WELCOME TO COWS

Hello forum members! In the middle of last year, I've teamed some of the community’s brightest and most ambitious developers together with a shared commitment to provide products that will aid training and simulation opportunities for students and consumers. Henceforth, COWS was born. Our team’s intention into the market is to introduce a study level Diamond Aircraft Fleet to primarily support our personal flight training, after seeing underrepresented DA40s and 42s for XP10. Our first series of products aim to deliver a feature rich replica of the DA42 in VI and TDI flavours. We are real world DA42 and 40 pilots looking to recreate the experience to help students alike train for their licenses! 

Top to bottom, head to toe, everything from the flight behaviour and systems is meticulously recreated through comprehensive real aircraft testing and feedback. These are complemented with a stunning visual model that is created to the utmost accuracy. Our first public appearance happened a little under a year ago, with us showcasing a general model working and some basic working systems, but since then, we’ve developed it to be one of the most comprehensive aircraft in X-Plane. 

However, we have still got a way to go before we’re satisfied that our Diamonds are ready for the public.

Our team as it stands now consists of: 

• Mitchell (me) - who heads our 3D work (3D artist) 
• Jacob - our code cruncher (Programmer)
• Boris - is our audio magician (Sounds: FMOD & WWise)
• Peter - the team’s voice of reason (3D, branding & admin)

COWS??

You may have wondered why we’re called COWS. It is short for Creator Of WorldS. A name that encompasses what we do and leaves us with space for further imagination. Our mission is to create immersive environments whether its within the plane, or outside. It started off as a joke, but we thought to ourselves, why settle at the atypical naming conventions in flight simulation, why go for those X’s, Pro’s, or Aero’s that we see popping everywhere with the redundant prefixes and suffixes, or a name that has to be strictly aviation related? A name doesnt have to sit with convention, and that is right in line with what we want to do here - out of convention, fun, and whimsy.

Also cows are cool, and they’re quite aerodynamic.

A sneak peek at the DA42:

Our debut project brings the best of both worlds rarely seen together in X-Plane: a robust bespoke system simulation and a beautiful, and accurate visual model.

The 3D modeling is impeccable. I've had direct access to the real aircraft and taken thousands of reference photos to create the picture perfect model. From perfectly smooth composite body pieces to the stitching on the carpet, everything about the model has been made in reference to manuals, pictures, first hand experience and most importantly, huge amounts of passion for the project. The model is built for X-Plane 12, harnessing the power of the simulator’s new lighting engine to make the Diamonds the best they can be.

Internally and externally, every surface has as much detail as we can possibly contain, and looks amazing in-sim.

Jacob leads our system and flightmodel, and have been responsible for everything under the hood. The flight model, electrics, fuel, engine control units, de-ice system are all carefully recreated based on the aircraft’s manuals and first hand experience flying the real life aircraft. 
The flight model has been tuned to accurately match performance tables and it is now performing so close to the real plane, you can handle it just as anyone would in the real world and it will do the exact same things. The performance of the flightmodel is validated through the shared experience of flying the real aircraft from me, Jacob, and our testers. All flew DA42s in the real world, and the experience is used to fine tune the flight model appropriately.

The electrics, fuel and de-ice systems are all custom made. They all behave exactly as the real plane’s systems will work. The engine control units, or ECUs, are also fully custom, and have a full ECU test cycle and all the same fail mode and switch over parameters as the real life units. Again, thanks to sourcing manuals and documents has helped in making these as accurate as they possibly can be. They behave just as the real units do.

The start to greener pastures:

All this is still yet to be finished. We’re working as hard as we can to bring these DA42s to you. But we want to bring you the best DA42s we can offer, so it will take us a little more time to finish everything and make sure no stone is left unturned.

Fully Custom Garmin G1000NXi

The biggest feature of the COWS Diamonds though is the fully custom Garmin G1000NXi. This has been recreated using manuals, first hand experience and Garmin software. This means it can be as accurate to the real Garmin as possible. Everything that the real Garmin can do, our Garmin will also do.

Within reason though, we can’t simulate a wifi connection or send texts from our in-sim Garmin!

It currently has most of the Aux pages completed, with a full simulation of the GPS satellite constellation, profile saving, copying and deleting, persistent settings and system statuses. This is on top of the PFD, AHRS, ADC, GTX335R and GMU simulations. All that’s left to complete is the custom flight planning with custom LNAV/VNAV and the maps. The Garmin will remember your settings. It has per-livery, per aircraft configurations. You can control what equipment your Garmin has. So you can either go crazy and give yourself all the toys it has to offer, or maybe not? Maybe you prefer sticking to a more basic avionics package.

Our G1000nxi also features our own custom FPL Management System/Navigator/FMS, here is a heavy WIP showcase of that function:

As for pricing, the product is aimed to be priced above average. You can join our discord for more updates here: https://discord.com/invite/GRRmWfjqr2

 

Edited January 14, 20232 yr by SpeedM

Oh wow! I am looking forward to it.

It looks absolutely fabulous (no offence to Aerobask, but I always found their models - many of which I own - way too artificially clean and plasticky, while this looks almost real), and I am very curious about the G1000NXi. I have heard that you are also planning on doing a DA40 afterwards, and while I am sure having developed the G1000NXi it will be equipped with that, but a full analogue version down the line would also be amazing to have. I will definitely keep an eye on you.

3 hours ago, SpeedM said:

Our team’s entry into the market is to address a severely poorly represented line of aircraft, namely from Diamond.

guys, i see you have a lot of respect for other developers...
Congratulations if you are the best.

Yeah, that one stung while reading. Anyways, let's see what they have.

Nice, I like that they take it a step further wiith the custom G1000NXi.
Most planes have the default X-plane G1000 which could use some improvements.

 

Tread carefully. There are a lot of loyal Aerobask fans who believe Aerobask nail the sweet spot of quality, product support, reasonable cost, and generous update and freeware support. If COWS builds a complex, study level product there may be a market for it regardless of price. If you can be as client friendly as Aerobask has been then you should be very successful in your new project. 

1 hour ago, codehound said:

Tread carefully. There are a lot of loyal Aerobask fans who believe Aerobask nail the sweet spot of quality, product support, reasonable cost, and generous update and freeware support. If COWS builds a complex, study level product there may be a market for it regardless of price. If you can be as client friendly as Aerobask has been then you should be very successful in your new project. 

 

9 hours ago, harranssor said:

guys, i see you have a lot of respect for other developers...
Congratulations if you are the best.

Hello! Sorry if you read that as offense to any developers making the Diamond aircraft family. At the time of our decision to start development, we were referring to the limited choice of Diamond airplanes at that time. And we wanted to make a study level Diamond 42 and 40. I really do apologize if that came across as rude. I do appreciate Aerobasks work and other developers making effort!

On 1/14/2023 at 8:26 PM, SpeedM said:

Hello! Sorry if you read that as offense to any developers making the Diamond aircraft family. At the time of our decision to start development, we were referring to the limited choice of Diamond airplanes at that time. And we wanted to make a study level Diamond 42 and 40. I really do apologize if that came across as rude. I do appreciate Aerobasks work and other developers making effort!

Understood, no hard feelings! You target different level of realism with a different price point and we wish you the best.

Very nice indeed, looking forward to it as well!

Here's some progress:

I hope that for us home cockpit user with G1000 hardware that the PFD/MFD will pop out and work with that hardware as well? Looking good..

24 minutes ago, azpilot61 said:

I hope that for us home cockpit user with G1000 hardware that the PFD/MFD will pop out and work with that hardware as well? Looking good..

Naturally. As long as you use the default "sim/GPS/g1000n..." commands, everything will behave.

 

@JacobW Cool, will there be a bezel-less popout or only with bezels or option for either one?

Edited April 18, 20232 yr by azpilot61

43 minutes ago, azpilot61 said:

@JacobW Cool, will there be a bezel-less popout or only with bezels or option for either one?

That is a good question. At the moment I am overriding the X1000's drawing which means I can use the default pop-ups. I will look into bezel-less pop ups.

25 minutes ago, JacobW said:

That is a good question. At the moment I am overriding the X1000's drawing which means I can use the default pop-ups. I will look into bezel-less pop ups.

Hmm might be ok, if using the default G1000's for this they should pop out for me already and I have a bezel-less png for my RSG hardware that removes the bezels so might be just fine. Looking forward to this, thanks for answering the questions.

27 minutes ago, azpilot61 said:

Hmm might be ok, if using the default G1000's for this they should pop out for me already and I have a bezel-less png for my RSG hardware that removes the bezels so might be just fine. Looking forward to this, thanks for answering the questions.

It can be done, yes.

@JacobW That's awesome! Really excited to see something other than the stock G1000, thanks for confirming and looking forward to the aircraft.

Ok it turns out you can apply a 'hack' locally to a plane meaning I can ship bezel-less pop-ups just fine!

This will likely be an optional extra since without the bezels the pop-ups become useless for those without physical G1000s

54 minutes ago, JacobW said:

without the bezels the pop-ups become useless for those without physical G1000s

I concur. Everything is nicer without bezels.

EDIT: I misunderstood and I meant to say: Pop-Ups are nicer without window borders.

Sorry, was unrelated to the G1000 bezels you were talking about.

Edited April 19, 20232 yr by flightwusel

I do prefer the pop-ups with bezels as they include the important AP and other buttons. for this, once I wouldn’t go with nicer aesthetics.

Edited April 20, 20232 yr by pm_pilot1

Following with a lot of interest, not only for the more in depth DA42, as a proper G1000 NXi is an amazing prospect on its own for sure.

Wow im really looking forward in this project, i think the GA Market still ist in a Lack of Planes with deep systems and i personally Love the da42 and da62 , so ist a real Joy to See Simeone is working on a serious da42 . Cant wait to fly IT in the Sim , great Work

Looks and sounds promising. I have fond memories of the DA-42 both the NG and the Thielert engines. I had the joy of training for my multi commercial in them. Even the video demonstrating the G1000 NXi incorporates the diesel "shake" that accompanies almost all of the Diamond diesel powered aircraft. 

Been hard at work with procedures. Here's a short preview of some loading/changing: