WestWind Airlines

I am extremely curious about the upcoming planes for FSX. I know that I am one of the few people who actually use FSX regularly and not FS9. I was kind of upset when I saw how many fewer planes there were FSX than FS9. Any info for future planes would be great!!

 

Thanks.
 

---

Jason Hirsch
Cat II pilot
WWA2155

Early on the Executive Committee agreed that FSX would not have a fleet of aircraft anywhere near as large as we had for FS9.   There are several reasons for this decision:

1. WestWind does not have any aircraft designers. We only repaint.

2. We only have two painters, and they have families and full time jobs. This is volunteer work...no pay!

3. FSX is not being supported by third party developers like FS-2000 - FS2004. Look at the freeware downloads available all of the Flight Sim web sights. There are very few new FSX aircraft. The most likely reason is that FSX is not expected to be around for very long. Why put a lot of effort into something that will not be around for very long.

4. Most of the FSX aircraft are actually FS9 aircraft ported over to FSX. Many of those do not meet the strict performance requirements of a WestWind aircraft, so we will not use them. A good example of this was the recently added G-550. It took several months of tedious tweaking and testing to get this aircraft working satisfactorily. And, as is typically the case, nobody wanted to help out by performing test flights and reporting the results. We have lots of people that want, but only a few who are willing to help.

With that said, don't expect any additional aircraft. If it happens, great; but don't expect it.

[Edit]  I made this a "sticky" so that we don't have to answer a similar question again in the near future. 

 

 

---

Bob S.
Senior Command Captain
E.V.P. Scenery

If FS11 comes out soon, will you guys make as many planes as FS9???

---

Jason Hirsch
Cat II pilot
WWA2155

Too early to ask

---

Pranas Drulis
WWA2097
Cat 4
FS9 + Level D 767

Assistant Hub Manager Amsterdam

JMan:

If FS11 comes out soon, will you guys make as many planes as FS9???

No, in retrospect, we should have never made the FS9 hangar as big as we did.  As Bob said it's a small department, and there isn't that much available yet for FSX and I think fs11 is pending since MS has stopped support for FSX at this point.  Basically we'll have to wait and see on the FSX and then FS11 fleet.  If a whole bunch of good quality freeware FSX aircraft with easy to use paint kits became available then you would see some growth in the fleet.  That is what made the FS9 fleet grow so fast, there was a whole bunch of high quality free stuff available and they all had very easy to use (from a painters standpoint) paint kits.  We would probably have a few more FSX aircraft if I had a computer that had a chance of running FSX decently, but I have more important things to spend money on right now, and I can't justify replacing my laptop just for a game........

---

EHAM-YSSY B772LR

VPCargo:

 just for a game........

OMG...Just a game???? 

Here I thought it was a real as it gets!  

---

Bob S.
Senior Command Captain
E.V.P. Scenery

When do you guys think FS11 will come out? I thought maybe this Christmas, but there isn't anything indicating that.

---

Jason Hirsch
Cat II pilot
WWA2155

I don't think we'll see FS11 this coming Christmas, but sometime in 2009 I wouldn't be surprised (my money is on October of 2009, just in time for Christmas shopping.....)

Yea Bob I said game, because if I asked my wife if I could pop for a new machine she'd want to know why, and that is the word she would use (never mind the facial expressions and body language I would get to go along with it)..........It's pretty good though, as far as games go...........I keep finding new stuff every day, latest thing I'm playing with for FS9 is Aerosoft's AES system.......

---

EHAM-YSSY B772LR

FS11, it would seem holiday 2010 is the present thinking of MS.

after Trains2, which is holiday 2009.
we are not able to release 2 game titles the same year.
which should be broad enough a hint as to the likely timeframe.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor
Lead PM, Core Platform
Aces Studio, MGS

well if it makes you feel any better, I, as one of the painters, tend to be an "early adopter" of new releases of FS... I've bought every new version on the release date, since about 1986 or so. (yes, that was sublogic flight simulator 2, back then, on the Apple II).  So I will probably start doing WWA repaints for FS11 as soon as I get it, whenever that is.  All of my work so far for WW has been for FSX, although some of the paints would likely work in FS9 as well.

I've done four major works for the fleet:

1. Cessna 208B Grand Caravan (WestWind Cargo)
2. deHavilland Canada DASH8-300 (WestWind Express)
3. Douglas DC-6F (WestWind Cargo)
4. McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 (WestWind mainline fleet)

my criteria for painting an aircraft:

1. It must fly well
2. It must have a working VC that can be used for all phases of flight
3. It must have a repaint kit or at the very least a white texture base

so what's missing from the fleet?  In my view:

B727F, B757, B767, B777, DC8F, and a DC10F/MD11F.

I know, some of these appear in the hangar, but they don't have the flyable VC, and if a modeler ever makes the above with a working VC, I will repaint it.  I do *some* commercial repaints, too, but among the above there is very little available for FSX.  Dreamfleet has promised a B727 and a DC8 at some point, though, and I suppose I could do the Captain Sim 757 and the Level-D 767 (actually this one is already done, I think, by someone else?) .. not sure if the commercial DC10F/MD11F is worth having though.

 

---

=============
Scott M. Stone
WWA1712 - Cat-III - Director of Aircraft
VATSIM 1018857 - C1 Controller - KZSE
Private Pilot - ASEL + Complex + IFR (almost)

VPCargo:

Yea Bob I said game, because if I asked my wife if I could pop for a new machine she'd want to know why, and that is the word she would use (never mind the facial expressions and body language I would get to go along with it)..........It's pretty good though, as far as games go...........I keep finding new stuff every day, latest thing I'm playing with for FS9 is Aerosoft's AES system.......

I understand the "wife" thing totally! 

The Aerosoft AES system looks pretty interesting.  I checked out their web site, but I have a question that I couldn't find a definite answer to:  Does AES work with default FS9 airports, or do you have to purchase the third party airports listed in their supported airport list?

---

Bob S.
Senior Command Captain
E.V.P. Scenery

Bob,

I think the only airports it works with are the ones in the list, don't hold me to that I'm not 100% sure.....  It does support a couple of freeware airports for free and FlyTampa's Boston is one of them, and there is a freeware Zurich and Olbia Italy that works without having to buy credits or scenery either.  The neatest part for me is that AES has a pushback feature that is much friendlier to use than the default, and it provides a pushback tug.  The downside is I've spent about 4 or 5 hours so far with the program setting up the door and nose gear locations on my fleet of aircraft.  That and about 98% of the airports it works with are payware scenery, and they then require "credits" to activate the AES system.  The credits aren't two expensive, I think it's about $2 a credit, and the minimum buy is 10 credits.  The expensive part would be acquiring the scenery, and alot of it is non-US scenery so if you wanted to fly with it here in the US that would be a downside too (although almost all of imaginesim's airports are supported.....).

I can dig up the links for Zurich and Olbia if you're interested.........

---

EHAM-YSSY B772LR

Kim,

I downloaded the base program and discovered the answer to my question. Other than the couple of free third party airports, it would cost a fortune to purchase the other airports...and then most are outside the U.S. So, I removed and deleted the program.  Too bad it is so expensive, it has some really neat features, and adds a lot of realism. 

---

Bob S.
Senior Command Captain
E.V.P. Scenery

Hi Guys,

 I started downloading some of the FS9 fleet onto my computer to try get some of them working on FSX. I have tried the MD-11, A380, ERJ Family and Challenger 2000. I had great success on the MD-11, I just replaced the panel with that of the POSKY 767-400 and everything worked great. The ERJ and Challenger were both nearly as good but I had trouble with the autothrottle in both and extrerior problems with the Challenger. I also found the MD-82 and Dash 8-100 hidden in the program files in FSX, replaced the sound and panels and now there working. I don't know if you can use them or not but I'm sure you can use the MD-11. I would be happy to put these in the hands of our test pilots if you would like. So if your interested just tell me and I'll try get them to you.

 

P.S. I won´t be able to get to my computer till next week as I'm on holidays in Portugal, so you'll have to wait till next week to get it if your interested.Sorry!! But post a reply here if your interested!

See Ya!

---

Eoin Coates
Command Captain
Real World Student Pilot
Frankfurt am Mein-Hub Manager

"Stranger things have happened"

WWA2104:

Hi Guys,

 I started downloading some of the FS9 fleet onto my computer to try get some of them working on FSX. I have tried the MD-11, A380, ERJ Family and Challenger 2000. I had great success on the MD-11, I just replaced the panel with that of the POSKY 767-400 and everything worked great. The ERJ and Challenger were both nearly as good but I had trouble with the autothrottle in both and extrerior problems with the Challenger. I also found the MD-82 and Dash 8-100 hidden in the program files in FSX, replaced the sound and panels and now there working. I don't know if you can use them or not but I'm sure you can use the MD-11. I would be happy to put these in the hands of our test pilots if you would like. So if your interested just tell me and I'll try get them to you.

 

P.S. I won´t be able to get to my computer till next week as I'm on holidays in Portugal, so you'll have to wait till next week to get it if your interested.Sorry!! But post a reply here if your interested!

See Ya!

The problem is, as you say, usually the panels.  Especially virtual cockpits.  If you don't mind flying with only a 2D panel, you can port aircraft over from FS9 fairly easily.  if you need/want the VC, that adds a new dimension of complexity to the process :)

Some aircraft, however, simply will not function right in FSX when ported from FS9.  Engines not starting, flight dynamics off, etc...

---

=============
Scott M. Stone
WWA1712 - Cat-III - Director of Aircraft
VATSIM 1018857 - C1 Controller - KZSE
Private Pilot - ASEL + Complex + IFR (almost)