“So Why A 757, Anyway?”

We’ve had a lot of people ask us that question over the last few weeks, ever since we posted our last round of renders. It seems that the general sentiment among most X-Planers is that X-Plane Freeware’s 757 is satisfactory and that they’d rather we build something else. We do try and listen to what people are saying, because we feel it goes a long way towards helping us build what people want to see. That being said, we’d like to discuss some of our motives for building what in some people’s eyes is “just another” 757.

To Alex and I, the 757’s always been one of the most graceful and sleek looking airliners in the world, and we’ve been quite fond of its appearance for several months now (more specifically, basically since we both first laid eyes on the thing). While we were both part of XPFW, we never really found ourselves to be very happy with the state of their (at the time) .acf format 757. When we first branched off to form XPJ, a “new” 757 wasn’t remotely on XPFW’s current radar. So we decided that if we were really going to get the kind of quality out of a 757 that we personally wanted, we were going to have to build it ourselves. We weren’t really trying to step on any toes when we started the project, and by the time XPFW announced theirs, it was really too late to quit on ours. We did come to the decision of payware rather early on, and I think that’s probably sparked some ire among the masses. Obviously, I can sympathize; many of you are probably thinking, “Why pay for one when there’s a freeware model out there?”. Well, whether or not it’s a widely accepted release by our users is going to be their prerogative, and we understand that already. So we’re obviously not expecting to make a fortune off our 757. We do, however, know that XPFW has no plans, for example, to model neither the 757-300 variant nor a 757-200F, both being derivatives that we plan to model.

Basically, the basic attitude at “Camp XPJ” is that there’s enough room in the X-Plane-o-sphere for two high-quality 757 projects, and we feel that our model will offer some things that will (hopefully!) make it worth the price tag.

N787BA…

…ZA001, msn 001, line number 001, etc. etc. etc.

All numbers aside, 07/08/07 was quite a day for the men and women of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. If you’re like us, and eat, sleep, and breathe aviation, you’ll understand the significance of today’s rollout ceremony of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. There’s not a lot we can really say that hasn’t already been said about this remarkable masterpiece of engineering and technology. So let us be the latest to congratulate Boeing on their tremendous achievement and may we see the Dreamliner soaring its way into the future of air travel next year!

Photos of the 787 rollout (all images Copyright © 2007 Boeing)

More Triangles Than You Can Shake a Stick At!

Well, Alex has been plugging away at the 757 rather hard lately (I think the fact that I finished up the fuselage paint kit and started to actually paint livery mock-ups might have had something to do with that), and he’s reached a rather major milestone. The top-sides of the wings are completely textured now, including the spoiler panels and flaps. Here’s a render from Blender to give you all an idea of just how brilliant his wing textures are:

(Click Here for a 1920×1080 High-Def version)

As for me, I’ve been working on the fuselage paint kit some more, fine-tuning some of the layers that really make the fuselage textures come “alive” - shine, shading, reflections, dirt, etc. I did, however, find time to mock up a few liveries for renders so that we can show off the model in its current state, so here you go:

(Click for 1920×1080 High-Def versions of AA, CO, NW, and UAL)

Meanwhile, Rodrigo’s been hard at work in Blender as well. Work on the virtual cockpit has started, and I’ll be jumping in on that front as well soon to start texturing his mesh. We do, however, feel that the VC’s at a state we’re comfortable showing even though there are several major parts left to model yet. Rodrigo’s got the pedestal just about completely modeled, and he’s started work on the main panel. Here’s a preview of what’s to come from him:

(Click Here for a 1920×1080 High-Def version)

So there you have it. We’re all very excited about how this bird’s shaping up. That being said, there’s a veritable ton of work left, but we figured you’d all like to see just what we’re up to .

Numbers Don’t Lie

We finally had a chance to review the 777 download statistics 2+ weeks after release, and let’s just say that we were shocked. Overall, the 777s have had over 2,500 downloads since release, and for that we’d like to send out a very heartfelt thank you to all those who waited patiently for the release. We hope that you’re all enjoying the plane - we definitely had fun building, painting, and test flying it!

For the curious among you, Air France currently leads the downloads, with Alitalia and Continental close behind . Once again, thank you very much for your continued support; it really does motivate us to keep raising the bar!

Oh, and yes, we’ll do another round of liveries .