Thursday, November 11, 2010

Captain Sim Announces Their Next Project

Captain Sim recently gave their customers a chance to have a say in their next project.

Well, the people have spoken, and Captain Sim has listened: the next project will be the 737 Captain series. They are going to take on the Baby Boeing initially: the base model will be the 737-100, and the expansion model will be the 737-200.

No word yet on how far they are planning to run with the 737, but the "737 Classic" series (-300/-400/-500) from Wilco is getting a little long in the tooth, and might benefit from the Captain Sim treatment as well. However, I just can't see them taking on the 737 NG, with PMDG moving full steam ahead on theirs.

Nonetheless, the Baby Boeing is a very solid choice for Captain Sim, as it will fit right in with their Boeing 707 and 727 models. I voted in favor of it myself, along with a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar and Douglas DC-8. I really do wish someone would take on the TriStar for FSX - there are some very interesting features about that plane, such as the Direct Lift Control system. But that's a discussion for another day. :-)

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Anthony Cacciatore said...

No idea why they're starting with an aircraft that was replaced in production so quickly. 30 -100s were manufactured to 1114 -200s. I'd like to point out that this is the first time a major FS aircraft studio is creating a commercial jet that will undoubtedly sell more copies (-100) than number of aircraft Boeing actually made. While I agree that the -200 will be a great addition, I also feel that the L-1011 needs to given some attention.

Chris said...

So true. The -200 was what really took off and made the 737 so successful initially. I'm not aware of very many airlines outside of Lufthansa that even bothered with the -100. And the precedent is certainly there with Captain Sim: they did the 767-300 first before releasing the -200 as a shrunk down version with the same cockpit.

The choice of the -100 was probably a calculated business decision: they know they can squeeze a few extra bucks out a lot of us to buy the -200 as an expansion model, which was vastly more successful in real life. Oh well, at least the -100 will be interesting from a historical standpoint.

It somewhat mirrors the situation with the 727, in that the 727-200 was much more successful than the -100. However, at least the -100 was successful enough to make it intresting.