Add Dash 7, An-72, Su-80, ATR 42-600S and Xian MA-60

[Bohaska]

Image by Redrado, from http://www.airline-empires.com/index.php?/gallery/image/32517-poster/. Western Airlines asked for permission and it was granted.

All of the above airplanes have high capacity (around 50 pax) and can fly to 750m runway airports.

I'm not sure if the author attribution code works, would be good if you check.

I remade this pull because I renamed my branch.

Fly or die

[patsonluk]

I really appreciate the effort! As for the airplane models, we do have several rules:

1. Not adding airplane models while game is in progress.
2. For new models, there has to be some strong reasons to justify it (like what niche/gap does it fill)
3. For the images, we are using only Norebbo for consistent look and feel. If an airplane model has to be added but there's no image from Noreboo, we would rather not use anything

[Bohaska]

1. Not adding airplane models while game is in progress.

I understand this. I was not expecting this model to be added before v3

2. For new models, there has to be some strong reasons to justify it (like what niche/gap does it fill)

I forgot to include this, sorry. This plane can be used to transport large amounts of pax from nearby airports with 750m runways

3. For the images, we are using only Norebbo for consistent look and feel. If an airplane model has to be added but there's no image from Norebbo, we would rather not use anything

Does the image look and feel like Norebbo's illustrations to a high enough degree? If not, if I resubmit this without an image, would it be ok?
The image looks like this.

[patsonluk]

The image looks very good :) ! But let's not worry about image, it's not a must, would rather keep the code base simple there

I forgot to include this, sorry. This plane can be used to transport large amounts of pax from nearby airports with 750m runways

Icic! 😊

This actually is my concern, it seems too much of a step up if we compare with models with similar runway requirements, this will likely lead to this model be the only choice for big airlines to dominate smaller airports. 😓

Even though the price is high, the next biggest model is capacity of 19, that's more than double, which is too powerful imho. I will think about this a bit more - the other params look mostly okay, it seems a bit too fuel efficient perhaps.

I will be more okay with adding it if we have more aircrafts with similar runway parameters, do u have any suggestions?

[Bohaska]

maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_STOL_aircraft this can help?
Promising additions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-80 (in real life, landing distance is too high, but theres a variant that cuts it down to 400m so can be added as 523m runway req, 30pax)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-72 (400m, 52 pax)
Antonov An-72 is actually more like a slower Embraer that burns more fuel and needs to be replaced often, but that has a very short runway requirement.

[Bohaska]

tbh i'm not sure this helps much though, 30 pax is still far away from 50, and the Antonov is more of an Embraer type plane rather than a specialty STOL plane, and is expensive compared to Dash 7

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_DHC-5_Buffalo seems like a reasonable competitor, 640m runway req, 41 troops, but how to convert troops to pax...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_31 Interesting aircraft, vertical take off, around 30 pax. Faster and longer range compared to other aircraft. Though this is an experimental aircraft.

ATR-42 600S seems the best choice to balance out though. 50 pax, 1302km range, set it to 750m runway req for balancing.

[Bohaska]

3 ways to go with image for dash 7

1. Code in attribution for all the places the image is shown (Hard). The current code only works in the buying aircraft page.
2. Add attribution on the image itself (Easy).
3. Ditch the image (Super easy).