One Thing I Would Like to See

I've been thinking about my wishlist of planes I would love to see in Flight Simulator that aren't yet available. A Dash-8 turboprop is way up there, as there is a growing interest in airlines operating this type for short-haul flights due to its fuel efficiency. (I would especially love to see the Q400 variant!) PMDG has said that they are hard at work on this one, which will be cool to see next year, hopefully.

For a long time, a Boeing 777 has been on my list, as it is the one major long-haul airliner that is not very well-represented. Wilco has a so-so version that is extremely buggy, too much so for my liking. I have a feeling -- and this is purely speculation -- that Captain Sim will eventually not disappoint us on this one. They have already announced that they are working on a 767-400. It would be fairly simple for them to step up from that one to a 777, in much the same way they stepped up from the 757 to the 767-300/-200/-F variants. The 767-400 uses the same cockpit as the 777, so they could reuse much of their hard work with designing cockpit gauges and displays from the 767-400 on the 777. Again, this is just a hunch, but I suspect Captain Sim will eventually deliver us a 777 sometime within the next two years or so.

The more I think about it, the more I really want to see a high-quality BAe 146 or its updated variant, the AvroRJ. There is something cute about a little commuter-sized plane with four engines under the wings. The BAe 146 has gone the way of the Fokker 70/100 in most American airlines' fleets, in favor of more efficient regional jets from Bombardier/Canadair and Embraer. However, the BAe 146 still sees a fair amount of duty over in Europe, with airlines such as Lufthansa's regional variants. (Although I think even those airlines have eventual plans to phase these out, too.) So how about it? This would be a project I would love to see somebody like PMDG take on -- given their propensity and desire for modeling "unique" aircraft, this one would fit right in over there.