My Expectations for the first 3rd Party airplane for AFS2

  • Just Flight announced on February 5, 2019 that their in-house development team has plans for porting their Duchess 76 light twin trainer to Aerofly FS2. The announcement was brief and without any details about the source of the porting, P3D v4.4, FSX-steam, or X-Plane 11. Is that important? It could be, depending on how much time and effort Just Flight is willing to devote to learning a totally new flight simulator.

    With two tries at cracking this nut by 3rd party airplane developers, both have given up at producing the first payware airplane for AFS2. One gave up, due to insufficient SDK documentation and the complex and undocumented tmd text files. The other chose to make his S-211 freeware, although his S-211 continues as payware in competing sims.

    Of course, we have no way of knowing whether the Just Flight team has been tutored in the nuisances of rigidbody text coding or if there is indeed some additional documentation available only to select developers that explains more capabilities of the SDK. We can hope the learning curve is less steep for Just Flight than the other two developers.

    My personal opinion is the success or failure of the Aerofly FS2 versions or editions of the Just Flight in-house treasure trove will depend on the bottom line – how many users purchase the add-ons. Should JF be aggressive and assume it may take more than one light twin to make us eager to go for our wallets and credit cards on day of release. Which add-on would you suggest for that 2nd one? Maybe even the 3rd one?

    We as users and customers probably can’t really make an informed decision until we see the depth and detail of the Duchess for Aerofly FS2. I hope that Just Flight is not expecting us to run for the BUY button with a Duchess based on the current level of the IPACS default aircraft.

    With practically no systems depth to speak of, no fuel system, no failures, no working GPS/GTN gauges, no popup windows for aircraft or system options, no weight and balance, no mixture effects, no official cold and dark for most of the aircraft, no interactive anything, no real IFR set ups, no flight planning or flight plan monitoring. What would be the motivational factors that would make us pay for the Duchess other than just one more airplane with a lot of limitations?

    Now, providing JF chooses to explore and is successful in adding a few of the missing items from the previous paragraph with some nifty features like an outside the cockpit walk around to check the oil, drain the water from the fuel lines and visually inspect the moving parts of the Duchess. A simple fuel system – ability to add fuel based on a flight plan and payload and monitor depletion based on elapsed time, power settings and mixture. Full feathering props for sure. Some effort at a weight and balance check with flight dynamics and fuel weight effects and of aft CG and overweight conditions. Cold and Dark startups and shutdown are a given.

    I would like to see AFS2 move forward with a GPS system and especially the ability to add 3rd party GPS/GTNs to the panel. Some sort of popup window will eventually have to be introduced. Little things like optional 3d Lights Redux and rain effects on the windshield and windows are not unreasonable.

    Not that everything mentioned has to be available on day one. Just Flight recently did a massive update for most of their X-Plane add-ons to make use of recently available features. This included rain effects, improved VR, improved sounds, better flight dynamics and optimizations and improvement where practical. These were for the Piper PA-28 family, C152, Tobago and Trinidad, and the Hawk T1/A. The exact same list of add-ons that will be considered for porting to AFS2. These were all free updates to the customers.

    While we wait for updated screenshots and progress reports on the Duchess, we can spend some time at the Just Flight web site browsing and becoming familiar with just what might be the 2nd and 3rd AFS2 add-on.

    I’m guessing that whatever JF selects will be on the in-house development teams list. The search string is difficult to find, but use this link for a fairly comprehensive list. I notice the DHC-1 Chipmunk is not on the list so there are probably others. https://www.justflight.com/category/developed-in-house

    There may be dual paths in the selection of add-ons as candidates for porting over to AFS2. This might be the general aviation models like any one of the Piper PA-28 family, the Cessna 152, the Socata Tobago and Trinidad or Tomahawk. I would expect the Flying Club 2018 would be popular, especially with those that are looking for some hometown flying in the U.K. This packages 3 popular models and Conington airfield.

    The other path would be more military related and start with the Hawk T1/A Advanced Trainer, the Tornado GR1 and F3, the Avro Vulcan, the Canberra PR9, and the DHC-1 Chipmunk. The other dark horse would be the L-1011 Tristar.

    We each have our own reason for wishing or wanting a particular add-on to be chosen. My personal vote goes to the C152 and one of the high-end Arrows, like the Arrow III and Turbo IV bundle. But, at the end of the day, I would be pleased with anything on the list. We should be informed of the possible choices just in case someone does ask our opinion. The response of the VR users will probably determine whether we continue to have more 3rd party add-ons or not. I expect someone to ask IPACS when will they discover stereo sounds. It must be difficult to add good realistic sounds without having stereo available.

    I am expecting a surge of animation and moving objects soon. Jeff is evidently close to releasing some street and water traffic in the South Florida DLC. We already have wind turbines thanks to Aerosoft’s Helgoland scenery pack and we have some airport ramp movements and some basic animated characters from Orbx.

    We should be ready for a barrage of excuses for not pushing the envelope, but, on the other side of the coin isn’t this supposed to be the most modern of all sim engines? If a third party is doing the pushing then IPACS would not have the excuse that the features are not in their current game plan or would require reassignments of valuable resources. Heck, I am expecting features we are yet to see in any of the existing competitive flight sims. What do you think?

    Ray

  • With practically no systems depth to speak of, no fuelsystem, no failures, no working GPS/GTN gauges, no popup windows for aircraftor system options, no weight and balance, no mixture effects, no official coldand dark for most of the aircraft, no interactive anything, no real IFR setups, no flight planning or flight plan monitoring. What would be the motivationalfactors that would make us pay for the Duchess other than just one moreairplane with a lot of limitations?


    Now, providing JF chooses to explore and is successful inadding a few of the missing items from the previous paragraph with some nifty featureslike an outside the cockpit walk around to check the oil, drain the water from thefuel lines and visually inspect the moving parts of the Duchess. A simple fuelsystem – ability to add fuel based on a flight plan and payload and monitor depletion basedon elapsed time, power settings and mixture. Fullfeathering props for sure. Some effort at a weight and balance check withflight dynamics and fuel weight effects and of aft CG and overweightconditions. Cold and Dark startups and shutdown are a given.


    I would like to see AFS2 move forward with a GPS system and especiallythe ability to add 3rd party GPS/GTNs to the panel. Some sort of popup window will eventuallyhave to be introduced. Little thingslike optional 3d Lights Redux and rain effects on the windshield and windows are notunreasonable.

    I'd like everything you mention. ;) I am counting on a simple port though, something like the AFS1 version... I am mainly counting on that to prevent disappointment though... ;) At the same time I think I might buy this addon even if it is comparable to default planes (as far as systems go) because at least this one has a REAL cockpit with wear and tear. All AFS2 planes so far look so clean... But of course, I am dreaming about a Duchess with all the options you mentioned... but I can hardly imagine that happening.

  • For myself at least, I believe Just flight can only do so much until Ipacs expands the underlying capabilities of the sim and makes that available in its SDK for deeper systems.

    Since we have no way of knowing whether Ipacs is working hand-in-hand with Just flight to implement more complex systems, I'm not sure how fair it is to expect very much more from Just Flight itself.

    I'm simply glad of their decision to step into the market, and expect them to expand and enhance their capabilities step by step with the advancement of Aerofly as it evolves.

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    Edited 2 times, last by HiFlyer (March 12, 2019 at 8:22 PM).

  • I'd also like to see an aircraft with more system depth in Aerofly, at least a realistic cold and dark state with proper stratup and shutdown procedures, fuel system, realistic mixture, realistic landing distances (anyone else here thinking that the default Baron shouldn't come to a complete stop with a ground roll of around 50 meters?). And I was telling myself : if it's just another good looking default plane I won't buy it. But then again, if we don't buy it, no Payware developer will be willing to invest in porting aircraft to AFS 2. And maybe if in a few years AFS 2 has all this system depth, it would be nice to have some developers still around to take advantage of the new technology.

  • I don't expext that the JF Duchess has more system depth than is currently available in AF2.

    But I hope that enough users have the same opinion like Fabs79:

    ..But then again, if we don't buy it, no Payware developer will be willing to invest in porting aircraft to AFS 2. And maybe if in a few years AFS 2 has all this system depth, it would be nice to have some developers still around to take advantage of the new technology.

  • Well, one of the things I'm looking forward to from just flight is a very nice Sound Stage for each of the aircraft as far as button presses engine sounds, Etc.

    The currently available third-party sound files for aerofly add a lot to the Sim, and I wouldn't even consider flying without them at this point.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Well, one of the things I'm looking forward to from just flight is a very nice Sound Stage for each of the aircraft as far as button presses engine sounds, Etc.

    The currently available third-party sound files for aerofly add a lot to the Sim, and I wouldn't even consider flying without them at this point.

    I hope you are not disappointed. The sounds should be very realistic as the Just Flight Team has had access to a couple of real world Duchess planes for quite some tome now. Plus JF already has a Duchess model for every existing flight simulator except ours.

    A problem might be that the real duchess has unremarkable engine sounds. Switch clicks and good directional sounds do add a lot to the realism for me though.

    The mono sound system that IPACS adopted could hinder what could’ be some outstanding sounds in the future. But, Aaron Swindle’s add-on sounds are noticibely better quality so I guess we wait and see or maybe wait and hear.

    Ray

  • The adoption rate will also very much depend on the price setting I guess...

    Can’t expect customers to pay the same price as for the other sim platforms in case it would not feature the same level of fidelity or system depth.

    Corsair 600T - Intel i7 2600k - Asus Geforce GTX 1660 Super - 4 x 4Gb Corsair DDR3 Ram - Asus P8P67 revB3 - Windows 7 SP1

    2019 Acer Predator Helios 300

    aerofly FS, aerofly FS 2 & aerofly RC7 Professional

  • The adoption rate will also very much depend on the price setting I guess...

    Can’t expect customers to pay the same price as for the other sim platforms in case it would not feature the same level of fidelity or system depth.

    We will have to wait and see about this. I would expect the set price to be close across all platforms, even though some may be more enhanced than others. But, if this ones arrives in the existing AFS2 default condition, more or less, it would seem overpriced.

    Ray

  • If I may, I'm very familiar with JustFlight, having bought several addons for FSX in the past, and it's one of the best sims at the moment, for example: commercial aircraft: DC-3 - Legends of Flight , DC-6B, the legendary DC-8 without forgetting the Spitfire Mk IV that have been produced in the identical and are all simply fabulous. I think the Duchess will be a great success for AFS2.

    I join Ray, regarding prices, JustFlight is slightly more expensive than the competition, however the quality at a price ;)and they have among others excellent customer service:thumbup:

    Tomfa

    Best wishes 😉

    Pascal

    AFS2 / FS4 / MSFS / - Intel(R) Core i7 -12800HX 4.80 GHz - DDR5 4800MHz 32 Go - NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3070 Ti 8 GB GDDR6X - 2x 2 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4

  • The Aerofly FS J.F. Duchess lacks manual prop controlls!

    Think of a 15 min hop in a real piston twin or single and look at what FS2 still leaves out, it is too much and has been like this for too long.

    Weight and Centre of Gravity.

    Realistic magneto operation.

    Realistic engine leaning.

    Carb’ heat.

    Icing and operating anti-ice.

    Throttle friction.

    Electric fuel pump operation.

    DME with ground speed and ETA.

    Nav aid confirmation audio idents, drummed into real world student procedure from the earliest and instant fails if missed in a test.

    Realistic cowl flaps function.

    Engine gauges responding to pilot engine management.

    Realistic engine performance and adjustment with altitude, density and temperature factors.

    Variable environment(!)

    Nav aid degradation at low altitude and among mountains.

    Fuel injection engine start procedure.

    Convincing side slip to dump height with limited speed increase.

    Side slip drag flying a twin on one engine if not slightly banked into the live engine.

    Feathering propellors with very high windmilling drag.

    Minimum single engine control speed rudder force and loss of control wing over departure.

    Operating fuel selctors.

    Operating electrical systems and gauges.

    Operating twin cabin fuel burning heater. Ice inside the windscreen at altitude if not working!

    Deicing windscreen panel.

    Warning horns.

    Emergency system controls.

    Brake fade.

    Consider the reception of an add-on aeroplane for the FSXs or XPlane that lacked most or many of these features, it would be subject to pitiless derision.

  • Consider the reception of an add-on aeroplane for the FSXs or XPlane that lacked most or many of these features, it would be subject to pitiless derision.

    All that would be de rigeur, if the sim was on its 10th or 11th iteration like the other sims you mentioned.

    As it's actually only on its second (and is only just beginning to receive commercial third party support) it's a logical truism that patience is going to have to be the watchword.

    I suspect if Ipacs expended the resources to cough up all the things many people want, it would already have run out of money and been gone like some others I could mention.

    As I've said in other venues, sometimes slow and steady really might be the only way to actually finish some races.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5