Development Team for X-Plane

1. sgabriel 4.1.09 / 3pm

   Looks good. I think a lot of us have been hoping for a good, payware-quality flying toaster for years, and this is a welcome announcement! I’ll bet flying qualities will be light and crisp. I assume spring rates will be adjustable?
2. dan 4.1.09 / 10pm

   Hah! Good one…. :p
3. Alex 4.2.09 / 7am

   For kicks and giggles, we’re probably going to animate the thing, throw it into a basic acf and let you all have it. And contrary to what we indicated, I started work on it last night around 9pm! Happy April 1st!
4. nilsh32 4.4.09 / 12am

   Ahh, so this is what you guys have been working on! We haven’t heard from you guys in a while..

   So, how are things going on the 777? You guys haven’t posted any new pics, especially exterior ones, in a while. Today i took a tour of the Boeing plant in Everett, WA and i got to see these things up close. Very cool. I hope you guys can finish this thing soon! Also, how are the other projects coming along?

   Nils
5. xend 4.7.09 / 10am

   ohh, well, during all this time, you have worked for an ridiculus toaster?
   for the time, i and lot of people believed that it would be finished with the B777… where are you in this project? nothing else?

   otherwise, its’s very well this fool of april, maybe too much.
   yeah, it’s a succeful for a first april. im thwarted
6. Dhruv 4.29.09 / 7am

   xend,

   I’m sorry that our taking a break from the everyday grind to build something for fun offends you. Just because we’re not posting our every move on every project on this blog doesn’t mean we’re not working on them.

   And just for your information, Alex and I have spent the better of the past week meticulously tuning the 777 to fly properly. Seeing as you don’t appreciate our frivolity with the toaster (which by the way we took from start to finish in about 6 hours), I don’t expect you to appreciate the work that goes into making sure that our projects exhibit a certain level of quality control. We have also been working very hard to secure more accurate documentation for the 3D cockpit, and Alex is hard at the geometry still.

   I’m going to be blunt. The 777 will not be finished anytime soon. We’re still waiting on required features that 9.3 final will deliver before we can proceed with certain key areas of the plane. Furthermore, it’s comments like yours that highly discourage us from posting blog updates as it is, because no matter what we deliver, there’s always the one or two voices in the crowd for whom our updates aren’t good enough. Instead of insulting what we do to clear our heads from time to time, how about you take an April Fool’s joke for exactly what it was - a joke?
7. ktomais 5.26.09 / 10pm

   Take as much time as you need and create something that is truly great. Don’t pay attention to bitter comments, though be certain that even these come from sincere love for your work and anticipation.
8. Airbusfreak 6.3.09 / 7am

   So…any news?
9. nspeds 6.6.09 / 3am

   You know…

   I am now working for the summer at a non-profit, public interest organization. The position is unpaid, and we provide our clients with free legal services. In my opinion, we provide a great public service to the community, one that is not required, but greatly appreciated.

   That my work is free, or that we provide service for free, does not absolve us from doing sloppy work or being plain lazy. We still have to produce top-notch work, as our partner private practice firms and clients demand that from us. My boss is an absolute perfectionist, ordering that I constantly do my best. When he orders me to do so, I don’t complain indignantly, arguing that he should be grateful for whatever I’m already providing. He is, of course, grateful, but I still need to work. I took on the job, I took on the duty, I took on the responsibility, and therefore I now have the obligation to fulfill my tasks with utmost efficiency and diligence.

   I hope you take this as an example for your little crew here, Dhruv. I, of course, appreciate the service you gratuitously provide to this community, but that excuse will only take you so far. You took the responsibility of completing this aircraft, and now you have the responsibility of keeping the community informed and having the project completed efficiently. It’s not that people are impatient. What has it been now? 2 years? In this time, other experts in the community could have began their own 777 project; most likely, when you decided to make one, others decided it wouldn’t be fruitful to make a duplicate aircraft. The community is so small that one’s project will stall another’s, meaning that if you want the community to run well, you have to put in your best. This isn’t like MSFS, where the “market” will root out the lazy morons.

   And dhruv, allow me to air my particular grievance toward you. Since I’ve been reading your posts now for the last four years, I’ve come to notice a distinct quality in your demeanor: You don’t fulfill your promises. You constantly say you’ll do things, but they either don’t happen or don’t happen in the way you intended. This quality might not be intentional: You seem like an ambitious guy. I think you take on too many projects at once, and they end up slowing you down.

   Regardless of your good intentions, though, you made a promise, and therefore you have a duty. The community acted in reasonable reliance of this duty, and therefore you must bear the brunt of our complaints. I’m sorry if some misplaced sense of self-righteousness prevents you from comprehending how wrong you have been.

   I wish you the best,
   nspeds
10. Dhruv 6.6.09 / 7am

    nspeds,

    I have to give you credit. It’s refreshing to see someone voice their grievances without the usual sense of entitlement that usually accompanies such ‘outbursts’. Believe me when I say I fully sympathize with your arguments and that if we could get the 777 completed and out any faster, we would. That being said, however, I challenge you to find another simulation of the fidelity that we plan to produce that has been completed at a more rapid rate. Admittedly, we did set ourselves back jumping from project to project, and we have taken steps to streamline our development roadmap. That being said, the last 4 weeks have seen a flurry of 777 development that while significant, is not necessarily immediately tangible, and thus cannot effectively be communicated via a blog post. I do anticipate, however, that we should have some measurable result to display within the week.

    That being said, I do take issue with your assertions that we have some higher responsibility to finish the plane. With all due respect, X-Plane 10 could hit store shelves tomorrow, and if it were to do so, Alex and I would likely simply surrender development rather than attempt to continually re-tool a never-finished aircraft. We’re working as fast as we can given the current state of X-Plane development. Furthermore, there are countless X-Plane projects that come and go without ever reaching fruition, so I fail to see how we are breaking any ‘commitment’ to the community. It is for precisely this reason that we are reluctant to give time estimates on our development cycle. As for stifling other developers, if someone were to come along and start their own 777, we would not only not view it as an affront, we would encourage its progress! Competition often spurs innovation, and we welcome it down the line if someone feels they can make a better plane than what’s out there now.

    All other matters aside, if you still feel you have issues to raise about the way things are being run, my e-mail inbox is always open. I make no pretenses about hiding behind a digital wall, and I guarantee you that any personal gripes you have with either me or the group in a whole will at least be acknowledged if not directly addressed.
11. md80fan 6.27.09 / 3am

    lol so many emotions!
    keep up the good work
    thats all I have to say
    As long as you guys are truly working hard (which Im sure you are) you have my money
12. romeo oscar bravo 7.21.09 / 5am

    mmmtoast…. you know, I don’t own a toaster…. and thats too bad because toast is really really good. was this ever made available for download?