex simulations as well as the 247D, there’s the DC-6 ( which isn’t quite so complex, just larger ). And the Connie, but I don’t know much about that personally. I’m quite fond of the Goose - it’s just fun - and marginally less fond of the Spitfire ( mostly because I have the same aircraft in DCS & that one is a real wild child ).
I’ve expressed a wish for 40s-50s turboprops ( surely someone has to do a Viscount ) but the general feeling amoungst devs at the moment seems to be that the turboprop code “needs work”. Someone is doing a Boeing flying boat, so hopefully one day someone will do a 30s Shorts flying boat with a proper luxury interior…
My wishlist still has a full fidelity Anson on it ( have you seen how many Ansons were built? ) - it had the Beech 18, but look what happened there :S - and whichever of the little DeHavilland propliners anyone cares to do. You either want small, or fairly fast, unless you’ve got an entire day to devote to not going very far!
Agreed & I feel that there’s something quite magical about flying aircraft that are no longer with us
I guess this only just about fits into the “Classic” category, but I’d love to see a Handley-Page Herald. Something about this plane resonates with me, even though it’s from an era I certainly didn’t live to see. It looked great for a passenger turboprop and its engines had a lovely combination of whining/screeching.
It didn’t sell well, but it operated in the UK well into the 90’s, so I’d imagine any devs could find some fairly good sounds that they can work with/imitate.
I wish the online crowd hadn’t been so vicious towards Golden Age Simulations. They have done some really rare vintage planes for FSX/P3D. But the vocal posters here made it very clear that lower-detail inexpensive niche airplanes were not welcome on this platform, and after all the vitriol directed at GAS they went back to the legacy sims. I flew their Kinner B-2 Sportwing just this week, and while there were some low-quality textures, the model looks good and the plane flies like it feels like it should.
It’d be nice if people could fill the niches of planes that otherwise won’t appear for years, if it all, on MSFS with more basic models (clearly labeled as such) without being the targets of the standards police. Sigh.
Golden Age published this one plane - a rather obscure one at that - and apparently weren’t as successful as they had hoped. And there ARE reasons for that and they have nothing to do with the community being desinterested in rare inexpensive simple vintage aircraft or being deliberately vicious (even though the tone in this forum can be harsh at times).
One reason is that they directly converted their FSX plane to MSFS and tried to sell it for the same money. And whatever those “vocal” posters may have said: the level of visual quality that is being expected for MSFS is far higher than in previous sims - which is quite normal if you ask me.
So Golden Age might have to up their game. Simply converting an old plane to MSFS (which in my eyes would barely have been good enough 10 years ago) and trying to squeeze some money out of it with a minimum amount of work simply won’t cut it. Many devs have had to find that out the hard way.
But the backlash that Golden Age got wasn’t just about the quality, it also was about how it was rolled out with first being free and then costing 22,-€ (and now being free again.)
And that brings me to the term “inexpensive”. Since it initially cost almost the same as most Carenado planes (which are far more complex system-wise, have a better flight model and most definitely look much much better) it certainly cannot be called “inexpensive”. The JustFlight Stearman is a similar aircraft when it comes to period and complexity and it cost 15,-€ when it came out and also is far superior in every single way.
So in my eyes if Golden Age really would like to sell their previous creations for MSFS then they’d have to settle for a price well below 10,-€
I don’t think your giving the crafts obscurity enough blame, I can completely look past the MD-82’s being a port and there are replacement textures already and I don’t even care to search for them. Now the Twin Otter on the other hand … meh, the rest of the plane cant carry it’s shortcomings.
Somewhat overshadowed by the F27 which had the same engines - and somewhat the Hs748 which also had Darts. The Herald was yet another victim of govt “intervention” - it’s a wonder we had any aircraft industry left by the end of the 60s…
It’s perfectly in keeping anyway - early 60s aircraft were little different from late 40s for the areas that matter to us.
There are more vintage planes coming… But for sole developers like myself, it takes a long time to do things plus not all information is available because the plane in question might not exist anymore and grainy old photos don’t show everything so artistic licence might be used.
I have 4 vintage/antique aircraft in different stages of production
The Wedell Williams Type 44
The AH F3F
The DCD Stearman
The AH C140
The Carenado GeeBee R2 and Z
The Carenado Waco (though it be modeled after the current generation aircraft and not the original)
The AH Model 10 Electra
The Beech 18
The Ju-52
The Fokker Dr-1 (antique)
These are the planes from the earlier era’s that I have in the hangar -
There are Fleet Biplane, Stinson, Piper, Travelair, Curtiss and dozens of other makes of aircraft from the 20’s 30’s and 40’s that might not ever be developed for MSFS, or will take such a back seat to the popular or more current types that the result is the same. It would have been better for all if Golden Age Simulations had, on their first attempt to model for this sim, been more encouraged to up their game, than disparaged and denigrated.
Aside from all of that it seems vintage and Golden Age Era aircraft are in fact being developed for this simulator with the Ryan Spirit of St Louis coming soon and the other vintage releases from Asobo that I have yet to purchase.
Sure - not everyone appreciates ‘old’ stuff - but in aviation development, these earlier aircraft in some cases represented technological leaps that carried mankind from the Wright Flyer and the Bleriot IX to the moon in just over a half century. 60+ years. As a 62yo I can tell you - that is too remarkable for words
If there is a Single Engine Land (SEL) aircraft produced before 1960, available for MSFS I’ve got it, including those on flighsim.to. What I am looking for include: Aeronca Champ (that I solo’d in 6.5 hours in 1962 and took my wife on dates in), and any of the planes on this list. I am in the process of creating videos featuring the planes at WAAAM. I have done a few and have six more to go – several of which a friend in Canada has done WAAAM liveries for. Here is a sample. I am in touch with the person creating this Ford Trimotor (which WAAAM has) and he told me he would create a livery for the WAAAM version (N414H).
P.S. I am not interested in warbirds or airliners or multiengine aircraft. I know this eliminates a few choices for antique/vintage/classic aircraft.
