Earlier today, TFDi Design previewed a single render that showed the under carriage of a new product and had a caption of, “Announcement coming soonTM”. TFDi has now officially announced that the preview is in fact the McDonnell Douglas MD-11.
MD-11
In their blog post, TFDi mentions that the team has grown for this project who are also more experienced. They say that this will allow them to work faster and be able to develop a better product. They plan to build off what they have learned making the 717 “to create an even deeper, richer, and more realistic simulation on the MD-11.”
At the moment, TFDi are planning on releasing this aircraft for Prepar3D v4 and v5. They have said that in the future, there is a possibility a modified version of the MD-11 will be released for older sim platforms like FSX, FSX:SE, and Prepar3D v1-3. No official commitment was made on Microsoft Flight Simulator, but TFDi will be monitoring the development of the sim and have said they will do their best to support it.
No timeline was announced with this announcement for the MD-11, but the team did say this was announced a little earlier than originally anticipated. They have said they are a bit out, but not too terribly far out. Once more is announced, we will be sure to update everyone.
If you are interested in getting involved, TFDi is doing something similar to what they did with the 717. If you have documents, videos, photos, sound clips, data, or even personal experience, you can submit those here. The team has said that the more reference material they have, the better. This will help create the MD-11 into the best possible product it can be. These are some of the items the team is interested in.
- 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.)
House Keeping
Along with the MD-11 announcement, TFDi has also given an update on their other products.
The 717 for Prepar3D v5 is still in progress, and the team has the aircraft and its associated dependencies working in v5. The team has said the formal testing will be starting soon.
TrueGlass and RealLight for Prepar3D v5 is also still in progress for their commercial customers. They have said that it is operating in v5, but are currently waiting on Lockheed Martin to help eliminate some snags before the formal testing begins. If you are interested in testing the current iteration of the v5 version of TrueGlass and RealLight, the team asks that you reach out to your point of contact.
The team is currently using the feedback from their community survey on PACX to further develop and refine the product. They have said that they have some cool items in progress that should be ready for testing soon. TFDi intends to wrap up a 1.0 version of PACX in the next 3 to 6 weeks to complete the Early Access phase of the product.
TFDi is currently looking at smartCARS 3.X and a few potential directions to take the development to make the best possibly product for their customers and their pilots. They have said more announcements and development updates will be announced as they become available.
The team closed by saying they are looking to be more active on their social medias and Discord for development updates. Be sure to check out TFDi’s feeds for more info, and we will be sure to update everyone once more is available.
