Yesterday was April 1 and that means its “April Fools’ Day” across several parts of the planet. Internet culture has taken the day to new levels with companies, individuals and organizations coming up with sometimes simple and sometimes elaborate schemes to mark the day. Here are a few that I spotted.
Big Radial’s rebrand
Folks have sometimes made fun of Big Radials for their brand name when they have also gone ahead and offered inline engine airplanes too (like the P-40B which I reviewed a while back). Their latest project features a radial engine but for April 1st they had a bit of fun with it by announcing a rebrand.
We’ve heard you loud and clear and we’d like to announce a rebranding and refocus to churn out lots of cheap large airliners. First cab off the rank will be a 777X, followed by an a380.
We’re also changing our motto to #FlyTheTubes or maybe #TubesFTW. Let us know which one you like more
I admit to giggling a fair bit about that one!
IndiaFoxtEcho announce FIAT 1107 Nuova Campagnola
The folks at IndiaFoxtEcho have done quite a job of offering a variety of aircraft across multiple flight sim platforms with their most recent releases in Microsoft Flight Simulator and DCS World offering up some very well done products.
For April 1st, they “announced” a FIAT 1107 Nuova Campagnola with a lengthy explanation of the work they were doing to make this extremely authentic. It even contains a line about not bringing it to DCS because of licensing issues. Hits all the marks for April 1st with a sly sense of humour that shows us that they know their audience well!
VKB’s ultra low profile, pre-heating stick
This one almost got me because its so subtle at first glance. VKB “announced” a new product called the GUNFIGHT B.E.T. Its ultra low profile and grip pre-heating features definitely had me chuckling once I figured out what they were doing.
Small haul
Those are the only ones that I saw this year with other developers posting that they have been busy and unable to spend time to come up with a gag for this year. Others too seem to have ignored the trend this year.
The flight sim community tried a few of their own. One person posted that Heatblur were releasing a B-52 flyable in a matter of weeks. Another stated that Magnitude-3’s long awaited F4U Corsair had just released. Another said the same thing but with an Su-27. One X-Plane fan managed to hew close to a wishlist with their Aprils Fools’ Day attempt by saying that Laminar Research were releasing a streaming orthography feature for X-Plane 12 in the next update. If only!
Spot any funny ones that I missed? Let me know in the comments!
Stormbirds 
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