Edit (22MAY23): smartCARS 3 is now available for sale in open beta! To learn more, visit the product page.

smartCARS has been at the core of TFDi Design's product lineup since 2012. As of a few weeks ago, smartCARS version 3 is officially in beta. This is a big moment for us and I want to take a few minutes to share some history and details about it.

The Beginning

smartCARS 1 was our first commercial application and although we have certainly outgrown it, we're proud of where we come from. It started, initially, as a bespoke application for colleagues we knew at the time. We changed how things were done (allowed multiple bids, added a real live-chat, etc.) and really tried to build a better user experience than what was available at the time.

Below is the extremely old smartCARS 1 release video.

We soon realized that smartCARS had the potential to be much more than a one-off contract. It seems we were right, because smartCARS became relatively popular in the virtual airline world not too long after.

Enter smartCARS 2

smartCARS worked well for its intened purpose but it was obvious that we had a lot of headroom to expand. We wanted to allow more customization, add more detail to the logs, and give pilots a more rewarding experience. And so, we set out on smartCARS 2. We supercharged the code and user interface and created the next iteration of what was quickly becoming a staple of the virtual airline software world.

The release trailer for smartCARS 2 is below.

Fun fact: the music in the smartCARS 2 release trailer is actually a remix of one of my own songs.

Further to the additions to the base application, we introduced smartCARS Premium. This is a pilot-based subscription that adds further features to user experience. This allowed us to create more specific and advanced features heavily geared toward the pilot, instead of the VA, as the pilot could also now be a customer. Premium included cloud flight backups that could survive even a complete PC shutoff, a mobile app that let you bring the flight with you, and some additional features (like dark mode) that weren't industry standard yet (at the time).

The Quiet Years

After smartCARS 2, we started focusing heavily on development of the TFDi Design 717. This took us quite some time, as did the application we followed it up with, PACX. With that said, we were still cooking up ideas for smartCARS.

We collected user reports, our own ideas, and frequently discussed ways we could take smartCARS to the next level. As it soared to heights way beyond what we originally expected with over 1,000 licenses issued, we knew we had to follow up smartCARS 2 with something impressive. As we continued collecting ideas, one thing was clear: we had the core concept right but it was time to let others add to it as well.

As a company, we have also focused heavily on efficiency and modularity. These concepts worked together as we designed a system that would allow others to add meaningful, important functionality at their discretion. 

Despite all of this interest and thought, it would somehow be many years until we broke ground on smartCARS 3.

smartCARS 3

In 2020, we started on what would eventually become the smartCARS 3 that recently entered beta. We had some new team members to bring in new ideas, a fresh mindset for having had such a break, and a whole new world of technology to explore.

We picked a web-based system (Electron) that would let us write simpler, platform-agnostic code. We developed frameworks and SDKs to allow plugins to add entirely new pages and features, or critical but invisible background functionaliy, to smartCARS. The unique thing about smartCARS 3 is that we wrote the flight tracking, chat, logbook, and flight center code using our own plugin API.

This is significant because that means our plugin API really works. It will actually let community developers add meaningful content, whether specific and private to their VA, or something for the community to use.

We took a great deal of care to improve the experience massively. A few highlights of these changes are:

• Single installation across all VAs without losing the customization (meaning you no longer had to install multiple copies of smartCARS for multiple VAs)
• Resizable, massively improved user interface
• Complete customization and extensibility via plugins and web APIs
• simBrief integration
• Overhauled map with ATC and online network support
• Massively improved and scriptable flight tracking (each VA can customize exactly what is logged and how)
• Overhauled chat experience that is more conducive to a friendly community message-board style conversation
• Improved PIREP viewer with real over-the-ground route plotting
• And too many minor but noticeable improvements to list

Some images showing this are below.

The idea for us is to make smartCARS 3 a platform, not simply another version of the program. We want to let others build and expand on the features they need without having to reinvent the wheel. We want to bring a compelling mobile experience and unbeatable Premium features (more on that another day) that'll serve the community for years to come.

Conclusion

smartCARS is near and dear to many of our hearts and we couldn't be prouder of where it's headed. Thank you for reading and thank you to the community for your feedback and support over the years. The wait is almost over; the smartCARS journey will continue.

Spring Development Update

Hello and welcome to our first official development update for 2022! 

Since our last update posted at the end of the year, we have made some fairly significant progress towards achieving our goals for the quarter and becoming one step closer to the release of the highly-anticipated TFDi Design MD-11. Our team has been working very hard in the background, and we are proud to start showcasing their efforts so far!

PACX

PACX has quickly grown into a staple for many simmers, and we recently spent several months working on an update to keep it fresh. This update was released on the 28th of April and had some pretty exciting new features. 

We added an improved “start flight” experience, namely via the aircraft cabin preview:

Now, while starting your flight, you can get a better look at the cabin and seating layout. The aircraft begins to fill up in real-time as you increase your passenger count.

We added some in-flight experience customization options, such as better control of the customs card announcement and the ability to specify if a flight number continues or not.

We also added a new In-Flight Entertainment system!

This IFE system allows you to view a live map of your flight, view news from FSElite, and listen to either of JetStream Radio’s music channels! We also added some extra sound options, native support for the FSLabs Airbus seatbelt sign, and fixed or tweaked a host of other items. The full changelog is on our forums here.

We can focus more energy on the upcoming voice packs update with this update out of the way! We are working to create the tools and infrastructure needed to work with voice actors and actresses worldwide to offer a vast selection of accents and languages. We’ll talk more about this once we get further into it.

If PACX interests you, head over to https://pacx.online to learn more. If you want to get your hands on PACX, use discount code PACX10 to get 10% off your PACX order! (Code valid until May 31st, 2022) 

smartCARS 3

While our artist works on finalizing the UI design, the team have been working diligently behind the scenes to establish a remarkable base for our next generation of flight tracking software.

We have designed smartCARS 3 to allow a virtual airline to tailor the experience they want their pilots to have. Below is an example of our smartCARS 3 web API (this is subject to change and is currently still in active development) for searching the details of a flight, straight from phpVMS. In addition, our all-new API will provide virtual airline owners and developers a phenomenal base for their unique modules to allow each VA to have unique modules to support the individual needs of their organization. smartCARS 3, as has been discussed previously, will be a completely new system compared to earlier versions of smartCARS, bringing with it an entirely new level of functionality for everyone.

We recently accomplished the first working version of our more advanced flight tracking and post-flight review features. Reviewing your past flights will mean more than a few boxes and flight log items. smartCARS 3 will offer data review and experience customization that we never thought possible. We are intentionally vague - we want you to be excited.

JetStream Radio

Our sister company, JetStream Radio, has been hard at work on several new things! In addition to being the primarily in-flight entertainment in smartCARS, as mentioned earlier, JetStream Radio is now front and centre in the PACX IFE.

JetStream Radio is proud to announce their launch of JSR Classics channel playing classic hits music in addition to the recently refined JSR Hits playing the 90s to now favorites. Tune in at https://jetstreamradio.com for flight simulation-related interviews, news, giveaways, and more.

If you are interested in becoming a Show Host or helping behind the scenes, please contact the JetStream Radio team on their Discord server here.

MD-11

Our MD-11 team have been working diligently in the background to bring this project forward in leaps and bounds. While we still do not have an official timeline for release and testing, just know that we are progressing at rates never even imagined during the production of the TFDi Design 717.

The art team has been hard at work on modeling and texturing. Take a look at some of the latest previews before diving into further details.

And, of course, a good update would be incomplete without some beautiful PBR wing shots.

Another exciting area we’ve started working on is the airframe variations! Work has begun on the cargo variant and the P&W engine variant. Below, we can see the cargo model taking shape and the amount of detail in the cargo area.

Below is a very much work-in-progress image of the P&W engine model.

We are continuing to work on mapping and texturing. We expect to see significant progress in these areas over the next few months. One of the most important advantages of our workflow is that the code can advance simultaneously with the visuals.

In terms of system progression, Romel from our team has successfully connected the ISIS and is a true backup - it is a fully self-contained instrument. Complete with all three statuses: self-test, alignment, and operational. As the system is entirely standalone like the real thing, this does not depend on the Primary Flight Display for any data obtained from the simulator, allowing failures of the PFD not to affect the backup displays, paving the way for future development of the failures package going forward.

Collin has been working on the autoflight system recently. We have taken what we learned from the TFDi Design 717 project and used it to build a much more robust autopilot. The added complexity of this aircraft’s automation, such as the RCWS and LSAS, makes it a challenging system to implement correctly. However, the autoflight has been able to hold the aircraft level successfully, and we have laid out the foundation of the code required for the mode logic and FMA. We expect to have an autopilot capable of at least basic flight control modes within the next few weeks.

We are also welcoming a new programmer, Pedro, to our team this week! He will be working on systems code with us to help move the project along even faster.

And in very positive news - our MD-11 repository hit 1,000 commits last week! For those of you who don’t know what that means, our team has written code for the MD-11 and submitted it to our central storage area (repository) 1,000 times!

Our goal is to start working more within the simulators as we progress from here. MSFS previews are coming, but it is easier for us to test in P3D, which is where we will begin. 

Closing

As always, we appreciate your support and patience. We aren’t providing any release date estimates because our priority is quality. We’re working as fast as we can without sacrificing that quality until we’re ready to put some awe-inspiring products in your hands.

Thank you for reading, and be sure to join us on our Discord to chat with our developers and stay up to date with the latest developments!

Opening
We've been quiet while we've had our heads down recently, but it is time to show everybody what we've been doing! We have changed how we structure some of our development planning by splitting it into seasons. These seasons coincide with the traditional fiscal quarters and, for now, we plan on doing a major development update at least once per season with development streams and shorter updates in between.

PACX
We've been working slowly and steadily on improvements to PACX. Since the last time we talked about it, we've crushed a number of bugs and implemented a few requests from the community. Among these are items like improvements to record filtering, refinements and fixes for certain in-flight announcements, and general stability and performance improvements. We plan to start testing on this update relatively soon after the holidays to keep things fresh.

One of the most requested items for PACX was additional voice packs and we intend to deliver. We've been working on the internal tools needed to create a thorough and immersive voice pack expansion remotely. This expansion will include a number of new voice packs in different languages and accents, as well as some changes to make the experience more realistic in those areas. The good news is that these tools are almost complete. We will soon be putting out a call for voice actors/actresses and/or flight attendants from around the globe to work with us in creating the new voice packs. 

smartCARS 3
The smartCARS 3 team has been working on some impressive items. The user interface is still very much a work in progress, so I will not be sharing any images here, but I will go into more technical detail about what's going on under the hood. smartCARS 3 is a platform as much as it is an application. We have created a plugin system that allows third party developers to have the same level of access to the core functionality that we are using to create it. This means that virtual airlines and communities can create a truly custom and personalized experience while still benefitting from the existing work done by others and by our team.

For example, let's say a virtual airline created a completely custom booking and dispatching system that is totally incompatible with the way smartCARS handles it. This virtual airline could spend a few hours and create a new booking module that their pilots can install that works with their custom system. These pilots can still use smartCARS and benefit from the rest of the features without having to sacrifice the individuality and immersive experience that the virtual airline created.

smartCARS 3 will be a huge improvement from the pilot's perspective as well. We've taken a huge number of requests over the years and we are implementing those as faithfully as possible. Little inefficiencies, such as the un-resizable window and auto-scrolling chat will become things of the past. The flight tracking and logging experience will be much more thorough and refined. The review of past flights will be much more detailed and useful, instead of simply seeing the PIREP text a second time. Even the smartCARS Premium features will become much more compelling and useful - allowing a greater amount of flexibility and dependability from your flying experience.

When the user interface is ready, we will do a deep dive into the details of some of these new features and demonstrate all that it is capable of. In the meantime, just know that we have heard your requests and feedback and they are shaping the future of smartCARS. 

MD-11
The MD-11 has been making significant progress over the last several months as well. We can now officially announce that we have partnered with Turbine Sound Studios to create an immersive sound experience for the MD-11. More and more systems have been brought online in the last few months and functionality is getting more complex and realistic. Since the last development update, we've got the FADEC and engine computers implemented, the first part of the flight control systems and FCC working, improvements and additions to the electrical and hydraulic systems, and work has begun in the pneumatic system. The standby display is also now nearly complete, bringing another complex piece of electronics online in the cockpit.

In the visual and artwork front, huge improvements have been made. The texturing of the cockpit has started, as well as the mapping and animation of the buttons and switches.

It's worth noting that the cockpit seems VERY worn/dirty. This is an option - it's easier for us to create it at maximum wear and tear then reduce it than it is to go the other way. You will have the ability to select the level of wear and tear you'd like.

The tools we've created to help develop and test the aircraft outside of the sim have also made getting it into the sim faster, so we expect to see a lot of functionality in the cockpit very soon. The cockpit isn't the only area getting attention, though. The exterior texturing and liveries are well underway. We have a pretty solid list of liveries we want to have available at launch and we're making good progress on them.

As always, all of the images shown here are work-in-progress and not necessarily reflective of the final, refined product. If you see something that is out of place or not quite perfect, feel free to let us know, but it may be an issue we're already aware of and will fix at some point before release. We actively encourage participation via our Discord server.

One final item that we've discussed on some of our streams but haven't officially stated yet is the price point. As of now, we anticipate the product being available as a base pack and two expansions. The base pack will either be the cargo or passenger version (your choice) and the other will be available for a small upgrade. We also plan on releasing a failures package that will include a full failures menu, operations-based failures and faults, and more. As of now, the base price is expected to be $89.99 USD. The expansion packages will be priced fairly with respect to scope and significance of the work required to create them.

Closing
Thank you for reading and if you haven't already, I posted our yearly review article here.

A week ago was FlightSimExpo, which we attended with a bunch of people from our team! If you managed to attend in person, hopefully, you managed to say hello and ask any questions you had to our team directly. This blog post will cover everything you need to know if you did not manage to attend, or missed our presentation.

If you’d like to watch the live video announcement, check out the recording by SizzlingPopcorn below.

MD-11

Our eagerly anticipated aircraft has also made further significant progress since the last development update posted in November last year (that’s a long time!). Our most asked question was whether the MD-11 will be coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator. We can finally confirm that yes, the MD-11 will be coming to both Microsoft Flight Simulator and Prepar3D on day one. The Microsoft Flight Simulator and Prepar3D version will use very similar codebases and, as a result, it should offer a very similar experience (within the technical limitations of the simulator platforms, of course). We also showed the aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator with the experimental livery as the original plane was tested with:

Finally, we talked about some of the extended functionality this aircraft will have. Not only are we intending to cover the main variations (freighter, passenger, etc.), but we also plan on a “failures package” that will allow simulation of non-standard flight procedures.

smartCARS 3

In the middle of the massive news regarding the MD-11, we also managed to show off the new version of the most used flight tracker for Virtual Airlines, smartCARS. In our presentation, we showed how smartCARS will grow from just an application to a platform for virtual airlines. We have built systems that allow airline administrators to add and change elements of smartCARS 3 through our API and allow the application to fit the virtual airline, rather than the other way around.

Through our development of smartCARS 3, we have ensured that it can be run in as many environments as possible. smartCARS 3 will be able to natively support phpVMS v5 and phpVMS v7 without any significant changes being required. We are designing the application with cross-platform functionality in mind, including allowing it to track your flights on various operating systems, such as macOS and even Linux!

PACX

Of course, no product pipeline update would be complete without mentioning our Passenger and Crew Experience utility, PACX. We are working on creating a set of asynchronous tools and workflows to allow us to bring a whole host of new voice packs to the application. We will be bringing new languages and accents to PACX to offer a more native, immersive experience around the world. More information about this update will be released in due course, but our team are actively working on the new features!

Closing

Phew, that was a lot of information all at once. Hopefully, it was worth the wait! We did an interview with FSElite, who asked us some questions regarding the development of our products. You can check out the interview here: 

As we create new products, we would like to take advantage of more modern technology which older operating systems do not support. These older operating systems often have major security issues and no longer support modern security practices. For example, we see this manifested in the difficulty some of our products have using newer security protocols on Windows 7.

For these reasons, in addition to Microsoft’s own end of support for these older operating systems, from September 1st 2021 onward, TFDi Design will no longer support Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating systems. We will continue to support Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 for as long as Microsoft chooses to add security updates. You can find more information about Microsoft’s support dates here. We plan to support Windows 11 from release, which is expected in late 2021.

As a customer, there are now two options:

• You can choose to upgrade to a more modern operating system such as Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 and continue to receive support as they always have; or
• You can also choose to not upgrade, and stay on Windows 7 or Windows 8. This means that from September 1st 2021, our support team will request that the operating system of the machine is upgraded before proceeding with any further support.

Please contact our support team via the helpdesk if you have any questions about these changes.

Happy Wednesday! 

As our team start to wrap up with a shortened week for Thanksgiving, we just wanted to provide a quick update on our development progress since the last one was pushed out.

smartCARS 3
With the addition of an extra team member on the project for a couple of weeks, immense progress has been made on smartCARS 3, bringing in the next installment of the iconic tracking software used for many years.

With a new login system, only one version of smartCARS will need to be installed at any one time. This means that no longer will you need to install a version for every airline that you fly for with a single, integrated login system. Upon login, you will be met with the following page which allows you to choose your airline from a list or type in the URL of the airline you wish to fly for. This login system is still in the early stages of development, so things may change between now and release.

In addition to the much improved login page, we have an overhauled look on the dashboard, allowing news articles from the virtual airline to be visible in the tracker and for any service updates from TFDi Design to be easily visible to pilots using the tracking software.

Our chat area has also seen an overhaul in design, though the script used to run the chat functionality still needs to be written.

As you can see, smartCARS 3 is clearly starting to take traction and development is certainly well underway as we approach the end of 2020. We are hopeful that continued effort will pay off and a working version of the application will be ready in the near future, especially now the layout and design features are taking shape. At this time, a release date is not yet known but we can confirm that for our developers, a fully functional API will be developed alongside it, allowing for easy interaction with the application and full support for phpVMS 7 out-of-the-box and the ability to support custom software with the API.

If you have anything you would like to see included in smartCARS 3, the following forum area should be used for formal suggestions:

https://forums.tfdidesign.com/index.php?/forum/68-smartcars-3-suggestions/ 

MD-11
Our eagerly anticipated aircraft has also made significant progress since the last development update posted. Screenshots from the development team included in this post show an almost fully-functional FMS that is able to be interacted with our in-house software used for development. The FMS will now respond just like the real aircraft, with behaviour replicated from the real aircraft based on community-submitted videos and manuals from the aircraft.

The following video shows the ability of STARS and Approaches being used within the flight management system:

The graphic below also shows the VERT REV page and wind data entry:

This final graphic also shows the use of a custom runway as a departure airport - a feature that the 717 did not have:

Great headway is also present in the hydraulic systems with ongoing development now visualising the reversible motor pumps providing power to system #1 after the shutdown of engine #1. There is still development work required to make it as realistic as possible, but the logic is now in place for more detailed development to take place. The following image shows this logic in action.

We will soon be getting the model of the MD-11 completed and ready for use in the simulator, with the modelling team being expanded and various other pieces of the puzzle fitting together to bring together the latest aircraft from TFDi Design!

Thank you for all your support so far in our development of ongoing projects. For all of those celebrating tomorrow, we would like to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving, although it may be slightly different than usual, and we look forward to bringing about new products and showing off projects in the future.

Josh
 

 Good afternoon folks!

I hope that you have all been doing well and looking forward to your weekend! It has been a while since our last update, but we wanted to update you on our development progress before the week is out!

Passenger and Crew Experience
If you haven’t kept up to date with our beta testing, PACX has some awesome new features that are available for testers in our Discord server in the #pacx-testers channel. Let’s summarise the new features!

MSFS 2020 Compatibility
Testing has recently been completed in which the all-new PACX HUD and PACXBridge were made compatible with MSFS 2020. We are pleased to report that all tests were hugely successful and the opt-in community testing helped us polish it up.

Cabin Layouts and Passenger Simulations
One of the more-requested features of PACX in recent months was the ability to view passengers as they walk through the cabin of the aircraft within the application. If they are boarding and trying to find their seat, or even going to the toilet, you will see the passenger “dot” moving around in real-time! 

These cabin layouts are also not static and have been designed to make them customisable! This allows you, as a user, to create your own cabin layout at any time, for any aircraft in any configuration. The passenger simulation aims to be as smooth and realistic as possible so that the behaviour of your passengers and crew are as realistic and efficient as possible. You also have the opportunity to click any passenger to find them on the list, and their colour will change depending on their current satisfaction!

To make this even better, all features of PACX have been adjusted to be based on the passenger simulation. Internal features such as boarding, de-boarding, in-flight service etc. have all been made to work around the new simulation giving more significance to the cabin simulation.

We have also been asked various questions about how to customise flight comments, names and cabin layouts. We have also been asked about how the career mode works. To alleviate your worries, the following forum posts will make things much easier for you to understand!

TFDi Design MD-11
The much-anticipated aircraft is still in active development, despite the seemingly large amounts of time developing PACX. In the background, our team of modellers and programmers are hard at work getting the MD-11 ready! 

Model
The model is still being worked on, despite it still being “in the hangar”! With the latest improvements, the exterior model nears completion, while the cockpit is still being worked on. As of September 14th, the centre landing gear and bay are fully complete, with the rear cargo door, 3D cabin doors and a virtual cabin have been added. The next steps for the model include some probes, lights and the APU exhaust. Once complete, the paint kit will be started and the overhead panel of the cockpit will be worked on.

FMS
The Flight Management systems have still had significant progress made on them. At the time of writing, the FMS is capable of creating a flight plan based on navigation data. SID and STAR programming is in progress, but is expected to complete relatively soon. In addition to this, the VERT REV and LAT REV pages are nearly completed and are on our internal testing software, created exclusively for the MD-11. 

The FMS is a major portion of the commercial airliner experience, hence the large amount of up-front development effort being put toward it. As it continues to progress and eventually move toward completion, development on the rest of the systems will speed up even more.

Systems
In terms of electrical systems, Ricardo has been hard at work to get the emergency power logic working, as well as support for external power, smoke switches and the APU bus tie relay. Various other power systems are being worked on and the core functionality regarding power has been largely completed, and is now being specialised further. 

In addition to the power logic, Ricardo has also started to work on the Hydraulic systems, including calls to the hydraulic system and the overhead panel lights and switches. Various tweaks to original logic has also been reworked to make it more functional and true-to-life. 

Wrap Up

Thank you for reading and your interest! As always, we'll do our best to keep everyone up to date. If you'd like to chat with us and be part of our growing community, join us on Discord!

Will X be compatible with MSFS 2020?” is a question that we have been asked a lot recently, both in Discord and on the forums. For the past couple of days, I have been testing the compatibility of both smartCARS 2, smartCARS Premium and PACX. These tests have not been thorough by any means, but we feel that enough has been covered to make this announcement.

smartCARS 2 and PACX will be compatible with MSFS2020 at launch.

From our tests using FSUIPC7, the results were staggeringly positive. All variables that our application reads to and from are all working and being recorded inside of smartCARS and shown in the flight log. PACX was also able to correctly identify the stages of flight, and all announcements were spoken at the correct time. You can view a log for the test flight here: https://hastebin.com/dudakudahi. 

Although these two pieces of software both run well, we have noticed a bug with the flight pausing system included within smartCARS Premium, in which abnormal flight (such as steep banking or stalling) would cause the simulator to pause. This behaviour is normal, but during testing, we were unable to unpause the aircraft while this option was enabled. At the moment, we do not know whether this bug is within our code for smartCARS 2, FSUIPC7 or the simulator directly. Until we have more test flights completed using smartCARS, we will not know immediately. In the mean-time, this option can be turned off, then re-enabled once normal flight has resumed, and you can still enjoy using smartCARS in MSFS 2020.

We look forward to the launch of the sim next week, and we will be asking for users to help test these products following the release of the simulator on Tuesday, 18th August. Should you wish to help test this upon launch, or if you have any additional questions, please ask in our Discord server and one of our team will reply to you.

At this stage, we have no immediate plans to bring the TFDi Design 717 to MSFS 2020.

Hello everyone, It's been a very busy few weeks! Over the last few weeks, we've released a moderately sized update for PACX (as it is nearly to version 1.0), we fixed a small snag in the TFDi Design 717's navigation display, and of course, have been hard at work on the TFDi Design MD-11. I've included some new renders and information from a few of the developers on the project.

To start, I'll quote @Ricardo Ramos, the systems programmer for this project.

Quote

Electrical system development is progressing fast: buses, generators, relays, switches, loads and overall interconnection mesh were coded individually and now are being integrated to work together. Buses share loads and sources when interconnected. Transformer-rectifiers and inverters were created with efficiency coefficients so when a load is present in a DC bus, the corresponding AC bus will be loaded proportionally to the transformation ratio and efficiency. Generators also share loads when interconnected. The overhead indicators were already added. Buttons event handling are coming next. With all parts working together, the logic for switching relays in automatic mode will be created and integrated last.

@ozzman1997 has been doing some incredible work on the model as well. The exterior is nearing completion (still pending texturing, of course), but the cockpit has progressed immensely.

Finally, I've been working on the FMC/MCDU (and its associated sensors, computers, and systems). I don't have a screenshot to show this time, as the majority of my work has been behind the scenes. That said, here are some key points of what's been added to the system recently:

• Triple, independent IRU simulations with simulated drift and realistic alignment behavior (for example, a fast align can be performed once the IRU has captured true north and has been previously aligned).
• The GNS systems are implemented and have the appropriate amount of sensors and information channels to integrate in a realistic way.
• The navigation database system has been optimized and brought into the MD-11 and is now being properly read by the FMC, including both primary and secondary databases.

The next step is beginning to code flight planning and MCDU operations. Unlike our previous aircraft, we intend to simulate all (except maintenance/third-party software) features of the MCDU, such as wind entry and RTA. Of course, we're still early on, but progress so far bodes well.

That's all for now and thanks for reading!

First of all, I would like to say thank you to every person who has submitted content for the MD-11. We have been inundated with key materials that will contribute directly to the development of the aircraft.Everything is greatly appreciated. If you do have any more manuals, diagrams, photographs, or information please continue to send them in right here.

A big shoutout to @ozzman1997 for his continued hard work on the exterior model. The control surfaces are now all exported from the model and our flight dynamics programmer will soon begin his work from the amazing material that has been submitted by the community to ensure the MD-11 flies like the real deal!

For our livery painters who wish to work on new liveries for the MD-11, Ozzy has also confirmed that the windows can be configured via the alpha channel, simply by manipulating the alpha channel of the albedo map. If you are interested in learning more, this forum post is great to read: 

On the backend, further development is still ongoing for non-visual requirements and we can’t show these at the moment. Once this is further down the road, we intend to explain this in a little more detail for you to read through when we have more to discuss. Another big item is that we managed to get the aircraft systems working ahead of the models and textures. 

With recent work from Collin, the FMC is now being worked on and the image above shows an FMC added to some user submitted images. It is important to remember that this is a work in progress, using user submitted files that allow us to make this look correct in place. This is not representative of the final product!

Although the above image only shows a small amount of functionality, the system driving it is important. We are using a system that lets us write and debug code better and easier and eliminates a lot of the bottlenecks we usually encounter. This will become a testbed for our systems code and allow us to develop and test the aircraft while Ozzy is creating the visual elements.

A short note from @RogueShadow, one of the MD-11 Developers:

Quote

 

One problem that we’ve always had with developing for a simulator is how we reload the aircraft to see our new changes in the code. Basically, the process to reload an aircraft in FSX/P3D is to switch to another aircraft so our code isn’t in use, we compile our code to a .DLL, copy that to the Panels folder, and then switch back into that aircraft (and in FSX, click through the dialog asking if we want to run the external DLL every time!) Doing this upwards of 50 times in a day slowly becomes painstaking and causes headaches! In a previous blog post on our website, we highlighted how we used our in-house tool, D2D Studio, to reduce the amount of times we have to reload the aircraft. This time, we managed to get the entire aircraft systems and gauge rendering to run outside of the simulator, completely independent of FSX/P3D. This allows us to edit and code our systems on the fly without even having to touch any simulators, vastly improving the time spent developing the product. This system will let us get the MD-11 to you  much sooner!

That being said, the development of the TFDi Design MD-11 is now firmly underway and a lot of progress is being made every day. Our team is spending a lot of time to get this project into your hands and in the virtual skies of the world.

 

To Summarise

The aircraft has a lot of work being done but we are still unable to provide a release date, or even an estimate. We hope that regular development updates that we release will allow you to see what is being done on the aircraft. Understandably, these will slow down as in depth code writing begins to pick up, as we would be unable to share that! That being said, we hope to supplement these updates with developer streams on Twitch so you can see the work that is being done when it gets to the finer details!

Thank you, and have a great week!

- Josh

Good afternoon!

Over the past few weeks since our announcement of the MD-11, a lot of progress has been made to the aircraft alongside ongoing work with our Passenger and Crew Experience addon. This blog post will bring you up to speed on what we are doing in the background.

PACX

We have noticed a few bug reports regarding extreme taxi conditions. Upon further review, there were parameters involved with the extreme taxi conditions that often triggered the message in the client. As a result, the decision was made to remove this event from PACX as it is almost impossible to define every single parameter accurately to trigger the event.

As part of our ongoing updates to PACX, we now also fully support Prepar3D V5 with PACXBridge, several new comments, eight new statistics, and the ability to close PACX from the main menu. Furthermore, our detailed statistics now show your passenger satisfaction as a percentage!

And finally, our major features that are currently out to test in our Discord feature the following:

• SimBrief Integration
• Discord Rich Presence
• Exported data files for streaming overlays.

The full change log is available to view here for the upcoming version, 0.9.91.0:

To join the beta, and to help test new features, join our Discord at https://tfdidesign.com/chat.

Community Group Flights

Over the past few weeks, we have been completing group flights with members of both the JetStream Radio and TFDi Design teams with the community on most Friday afternoons. We find these are a great way for you to chill with the developers of the aircraft, ask some questions and enjoy flying. All announcements for the group flight are posted on the official TFDi Design Discord, to which there is an invite on the right of this post, and you are free to join us on a flight!

If you have any suggestions for group flights, we are all ears! Let us know in Discord and we will pitch the idea to the rest of the team!

Photo: Josh Riley

What next?

We are working on the MD-11 in the background and have some amazing work to show you. We expect to publish another post next week with some brand new screenshots taken during the development of the aircraft.

Thank you all for your continued help and support with everything we are doing, and we look forward to bringing you another great aircraft in the near future!

This morning, we posted a (not so) cryptic tweet on our Twitter. The time has come for the announcement we mentioned. So, without further ado, I would like to announce the development of the TFDi Design MD-11.

Before the questions come in, I will answer some of the important ones here.

Project Status
No, we cannot announce a release date. With that said, we are actually announcing this project a tad earlier than we originally expected. Although progress has been solid (and relatively quick), our intent was to show the aircraft off working in-sim as the first preview. We’re still a bit out from that (although, not TOO terribly far).

We decided to do this today as recent announcements would have left the community wondering if there was going to be one in this market at all. We are happy to announce that we will be filling that gap.

We have a larger team working on this aircraft than we had on the last, as well significantly more experience, which will allow us to develop it better and faster. We will, as always, keep the community up to date on development via our official social media and our Discord.

Fidelity
Our last aircraft, the TFDi Design 717, was a fantastic learning experience for us. We intend to build on that experience to create an even deeper, richer, and more realistic simulation on the MD-11. The similarities in the systems, as well as refined processes and technologies, will allow us to create something even the most experienced MD-11 crew and enthusiasts will enjoy.

Simulation Support
As of today, our intent is to natively support Prepar3D v4 and v5 at the time of release. It is a possibility that we will create a modified version of the product to support older simulation platforms (FSX, FSX:SE, Prepar3D v1-3), but we do not want to limit the potential of the product by designing it around dated standards.

We have not yet made an official statement regarding Flight Simulator 2020. We will continue to monitor the development of this platform and will do our best to support it. We intend to develop this aircraft in a format that will allow cross-compatibility in a much more practical way.

Want to get Involved?
As some of you may remember, when we announced the TFDi Design 717, we also put out a call to all community members. This call was to help us by providing documents, videos, photos, sound clips, data, or even their personal experience and knowledge. It was thanks, largely, to this help from the community that we were able to deliver the level of accuracy that we did. Once again, we would like to put this call out. If you have any of the following, please do reach out to us to help us create the best product possible.

• Aircraft reference documents (FCOM, FCTM, etc.)
• Any aircraft photos (even of the most obscure items)
• Sound clips (such as aural warnings, unique flight deck sounds, etc.)
• Videos
• Engine data (such as EPR charts/tables, fuel flow data, etc.)

Although we do already have a good amount of reference material, the more we have, the better we can do. We will, of course, continue to research and acquire our own reference material. Thank you, in advance, to anyone who is able to help!

To submit information, please use this form.

House Keeping

TFDi Design 717 for Prepar3D v5
This is still in progress. We have the aircraft and its associated dependencies working in V5 and will be starting formal testing soon. We appreciate your continued patience.

TrueGlass and RealLight for Prepar3D v5
To our commercial customers, we are working on this, as well. They are both operating in Prepar3D v5, but we are awaiting answers from Lockheed Martin to help us eliminate a few snags before we begin formal testing. If you are interested in testing the current iteration of the Prepar3D v5 versions, please reach out to your point of contact.

PACX
We are using the feedback we received from the community survey to develop and refine the product. We have some cool items in progress that should be ready for testing in the near future. Our intent is to wrap up a solid version 1.0 over the next 3 to 6 weeks and complete the Early Access phase of the product’s life.

smartCARS 3.X
This is something we have been alluding to for quite some time. We are working on a few potential directions we can take the development to create the best possible product for our customers and their pilots. There will be more announcements and development updates relating specifically to smartCARS 3.X as they become available.

Closing

Well, that about sums up our current status. We do intend to be more active in our Discord and on our social media regarding development updates for all products. A huge part of what makes us who we are, as a company, is our presence in the community and we intend to continue developing that relationship over the coming months.

Thank you all for your support and for reading. We’re looking forward to embarking on this journey together!