Projects update

A very quick update on the status of my various FSX projects:

F-35 LIGHTNING II - The product has been withdrawn from sales to be re-released as freeware. I've already made several minor improvements to the package, and I am evaluating further changes. A plausible release date is the first or second week of January.

T-45C GOSHAWK - A further update is in the works, with some minor changes. The biggest improvement will be new flight dynamics, courtesy of Tom Falley, which more realistic and will be closer to the NATOPS spec.

F-14D TOMCAT - The external modeling and pilot cockpit modeling are complete, although the pilot cockpit is not fully functional yet. The RIO cockpit is almost complete, but still needs some work. I'll probably release a public test version before Christmas (possibly without RIO cockpit).

Aside, I'm still tinkering with Eglin AFB scenery....more info soon.

F-35 Lightning II - Suggestions for further updates?

As I wrote in the previous post, I have withdrawn the F-35 from sales at SimMarket. It will be re-released as freeware soon.
I'll take the chance of the freeware release to make a further (minor) update...

Specifically, at the moment I have:
- Changed the .air file to reflect the latest public reports and statements from the test team. It appears that the F-35 is not capable of proper supercruising: it requires the A/B to get through the sound barrier, but then can maintain M1.2 for a relevant distance without the use of A/B. Transonic performance will also be better.
- Solved the autothrottle bug...of course it was a trivial mistake in the aircraft.cfg.
- Removed the MFD and "wide" views of the cockpit - which were just an annoyance for most users.

Should you have any suggestion for improvement, please let me know - adding a comment on this post would be teh preferred way.

I am also thinking of a P3D specific version, although I have not tested P3D yet - but it seems a very interesting development of FSX, and this is definitely a good thing for developers.

F-35 Withdrawn from sales

Just a quick note to let you know that the F-35 has been withdrawn from sales. It will be re-released as freeware later on (still TBD), possibly with some minor enhancements (TBD, too).
Please note that, until then, the F-35 is still to be considered payware and copying/sharing is still not legitimate.
In the meantime I am still proceeding with the Tomcat project - at the moment, there is some chance that a publci Beta may be available before Chirstmas.

F-35 Sales Figures in - Will turn to freeware

I've just received sales figure for the F-35 from SimMarket - and I am happy to say that the project exceeded the even point significantly.
As you are aware of, I am not a payware developer and the reason why the F-35 is payware is that it has been a very expensive project to develop.
Let me clarify once again that I have nothing against payware products or making profit from this activity - but I cannot venture into this for several reasons.
I have a full time engineering job, which is both relatively well paid and satisfying - and by the way involves minor design activities for equipment of the real F-35. For one, I do not have the time and I cannot afford that FSX design activity have an impact on my "real life" job.
Also, if my FSX "businness" grows there come accounting laws and taxes obligations I do not have the time to follow.
For these reasons (and others I have explained elsewhere) I have decided that the F-35 will be soon withdrawn from sales and will be re-released as freeware after a period (yet TBD) in which it will not be available.
I hope you understand and still enjoy flying the F-35.

A word on piracy... and freeware.

I have been noticed that the F-35 version 1 is available for free download in several places on the Internet. Most likely, version 2 is available somewhere, Hardly surprising. I just wanted to clarify that the F-35 version 1 has been withdrawn from sales but it is NOT freeware. I know that many companies offer their older projects for free - but this is not the case, mainly because I want to phase-out the older version.
I believe that version 2 (payware and available only at SimMarket) is a much better and more complete rendition of the Lightning II, as it includes all versions (-A, -B and -C) and I encourage everyone who may have downloaded the pirated version to consider the purchase of a leigitimate copy of the F-35, which can be found here:

F-35 LIGHTINING II SIMMARKET LINK

To be completely honest with you, since I do not do this for living, pirates are not hurting my activity that much. And I will not include passwords, serial numbers or other DRM practices which I always find annoying as user.
This is a hobby for me, and the only reason why the F-35 is payware is that the development costs were incredibly high for an hobby (more than 2.5 thousands Euros - just expenses, that is without considering my time...and then I had many outstanding contributions for free). Asking an "admission ticket" was the only way for me to deliver the project - I could not afford to do otherwise.

My plan was (and still is) as follows: once the F-35 breaks even (which will happen soon) I'd withdraw the it from sales - and then turn it to freeware after some months of gap in which the product will not be available. This is to give some value to users which may buy the package one day and then find that the product they have just purchased became free overnight.

If sales will go on as planned, F-35 will be withdrawn from sales in a month or so - and it will be re-released as freeware in Spring.
I would appreciate your comments on this plan, especially if you have purchased the F-35.

P.S. The new Tomcat is an F-14D Tomcat... so no legitimate Jolly Rogers insignias (my favourite together with the Sundowners) unfortunately....

F-14D Tomcat WIP - cockpit

Above are two images of the current build of the F-14 cockpit... According to my initial plan, I should be coding the advisory/caution lights and debugging the pilot cockpit - in order to finish it and start Alpha testing... but it is a really boring process, and I am not in the right mood (provided there is a right mood for such tedious activities) - so I started modeling the RIO cockpit ahead of the schedule.

At the moment, modeling of the pilot cockpit is 99% complete - the outstanding items being night textures and advisory & caution lights.

RIO cockpit is 40% done. F-14D experts may have noticed this RIO cockpit is not a "standard" F-14D, since the upper part is missing the GPS unit and the new digital information display. Well, I am modeling this on the pictures provided by Ken - which have been taken on the BuNo.164601 as preserved at Castle Air Museum... I will just fill the voids left by some missing panels but will not change the general layout - so you will have to live with this.

It is not clear to me why this Rio cockpit is configured like this - upper part being the same as the older variants, lower part being like the latest F-14D... may be it was for training purposes, may be the upper part has been replaced before the delivery to the museum... I don't know. Anyway, I'll mirror that configuration so that graphic look is consistent.
Also, I am sorry but the vast majority of the RIO controls will be INOP - both because will have not much use in FSX and because I simply do not have the time and resources to do that.



Eglin AFB - reprise

Some months ago, my computer experienced an hard disk failure which cause the loss of some FSX-related work-in-progress experiments, including the Eglin AFB scenery I used for my F-35 screenshots. As you may be aware of, the Eglin AFB in Florida, US will be the main training facility in the world for pilots and ground crews of all the F-35 variants.
Now in Italy we have a saying "non tutto il male viene per nuocere" (not all evil comes to harm) meaning that sometimes bad things bring positive outcomes. In this case, I took a break from the F-14D cockpit (I am in the very tedious process of coding the advisory/caution lights...) and I have redone the Eglin AFB scenery from scratch. Now, I am happy to say that the new version is better, both in terms of colors and blending.
It is still a day only, no autogen, no 3D objects scenery - and I've just aligned the runways and got rid of all the airport structures... but looks pretty good in screenshots!
It is a 1m/pixel scenery, with some areas at 50cm/pixel...so it is quite a large file - about 5.50Gb. With all these limitations I am not sure if it worth to share it...but if it makes sense, I'll try to do it.