News! - JARDesign Airbus A340-500 goes into beta     JARDesign have declared their coming Airbus A340-500 is soon to go into it's beta testing phase. First announced back in April 2018, this is the third Airbus project from JARDesign after their Airbus A320neo and Airbus A330-243. Notable is the fact like in most X-Plane releases, get one finally released and you are bound to get another...  that aircraft is coming via ToLiSS who are developing a A340-600, yes a different variant, but still a A340 airframe. "when it rains"...   JARDesign have released some in progress in cockpit images with the announcement;     Average beta phases are around six weeks (unless something nasty comes up), so late July or early August would be a nice release timeframe, it is going to be a very busy late summer period. The JARDesign GHD (Ground Handling Deluxe) and CoPilot plugin features should also be available on the A340 when released.   Images are courtesy of JARDesign ___________________________   News by Stephen Dutton 21st June 2021 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews   (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved    

News! - Scenery Announced : KSFO San Francisco Definitive by ShortFinal Design     ShortFinal Design (SFD) aka Mister6X has gone and revisited his first scenery for X-Plane he created 7 Years ago. That scenery was SFO-San Francisco, and one of the great freeware sceneries available in X-Plane. But the revisit has also been upgraded to a "Definitive" label, like SFD's KLAX - Los Angeles International, which means the scenery moves from being a freeware to payware product.   That announcement will make a lot of users gnash their teeth, but as with LAX the update to Payware is usually well worth the excellent features and the sheer detail provided...  the noted new coming features are;   Accurately modeled terminals with PBR materials and interiors Up to date layout and buildings, including the new terminal 1 Custom SAM jetways Detailed night lighting 4k ground textures with rain effects AI taxi routes 15cm/px orthoimagery   Preview images of the Definitive SFO have also been provided...     No release date or price was announced by Mister6X, but SFD's sceneries are not expensive for the sheer detail you receive in return, so around the US$26.00-US$28.00 marker would be close. With the above images, I would say the scenery is pretty well completed as well, expect within a month's timeframe. Quality as usual will be off the scale!   Images are courtesy of ShortFinal Design ___________________________   News by Stephen Dutton 21st June 2021 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews   (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved    

There is an odd situation at EDDM by Shortfinal (And yes I hate it, with all those tails waggling in the air) the problem is traffic under the bridges, sadly you can't have both in traffic and solid bridges...  Shortfinal provide in the scenery the option to have the hard bridges, but no underpass traffic, the fix is in the "Optional Hard Bridges" folder.

News! - Scenery Released : KMTP - Montauk Airport, USA by Skytitude     There has been a very strong pattern this year with scenery in X-Plane 2021. With most of the big players going off and developing only for MSFS, and then as X-Plane users won't pay for quality scenery (why when you can get the scenery for free, but that is not the point), then the trend by developers is for smaller cheaper localised destinations, at set around the US$10 to US$12 price.   So here is another one of those localised sceneries in...  Montauk Airport in Suffolk County, New York ...   Set in the Hamptons, the area for A-Listers, Celebs and the well off to-do and mega money...  you sort of get the picture. Montauk Airport is a general aviation airport located on East Lake Drive between Lake Montauk and Block Island Sound. It is the most eastern airport in the New York State.   Features: Wonderful Representation of Montauk Airport 2021 Layout Data Custom Materials and Surfaces with Physical-Based Rendering Effect (PBR) Optional Experimental Wet Surfaces High quality vegetation Highly Detailed Buildings and Ground Surfaces 6500 Sq Meters of High Definition Surrounding Area Hand-placed Surrounding Area Objects Attention to Details       Priced very reasonably under that US$10 marker, KMTP - Montauk Airport is now now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore.   Images are courtesy of Skytitude _____________________________________     Yes!   KMTP - Montauk Airport, USA by Skytitude is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :   KMTP - Montauk Airport, USA Price is US$9.90   Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux Download Size: 436 MB Current version : 1.0 ___________________________   News by Stephen Dutton 16th June 2021 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews   (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved    

News! - Scenery Released : KWYS - Yellowstone Airport and National Park by X-Codr Designs     I call them fly-in, fly-around sceneries. Which means you fly in via usually a commuter aircraft, and then take in the local experiences via a smaller GA or Helicopter, and if you wish, then fly-out again. The focus here in this case is the fly-in airport KWYS, and the fly-around visual aspects of the famous Yellowstone National Park. This scenery is developed by X-Codr, known for his excellent KDEN - Denver scenery: Scenery Update : KDEN - Denver International Airport HD v1.5 by X-Codr Designs.   KWYS and Yellowstone National Park is a sprawling scenery, covering over 1,200 square miles in custom forests and over 3,000 miles in high resolution colour corrected NAIP ortho imagery. In addition, numerous points of interest throughout the park are included such as an accurately erupting Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring, Mammoth Hot Springs, and even Yellowstone Falls. And of course, KWYS - West Yellowstone Airport, the town of West Yellowstone, and numerous others geothermal features and points of interest throughout the park are included in the scenery.   Features • Detailed rendition of KWYS: All buildings feature ultra-high-resolution textures. All buildings feature advanced PBR normal maps for realistic reflections and bump mapping. All buildings are highly detailed, down to even door handles. All buildings feature "lite" interiors to give windows more depth. Detailed ground textures with large scale realistic wear. All ground textures feature realistic normal maps. Realistic 3d vegetation for the entire airport. • Living scenery: Wet ground textures for the airport. Automatic snowy winter textures when it is snowing. Ground equipment automatically serves your aircraft upon request. Animated rain drops. • Custom Rendition of Yellowstone National Park Custom modeled accurately erupting Old Faithful geyser Custom modeled Mammoth Hot springs. Custom modeled animated Yellowstone Falls. Numerous custom modeled features throughout the park. Animated people and bison near Old Faithful. High resolution high quality NAIP color corrected ortho imagery with normal maps covering all popular areas ZL16 NAIP ortho imagery covering over 3,000 square miles of surroundings. X-Plane 11 Particle System accessed via plugin (Windows 10 Only)  X-Plane 11 Particle System is used for animated geysers, waterfalls, and geyser steam. Unique feature that requires developers to write and compile c++ plugins to implement. • All models optimized for maximum performance. • Custom generic rendition of West Yellowstone Town. • Over 1,200 square miles of forests accurately placed via procedural algorithm using NAIP ortho imagery data. • Custom 10 meter mesh with HD Overlays (courtesy AlpilotX and his HD Mesh V4. Used with his permission)     Note the clever use of the X-Plane 11 Particle System that used for animated geysers, waterfalls, and geyser steam and winter textures. Actual Yellowstone National Park and West Yellowstone township are also included within the scenery...  a perfect Fly-in and Fly-around scenery.   After 9 months of development, KWYS - Yellowstone Airport and National Park by X-Codr Designs, is now now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore.   Images are courtesy of X-Codr Designs _____________________________________     Yes!   KWYS - Yellowstone Airport and National Park by X-Codr Designs is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :   KWYS - Yellowstone Airport and National Park Price is US$24.95   Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 3.9 GB (2 files) Current version: 1.0 (June 14th 2021) ___________________________   News by Stephen Dutton 15th June 2021 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews   (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved    

Yes, no news is good news I suppose in the Laminar Research space-time continuum. There is the point that this version (XP12) really needs to be right in every aspect...  my gut says it will be, thanks for the comment.

Nice article, I do agree I'm waiting for Laminar Research announcements regarding the future of X-Plane but they have their own time bubble relative to ours  I also think I'm one of those the focus more on the plane aspect than the visuals, this is why my scenery basket is light.   I'll continue refreshing LR developer blog in the hope to see something new, but I guess the quite means they are working hard on the future of their product.   Cheers

Just downloaded the Carenado Bonanza for X-Plane of which I have the latest version on my MacBook Pro, and when I start a flight the pilots are in front of the instrument panel blocking my view. Looking at the airplane from outside they appear to be sitting with their foreheads touching the windshield. Also I get the warning about macOS cannot verify the developer of “mac.xpl”. Can anybody help me? Thanks. 

Has an explanation as to why AI traffic sinks when crossing the bridges yet the aircraft I am piloting doesn't sink but all AI aircraft do sink. Also, is a fixpossible? There must be a way.