MicroProse is a name long known in simulation circles for a wide variety of simulation games back in the 1980s and 1990s. F-15 Strike Eagle, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Gunship and B-17 Flying Fortress. With the company name back in business and a collection of sim products now under development, MicroProse has taken an interesting step and thrown their hat into the ring of Microsoft Flight Simulator aircraft development too with an new series that they are calling the Heritage Valor Collection. Their first airplane? None other than the B-17! The effort is helmed by a flight sim community veteran, Sérgio Costa, whom you may also know as the creator of HeliSimmer.com.

I got a chance to talk with Sérgio about the B-17G, about the idea behind the collection, and a bit about what they have planned for us.

The questions!

MicroProse surprised me a few weeks back when it was announced that they were doing their own line-up of aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator. And then I was doubly surprised when I learned that friend and fellow flight sim news website writer Sérgio Costa was leading the effort. Hello Sérgio! Let’s talk about Heritage Valor Collection first because I think this is the bigger umbrella under which a bunch of products seem likely. What can you tell us about the series and the overall goals?

Sérgio: Hey Colin! Surprise!

In a nutshell, the series, which we call a “collection” is a set of World War 2 aircraft that we wanted to bring to Microsoft Flight Simulator so people can enjoy them.

As you probably know, our team at MicroProse are working on multiple WW2-based games with The Mighty Eighth VR and the B-17 Flying Fortress: The Bloody 100^th, which we are super excited about and we know the community is excited too We also recognize we can do more to bring this beautiful aircraft into the hands of players in adjacent ‘flight game’ communities.

We started thinking that it could be interesting to bring the B-17 – and other aircraft in the future – to a different audience than those already playing (or awaiting) our aforementioned B-17 MicroProse titles.

What if we made it available to those want don’t necessarily want to encounter missions, enter a war scenario – instead, offer the pure flight experience to more players worldwide?

What if people just want to enjoy these old birds for what they are in their essence – aircraft – and wish to fly them  to appreciate the pure joy of flight at the controls of these eternal classics?

I remember Jorg Neumann (head of Microsoft Flight Simulator) once saying that the sim allowed for the preservation of all these amazing aircraft that are no longer flying or that are disappearing.

Jorg said that when the 40^th-anniversary edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator was about to be released. He was talking about the Spruce Goose at the time and it made a lot of sense to me.

That thought stayed with me since then and that’s exactly what we want to do with the Heritage Valor Collection. We want to bring these aircraft, to this huge stage, which is MSFS, to people who are passionate about aviation, value and appreciate them. Just like we do at MicroProse.

This may be an obvious question given MicroProse’s history with the B-17 Flying Fortress and with the development of a B-17 experience in another simulation that the company is working on but I’ll ask anyway: Why do the B-17G first?

That’s a logical step for us. The B-17G is being developed for the games I mentioned before, which you just pointed out too, so it was a matter of taking the opportunity to use something our artists are already working on.

We can leverage that effort to help us reduce development time and bring the first Heritage Valor Collection to the market sooner than we would if we had to start from scratch.

For us, it would make perfect sense to grab that opportunity, so we took it.

We do have other aircraft being developed for our MicroProse B-17 titles, but come on… It’s the B-17! Of course, we had to start with “The Queen”.

Is there a lot of cross pollination and sharing of sources or resources between B-17 The Flying Fortress: The Bloody 100th or other projects?

Yes. Although the B-17 versions are not exactly the same between the stand-alone games and the MSFS add-on.

There are differences, but there are a lot of things in common that we can use. All projects eventually improve each other, which is a win for everyone.

The announcement trailer and materials say that you’re doing a B-17G but I think we both (and many of my audience know) that B-17G doesn’t mean just one thing. There are a lot of subtle variations between aircraft even within a series and getting resources to accurately represent a given aircraft can be difficult. What are some of the “nitty gritty” details on the exact B-17G that you’re recreating?

Ah, yes, the rabbit hole!

I think most people don’t realize how different these aircraft are, even within the same block. So, we not only have different versions of the B-17 (like the F and the G) but, within those versions there were production blocks. And even within the blocks, there were slight changes.

Not to mention the B-17 was built in 3 different factories: Boeing, Douglas, and Vega, which also had slight differences.

To make things worse, a lot of resources found online or even aircraft in museums are not entirely correct. A lot of aircraft in museums were restored and a lot of these are quite different from what the real aircraft was in some of the areas.

It’s been quite challenging to create this “generic version” of the B-17G, if you want to call it that. Generic in the sense that we must do it as close to what, in the case of our MSFS add-on, a late B-17G was in the general sense.

We are not producing a B-17G with a specific serial number and we want to cover several aircraft (liveries). That means making some tough decisions and compromising here and there.

Fortunately, we have been very fortunate to have the help of the amazing people over at Hangar Thirteen, the 100^th Bomber Group, and the B-17 Cockpit Project who have been invaluable in helping us gather all the pieces of the puzzle.

In the end, the “nitty gritty” details you were asking about are mostly just making sense of all this information and do a good job of depicting the B-17G as we can. Will it have cool details here and there? Oh yes, definitely. But I will leave those for simmers to find out!

There’s a wide range of Microsoft Flight Simulator products out there and probably an even wider range of fidelity from the simple and fun to the highly detailed full fidelity type of aircraft. Where in the spectrum of offerings is this B-17G aimed at?

We’re aiming at the higher tier of fidelity.

Will the B-17G have features like an EFB/tablet/supplemental interface? Will it have reliability or maintenance requirements?

We will have some optional, modern equipment, yes. It makes sense to provide simmers with a choice to fly the B-17G in its pure form or use modern avionics for comms and navigation. We don’t want to fill the aircraft with modern avionics, mind you. We’re adding what we believe to be just enough to get by if you need it.

About reliability and maintenance requirements, it’s something we are exploring but I can’t say anything in particular right now or make any promises yet.

What’s the plan with regards to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 versus 2024? Will both be supported? Is an upgrade price between the two expected?

Both sims will be supported, yes. I’m not ready to talk about the price at this time, sorry!

The question that the community loves to ask, that I love to ask, and that I know producers and developers don’t particularly love is…. When? Do you have a rough timeline that you can give to us on when you expect to launch the B-17? Is there a cadence you’d like to see as you release future products?

Ah… Well, I would love to be able to answer that but the truth is that, even though we do have a general idea of when it may be released, we don’t want to create false expectations. There’s still a lot of work ahead and our goal is to make it a great aircraft for people to enjoy. That will always be our priority, not deadlines or trying to rush the project.

Which storefronts will the product be sold on? Will we see it on the Marketplace?

We haven’t made any contact yet regarding any stores. Our focus has been on the development of the B-17, and we will eventually reach out to the stores that make sense to us.

The marketplace is a goal, for sure, but as you know, that will mean that we will need to de-weaponize the aircraft since Microsoft does not allow weapons to be represented in products sold through the marketplace.

We are looking into how to do it and which approach to take. I would like to get it on the marketplace for both PC and Xbox. Again, I can’t (and won’t) make any promises at this time.

For more details

Anyone bringing an airplane like the B-17 to any flight simulator is going to have my attention. There are a few on the way these days to different simulations so it looks like fans of “the heavies” will have some options in the future. MicroProse choosing to bring their B-17 research and knowledge to Microsoft Flight Simulator seems like an obvious move in retrospect but it was no less surprising to me when it happened.

A lot of effort goes into the research and collection of sources to make these projects happen so making parts of that experience possible on different platforms seems like a great way to extend the experience for us flight simmers and enthusiasts of vintage aviation while recouping some costs for the developers. Seems like a smart move to me and a win win for everyone which I love to see.

If you are looking for other B-17 experiences coming from MicroProse, keep an eye on development of The Mighty Eighth VR, B-17 Flying Fortress: The Bloody 100^th and the recently released early access version of B-17 Flying Fortress : The Mighty 8th Redux.

I want to thank Sérgio for the opportunity to do a short Q&A with him on the project. It’s not the last that you’ll be hearing about the aircraft or this particular project as development moves forward. Can’t wait to learn more!