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This will be an upgrade to the existing Dash 7 although it will be a full package release. The plan is to maintain compatibility with the many repaints out there for her.

Still looking at 6-8 weeks till completion.

This beautiful shot is also available as a 1280X1024 bmp Desktop Background from here:
www.flightsimonline.co...vcnite.zip

WOW !!

Great news Milton !!

Looking forward to it and add it to the hangar !

Thank you for the heads up.


fled

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
This was the news I was waiting for since - how much? - years?

Still a couple of months? Mmm, it should be ready for the time we'll reach Australia, I think...

In the meanwhile, I got the background pic... hehe!
Thank you very much, Milton!

Marco

WOW Milton, you guys sure stay busy!! Great job and like Marco says, we've been waiting...lol

Thanks for the 'heads up'!!

Milton, a quick question, will all the old textures still work on this new baby? I have a few of the old versions and I really love the plane.

yoooooooooooooo Wingy !

Milton wrote

The plan is to maintain compatibility with the many repaints out there for her.

me thinks that the answer to your question


fled

Ooops! I missed that line. Thanks Fled.

There are over 80 repaints for the Dash 7 that I know of. It is imperative to stay compatible with the exterior textures in my opinion for this "upgrade".

Compatible may mean however that you will only bring over the 6-8 textures into a new base folder. I'm doing a lot of optimizing and consolidating to help efficiencies.

Another reason, there are over 500 gauge entries in the panel.cfg. Scott rewrote all the main gauges in XML.

I am keeping the cockpit as simple as possible because of the large number of gauges, and the fact that they are spread all over the cockpit. Trying now to consolidate 5 vcockpit sections to 4 to help with gauge smoothness as there are 263 gauges in the VC alone.

The cockpit is so large that there is no way to keep the clarity without sacrificing some smoothness. :-/

Most of you have high end computers I believe so there should be no issue for you. But, most others are like me with an OMB integrated GPU and we have to tolerate it.

The panel/gauges/VC are being wrapped up now and I now focus on optimizing all the models, textures, and tweaking the flight model as a new release texture is being prepared.

I think you will love this Dash 7 even as an upgrade.

The Dash 7 has been one of my favourites - and indeed my favourite 4 engined kite - since FS2002; when you released the FS9 upgrade, I really hoped the announced new VC version would have been available shortly.

Of course, I can only imagine how much work you must pour into such a job, and being by the opposite site I selfishly felt in a hurry. Honestly, when you said your last project would have been the Spartan, I thought you had abandoned the Dash 7: after all, there are already announcements of a forthcoming FS10, and I believed that perhaps you had postponed the Dash to its release.

Now it comes as a happy surprise that you're back on it, and frankly I don't care too much if it will be heavy on my system or not.


Marco

Ah yes, the Spartan is the last new aircraft for a while. The Dash 7 upgrade is just that and we want to get it out the door for the many who still fly her. Over 250,000 downloads on a few main sites does carry some weight and deserves this upgrade and compatibility. We have worked on this off and on for almost 2 years now but could never seem to get it going. After 2 restarts I think we have a reasonable VC to offer.

Kicking some serious poly butt this weekend with lots of exterior improvements. This is an older shot so if you like it, the new one is better.

WOW

Milton,
Could you give us any fair warning before posting this type of pic's ?

Now I have to replace my keyboard as I DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLED all over it !!

Thankx for keeping us posted ...................and jeeeeeeeeeez waiting is such a fastideous thing


fled

lol fled ...

Here's a little video I put together of one of my fav landing test strips for the Dash 7. It's 12MB and set up for streaming.

Now, keep in mind the Dash 7 weighed in at about 42,000 pounds for this one.

Looks like a heck of a job gettin her down Milton

That plane is lined up to be in the paint booth soon

Great video there Milton,

Really enjoyed watching that

Now you even made it harder on us to have to wait for the eminent release !

Again thank you for let us in on the fun.



fled