iFly 737 MAX 8 now “quietly” available for purchase, plus media round-up

3–4 minutes

There’s quite a bit of hype building as Microsoft Flight Simulator gets a high fidelity 737 MAX for the first time. Developer iFly (publishing under Flight1) announced a couple of years ago that they were planning to do a 737 MAX 8 for the sim and we’ve seen occasional updates over time. After a few weeks with content creators, iFly are now selling the aircraft to the general public with an initial offering (a pre-release version if you will) that was offered quietly to test their online sales software but the hype has overtaken it and seemingly everyone is buying and flying the jet. Let’s have a look!

Here comes the MAX

Screenshots released earlier in development

Boeing’s 737 MAX has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons quite a bit over the last five years. Despite that, the aircraft is popular with airlines and flight simmers have been looking for a high fidelity experience for a quite a while npw. iFly’s 737 MAX 8 may just be what people have been hoping for launching ahead of MSFS 2024 and the Asobo 737 MAX 8. Suddenly things have gotten quite interesting!

iFly haven’t updated their company website in a long time but their active Discord community was the first to find out that a pre-release version of the aircraft is now on sale. It didn’t take long for iFly 737 MAX posts to start appearing in multiple other outlets and there’s quite a bit of activity around the now available, still in pre-release, aircraft.

Here’s a little of what iFly/Flight1 had to say just after the release:

Thank you for an amazing pre-release. The activity today exceeded our expectations. Your previous input during development definitely contributed to the product. We do apologize for the hiccups as this is one reason we needed to do a quiet test run. But it was not as quiet as we thought! There is just no way we can respond to every single item posted, especially with pre-release. So please review previous previous posts if possible and if you know the answer, feel free to pitch in. We would greatly appreciate that! Also, reading the manuals and tutorials can be a great help as in main causes for an issue there is a procedure that was missed.

Flight1 on Discord

The iFly 737 MAX 8 is aimed at the high fidelity market with highly detailed exterior and interior models including cabin area. The sounds have been lauded by critics, the systems appear to be a close match to the real aircraft, and the project features a number of detail touches as well such as interactive sunshades that react to which side of the aircraft is in the sun and which side is shaded.

I should mention that the product is still in pre-release so there are some bugs that the team look to be squashing. But with the barn doors now wide open, the community is jumping in wholeheartedly and it sounds like things are going well. The pricing is $69.95 USD and to purchase it you can go through the Flight1 / iFly Manager app.

Round-up

If your YouTube home is looking anything like mine, there’s a lot of iFly content flying around from popular YouTubers who’ve had access to the product for what looks like a few weeks. Here’s a round-up of some content that will help you get a better sense of the product.

British AvGeek did a great preview flight here.

So did BluGames!

And 320SimPilot gave a great look at the product.

Finally, I thought this comparison was interesting because it gives us a good look at the two 737 MAX 8s coming. While it looks like iFly’s 737 MAX 8 is offering a higher fidelity experience and probably better sounds, it does look like Asobo’s 737 MAX 8 is actually managing to mostly keep up. We’ll have to see how the details match up when more of us gain access to it.

One way or another, flight simmers are suddenly going to have a lot of 737 MAX experiences where virtually none were available before.

6 responses to “iFly 737 MAX 8 now “quietly” available for purchase, plus media round-up”

  1. Canada One Avatar
    Canada One

    There’s a bit of a sale on the Marketplace today, but not enough of a sale and not on enough stuff.

    No more FS2020 purchases unless it’s a fire sale. And yes, I’m a cheapskate. 🙂

    Like

    Reply
    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      There is! I was thinking about jumping in on some stuff but ultimately held off. I do have some MSFS 2020 content still coming out in the next little bit so I’m occupied in any case. And 2024 is so close…

      Like

      Reply
  2. PaperPilot Avatar
    PaperPilot

    Question. Does iFly have any plans to make more aircraft after they have completed the 737-8 MAX? Do you think that they will do a MAX 7, 9 and 10 or are they more likely to just stick with a single product and make as many improvements on realism and bug fixes for the foreseeable future? Also, do you think that PMDG’s 737 Max project(s) will be able to bring something else to the table and avoid filling in the same niche in MSFS or will iFly and PMDG try to out-compete each other for potential customers?

    Like

    Reply
    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Comments that I’ve seen, these were from quite some time ago, was that they were intending to explore the rest of the 737 MAX line-up. The -9 is in service so that’s an obvious next step. The -7 and -10 are both interesting and…. by the time they get to them they could be in service too. Boeing’s fortunes haven’t been going terribly well as of late so we’ll have to see.

      Like

      Reply
    2. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      I didn’t answer about the PMDG vs iFly comparison… that’s an interesting one and I haven’t figured out how that’s going to go. PMDG seems to be pulling back their 737 MAX timeline a bit. At one point it was intended to release between 777 models but now its significantly delayed. The market for the MAX model in MSFS has suddenly gotten crowded.

      Like

      Reply
      1. PaperPilot Avatar
        PaperPilot

        You’re right. The 737 MAX market has gotten rather too crowded for comfort. Maybe there is a silver lining in this. This could incite PMDG and iFly to really try their best to outcompete with each other, and in the process create finely crafted high fidelity virtual aircraft. Though now that I think about it maybe iFly would be better off to do the 737 Classic (737-300, 400 and 500 models) once they’re done with the MAX(s). The Classic series lineup could be a good idea because a) they are not too different from the 737 Max, only much older and more primitive in terms of design and technologies, and b) no one has done the 737 Classic series at a high fidelity level. Another option they could do is a high fidelity 707, which is another niche that has not been occupied yet. I’m aware of Airplane Heaven’s 707, but from what I have heard is not high fidelity. They could do a high fidelity 727, and incite Flight Sim Studio to perfect theirs. I know I am getting ahead of myself here but I’m just saying that they have two options, each with their own positive outcomes: option a) where they fill an unoccupied niche and not have to worry about fierce competition and option b) where they make their own high fidelity version of a plane that is already in the sim and is at a study level/near study level tier.

        Like

Leave a comment

Trending