FTX Wales - the big surprise is announced

[speedbird591]

I was wrong - as usual The big surprise to be included with FTX Wales, to give added value, isn't Mach Loop.

It's a full payware quality Cardiff Airport. The scenery is just going into beta testing so shouldn't be too long. There are some teaser screenshots of EGFF in the Preview Screenshots area of the forum.

Also some preview shots of SAK, Southern Alaska scenery, with glaciers and downtown Anchorage.

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/forum/ ... nd-videos/

Ian

[DarrenL]

Sheep? It must have sheep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqZy4cCZDZ0

[TSR2]

Well at the current rate of knots there won't be any aircraft at it, I think Eastern will be the only Scheduled airline left soon!

[speedbird591]

It doesn't seem as exciting as Darren's suggestion, does it?

A few static 747s and a full car park versus flocks of AI sheep roaming about over grass strips? I know which I'd rather have! On second thoughts, I could probably pass on both

EDIT: btw, FTX have just announced that they will be introducing a 20% discount on downloads for over 65s soon. So don't waste your winter fuel allowance on wood and coal - spend it on a new cardigan and a load of airports

Ian

[biplaneflyer]

Looking at the preview shots looks like it's been invaded by the Aussies anyway - just look at whats in the carparks. Think I'll be sticking to Gary Summons stuff. Plus I'm a fan of photoscenery - anything ese looks nothing like what I've flown over in R/L.

[Nigel H-J]

Looking at it realistically Wales is only a fraction the size of England and the same applies to Scotland so when you add it up if they put Wales on the market at say £20 - £25 then you expect something worthwhile hence their offer of a
'free airport' as they could not justify selling Wales at nearly the same price as England is.

I think it would have made much more sense for ORBX to have put Wales and Scotland as one package instead so now when they do Scotland they will have to also include something 'special' unless of course it sells below £20!!

Only my thoughts.

Nigel.

[Chris Sykes]

Guess Free Edinborugh or Glasgow for Scotland then...

[speedbird591]

Yes, John Venema said in advance that he needed to provide added value for Wales because of the area covered and because he wanted to keep his pricing structure for areas similar to each other. He's also under pressure from a large part of his customer base who fly nothing but the PMDG 737! They're only interested in airports that they can fly into and don't give a toss about grass strips, however lovely they are.

So he's found that despite England selling exceptionally well, his first two airfields are moving very slowly. The VFR boys are already sorted with alternatives from UK2000 et al. I guess that Cardiff is an attempt to get the 737 boys on board so I'd expect Southampton or Bournemouth to be not too far away.

He says he'll give it 9 months to see if airfield sales in the UK pick up and if not he may drop the idea of doing Europe and concentrate on North America where sales are very strong and there is still most of the continent waiting to be covered. Aerosoft has got Germany pretty well covered, too, so maybe the market is already saturated?

The plan to do some WWII RAF fields is still active and they are asking for preference as to bomber or fighter for the first one. They were planning Kenley but think it's too close to London and the developer says he'd rather do a disused one so I've suggested Tangmere - obviously! He's got quite a few static vehicles and things lined up ready.

Ian

[DaveB]

None of this is particularly surprising.. other than their core users all fly the PMDG 737 I'm not sure about the wisdom of pursuing WWII airfields either.. however incredibly sumptuous they'd be. There are niche markets and niche markets. While I appreciate world domination is his ultimate aim, I still think he'd do better dropping the FTX malarky and make these stunning airports for other platforms.. eg, default FSX/GenX/UT. He could still justify the cost by including 'surrounding areas' in a more reduced form as did the likes of OSS years ago with Shoreham.

Perhaps we're just too finicky here.. though maybe not just us. Germany is already covered with their version of GenX as is France with their VFR range. There are holes for sure but these tend to be places no one wants to go to anyway There are just too many great products already available for Europe for this area's simmers to drop the lot and start from scratch. Make airfields for the masses I say

ATB
DaveB

[Nigel H-J]

He says he'll give it 9 months to see if airfield sales in the UK pick up and if not he may drop the idea of doing Europe

As good as the airfields appear I would honestly say that many simmers would much prefer to have commercial airports rather than ones we have seen as they are restricted to light a/c only whereas I much prefer to arrive (or rather land) at somewhere like Leeds Bradford in a commercial aircraft then swop into something a tad smaller for a tour of the area. When I start to build up FSX I will buy the UK2000 Xtreme airports as they are excellent
Nigel.