As 2024 draws to a close we will take this opportunity to look back on the development cycle, the current state of our projects and what we will be aiming for in 2025.
MD-11:
2024 was a big year for the MD-11, the first half of the year saw us test and tweak the build with the help of our Quality Assurance team and the Collector's Edition. During this time, many features of the MD-11 were refined and polished to a state that meant we were happy to announce, on stage at FSExpo, that the MD-11 would release in July. After a successful release we turned our attention to fixing the bug reports that were coming in from our users. With the help of select members of the Collector's Edition, we devised a system where bugs could be differentiated from quirks of the MD-11. The phrase ‘a McDingle Moment’ was coined to describe something so quirky it seems like a bug but is really a feature!
Progress has been made on the FADEC for both the GE and PW engine variants by Giorgio. We believe that we are closer than ever to finding the sweet spot in the engine tuning that will resolve some of the bugs and get us into a position to release the PW engines in early 2025. In our October Dev-Update we mentioned the work that has been going on regarding the ILS/LOC/autoland performance. The update with these fixes is currently in the hands of Collector's Edition and we hope to have this published with any tweaking required as soon as possible.
We have already had one major update to the Art of the MD-11, and our team are currently working on another re-work of the exterior model and textures. We believe that these will allow the MD-11 to shine in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, and in FS24. It is not only the Artwork that is getting the love and attention, Tyler of Echo-19 has been continuously tweaking the sound package with the help of feedback from the users and the MD-11 Pilots we have on the team.
Please note, the above screenshots are still work-in-progress and meant to illustrate the overall detail, not the final quality.
It remains our firm intention to bring the MD-11 to FS24, however this will be done after we get to the end of our ‘must fix’ bugs as put forward by our QA team. We are unsure if FS24 compatibility will come as a free update, or as part of a paid upgrade, the amount of work required to have the aircraft fully functional in FS24 will determine this.
smartCARS2:
In line with our extended smartCARS 2 sunset plan, smartCARS 2 will be shut down for good on January 6th. It is bittersweet to say goodbye to smartCARS 2 after over 10 years, but it is to make room for its more capable successor.
smartCARS 3:
2024 has been an important year for smartCARS 3, towards the end of 2023 we released smartCARS Pro to the public. This lets pilots not flying with a Virtual Airline use smartCARS 3 to log their fights, which are then backed up on our servers, as well as making use of features such as the smartCARS mobile experience. In 2024, we expanded the feature suite of smartCARS Pro to include features like Airline Schedules for those who want to fly airline routes but not fly for a Virtual Airline.
Keeping with our support for Virtual Airlines, in 2024 we partnered with Taylor Broad to bring his phpVMS 7 API and knowledge to smartCARS by releasing his API as our default option. We have also taken him on to assist with support for phpVMS and smartCARS issues.
Thien is still hard at work on revamping the flight centre for our pilots as well as working on a re-work on flight tracking, which will include features such as automatic flight tracking, this has been something that has been called for since the initial launch of smartCARS! We hope to have these updates launched in the first quarter of 2025.
PACX:
PACX was updated in 2024 to be compatible with X-Plane 12, Prepar3Dv6 and FS24 as well as publishing fixes for the IFE and more in-depth system fixes to improve performance.
717:
The 717 has been updated to support Prepar3D v6.
