DCS: Christen Eagle II on Pre-Order and Hawk News

To my great surprise Magnitude 3 has set up their Christen Eagle II for pre-order already. Personally, I'm not going to buy it. I'm more interested in fighter and attack planes. But there are a lot of aerobatic enthusiasts out there and if you're one, then by all means go pick it up. It looks like an interesting plane; just not one I'd be interested in. Quite honestly I didn't expect a new plane to be put on pre-order until Heatblur released their F-14. But Some surprises are pleasant. And this is one of them.

ED just noted in their update today that VEAO has rejected an offer by ED to take over the Hawk module leaving everyone with a plane they cannot use unless you keep an outdate version of DCS on your computer. You would have to have DCS 2.5.3 or earlier in order to run the Hawk. To be quite frank, the Hawk was never that good in the first place and certainly is not good enough to dedicate one full install of an obsolete version of DCS to run that one plane. Why VEAO refused to allow ED to take over updating the Hawk is beyond me. But it certainly does not look good for them or their sister company, Bluesky FS.

Now, ED did state that a full refund is available only for those who bought the Hawk on or after October 1st 2018. Of course that leaves that vast majority of players out (myself included) but at least they are making an effort.

Looking at the bright side (if it can be called that), at least VEAO only took money for 2 products and offered a refund early on for one. It would have been a lot worse if they had developed 4 or 5 modules and then suddenly dropped out of their agreement.

ED has stated that in order to ensure that no 3rd party can dissolve and leave their products unsupported again, a clause has been added to all 3rd party agreements stating that all files regarding the modules are to be handed over to ED for continued support. At least we know this situation will never come up again.

Well, that's all I have for you today. Take a look at the CE2 at the e-store. It's an interesting plane.

Happy flying everyone.

DCS: Some Bad News

Well, I waited until I saw some kind of confirmation form Eagle Dynamics and I got it just last night. VEAO is effectively out of DCS and the T.1A Hawk is now unsupported per their last update. So, if you bought the T.1A (like I did a few years back) then we have been left with a plane we will not be able to use in the near future.

This is especially bad news for those who pre-purchased the P-40 straight from VEAO and did not take advantage of the refund they offered a while back. Unfortunately, those people will not be seeing their money back. ED can't do anything about it as it was not pre-ordered on their store. I had considered buying the P-40 but I refuse to buy it through their store for just this reason. VEAO's dissolution just reinforces my view that I will only buy modules straight from ED (or Steam).

On another note: the release of the F-14 has effectively been pushed back to sometime between January and March. Heatblur stated it was due to them needing to work on several of the F-14's systems before they feel comfortable releasing it to the public. I can certainly understand this and appreciate their desire to have a near-complete module released... but, I'm a tab bit disappointed that the release has been pushed back. Originally Heatblur announced it would be released in December 2017. Now we're looking at late March 2019 at the latest. I'm sure once the F-14 is released it'll be the best module out there. But I am disappointed that the release date has been pushed back for over a year.

Well, that's all the bad news I have for you. On the positive side the F/A-18C has gotten it's Maverick's and GBU laser guided bombs. The WWII planes have also gotten an update to their cockpits and external models. Once my game finishes updating I look forward to trying my favorite Fw-190 D-9.

Sorry, for all the bad news this time. I look forward to when the F-14 will be released and make these lemons into lemonade.

Until next time, happy flying.