Stephen

Well thank you for your feedback Arnon. Certainly we need developers perspective on were they are coming from, as you are the lifeblood of any simulator. Your comments are very valid, it is a brilliant deal... I wish you the best.

NEWS! - Scenery Updated : KMTP - Montauk Airport, USA v12 0.1 by Skytitude

Features Include:

❯ Completely Renovated Scenery for X-Plane 12 with Outstanding Detail Level

❯ Actual Layout Data

❯ Custom Materials and Surfaces with Physical-Based Rendering Effect (PBR)

❯ Highly Detailed Spectacular Buildings and Objects

❯ High Density Hand-Placed Forests and Plants

❯ Custom 3D Grass Using New X-Plane 12 Vegetation Technology

❯ Accurately Built Large Surrounding Area with Thousands of Hand-Placed Objects

 

 

Priced very reasonably at US$12.95 and now in X-Plane 12, KMTP - Montauk Airport is 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$12.95

 

Requirements

X-Plane 12 or X-Plane 11

Windows, Mac or Linux

Download Size: 263 MB

Current version : 1.0 (September 15th 2023)

___________________________

 

News by Stephen Dutton

16th September 2023

Copyright©2023: 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! - Aircraft Update : C-47 Skytrain v6.0b2 by vSkylabs

Back in December 22 (last Christmas). VskyLabs split the versions of it's DC-3 into three distinctive variants. The original C-47 Skytrain, a new DC-3 Airliner and the forthcoming Tri-Turbo-Three, In context;

VSKYLABS 'Test-Pilot': C-47B Skytrain: Highly defined C-47B simulation of the 30's-50's era; authentic WWII era cockpit, powered by PW1830-90C two speed supercharged engines, Astrodome, cargo loading, operational weights of the C-47's and more. Includes two variants - C-47B and XC-47C (float plane).

VSKYLABS 'Test-Pilot': DC-3 Airliner: (this model) Highly defined DC-3 simulation, a modernized C-47A restoration, with modernized cockpit; 3-display G1000 cockpit, powered by PW1830-92 engines, passengers cabin configuration and loading system. 

VSKYLABS 'Test-Pilot': Tri-Turbo-Three: (Available soon) Highly defined DC-3 turbo-conversion based and inspired by the Conroy Tri-Turbo-Three conversion. 

The "DC-3 Airliner" variant had an significant update back at that same date, including; a move to a glass Laminar Research default G1000 three display panel installation, which in my opinion is going away from the original philosophy of a pre-war designed aircraft. It is very good in this guise, but what if you still wanted the original "DAK". Well that is the C-47B Skytrain variant, and here is an update for that aircraft.

C-47B is a simulation of the 30's-50's era with still an authentic WWII era cockpit, powered by PW1830-90C two speed supercharged engines, and the aircraft (unlike the DC-3 Airliner) is available for both X-Plane 11 and X-Plane 12.

The vSkylab philosophy is that you are purchasing an ongoing project, so any aircraft you purchase is not fully completed or is completed to 100%, that is the deal you sign up for to get access to the aircraft, and all the development is free and ongoing throughout the X-Plane 12 version. These projects are under constant development: the development road-map is including flight model refinements, enhanced systems depth, additional liveries and other improvements.

This v6.0b2 update is mostly focused on systems and new controls (mixture levers)...

• Flight Dynamics and Systems:
  • New mixtures, carburetor system algorithm:Mixture control is now fully differential, and fully automatic, replicating the actual C-47 mixtures and carburetor operations. Mixture levers have detents (steps) for 'cutoff', 'auto-lean', 'auto-rich', emergency. All auto-modes are fully automatic. For more information refer to the included manual.
  • New fuel system:The VSKYLABS fuel system in v6.0b2 allows to feed each engine from any of the four tanks, directly (identical to real-world C-47 operation). (known issue - due to a system architecture restriction in the VSKYLABS C-47 v6.0, when feeding each engine from the Aux tanks (from the same side or opposite sides), the Aux tank with the higher remaining fuel quantity will feed both engines, until both Aux tanks are equal. Then, both tanks will feed both engines.The fuel system is under development and this ‘feature’ will be fixed in future updates.
  • Carburetor heat system - levers are not being operated internally via sliders (for more information refer to the included manual).
  • Vacuum system - vacuum system re-wired. On-board DG are now vacuum-powered.
  • DG sync - Manual sync is now possible with the use of the sync-knob.
• Bug fixes:
  • Fuel level indicator is now equipped with a shifting-plate, showing the designated tank in each mode.
  • Fuel level indicator needle 3-d and animation changed to provide better reading, more accurate.
• Enhancements:
  • Pitch trim wheel re-modeled, re-textured.
  • Carburetor heat levers now showing 'L' / 'R' for better interaction.
  • Various PBR fixes all-around in the cockpit.
• Manual/POH update:
  • Rev 007

Although not noted, this aircraft is updated to X-Plane 12 (as long as you pick that version), the Skunkcrafts Updater has also been added into the mix as well.

This is a project update, not like the DC-Airliner new aircraft version, so it is a free update, via currently the Skuckcrafts Updater or download from the X-Plane.OrgStore.

 Images are courtesy of vSkyLabs (X-Plane 12 version)

___________________________

The C-47 Skytrain by VSkyLabs Flying Lab Project is NOW available! from the X-Plane.Org Store here :

VSKYLABS C-47 Skytrain

Your Price: US$35.95

Currently on sale for $17.45 or 50% OFF

.

Requirements

Update Review : Cessna 172SP NG Digital v1.5.1 by AirfoilLabs

It was very early in the X-Plane 12 beta or 1.4.0b that I reviewed the Cessna 172SP NG from AirfoilLabs. It was also a moment, in that the future was suddenly laid out in front of the Simulator, this was X-Plane 12, and you saw and felt here all the new benefits it was going to deliver.

The bonus of that moment was because, even this early in the evolution of the new X-Plane 12 version. AirfoilLabs had done a pretty good and highly detailed conversion to X-Plane 12. Although the release was noted as a "beta" (1.4.0-Beta (October 10th 2022)), it did cover all the unique aspects of what X-Plane 12 was going to deliver. It was exciting, but also a bit of a relief in that the changes were going to work... It was a review I liked a lot, as it gave us some really great images of cloud formations, before unseen in earlier X-Plane versions.

There was another very small tuneup in December 22 (v1.4.1b) for the 172SP, that covered a more detailed Aircraft Performance Tuning for the latest changes in XP12 flight model, an enhanced Camera Initialization Bug fixed and the dark Glass bug that was fixed for the latest XP12 version, really it was all another tight tune to the release of X-Plane 12.

This brings us to this update, well two actually. With both v1.5.0 and v1.5.1 which are combined here. Considering both updates, there is not a lot of changes here, but what is important to note is that the aircraft is now officially an X-Plane 12 version, not in a beta.

Changes to Version 1.5.0 (August 10th 2023) were small with the G1000 LPV Approaches fixed, those Yoke Erratic Movements were also attended to, and finally the (over) harsh landing sounds have been fixed. The latest update Version 1.5.1 (September 8th 2023) is just as small, call it tinkering if you want to....   Here the Main Landing Gear Leg are not so flexible anymore (slightly harder landings), better Empty Aircraft Initial Attitude, less Tire Skid Sound Effect (connected to the above), and finally the G1000 is Implementing default XP12 Features, in other words the G1000 mirrors the updated X-Plane 12 version.

This review is really a reacquaintance of the aircraft. It was then so very early in the beta phase with X-Plane 12 with the earlier release. So what is the aircraft like a year on, I wanted to find out?

Product Manager

AirfoilLabs use there own external updater system or "Product Manager" to install and update their products. It is very good, but initially also confusing? You can download both an X-Plane 11, and also an X-Plane 12 version of the updater, and both can be installed. All to the good, but it then gets easily confusing on which updater is for what X-Plane version? as both updaters are identical, in not just installing the updater, but in using them... 

Initially I couldn't find or use the X-Plane 12 version? It's not labeled 11 or 12, even when running the application, it also kept producing and updating only the X-Plane 11 version, and not the X-Plane 12 version? In the end I had to remove entirely the XP11 version and reload the XP12 version to get it to work...  even then the application is not anywhere in being noted as the XP12 version of the application, there was a hour lost for this review, in just working it all out?

Once updated the "Product Manager" works like this...  On starting up, it will show you what AirfoilLabs products are listed in your portfolio. This includes the XJet plugin and version. Important as AirfoilLabs have their own plugin system of all their aircraft (not the usual SASL system) and it has to match the version of the aircraft. Any changes required or new versions are noted in the application.

You select a product, then are required to type (cut/paste) in the Serial key to authorise the aircraft. I like this factor, as it means there is no required restart in the simulator (so no slow total redo process to get back to where you already are?). The the installer will look at your current aircraft version and storage capacity, and show you the download file size. Happy it will then install either the full aircraft (product) or update the aircraft to the current version...  all the version and changelog changes are shown when the process is completed.

The system and use is very good, once you are using the correct X-Plane version.

Cessna 172SP NG Digital

First look and again the Cessna 172SP really delivers. You currently get a lot of choice in the Cessna 172's in X-Plane 12, and there is a lot of tough competition in the mix. First is the newly released Thranda 172M Skyhawk DGS Series, very good it is. Then there are the two Laminar Research Skyhawks, one analog and the other a Garmin G1000...  another but not updated to X-Plane 12 is the Carenado C172 G1000, one aircraft I really liked. A lot of choice, and all good choices as well...  so why the AirfoilLabs aircraft?

It is a very good question, and one I can answer. There is something quite original about the AirfoilLab's 172, it looks and feels different, but 172 different. For the important aspect of Circuits and Training, if I had the choice of all of the above, then the AirfoilLabs version would still be my selection, the word here is "authentic".

As you know if you follow my aircraft or scenery reviews, is that word "Authentic". For me, the whole aspect of Flight Simulators is to get the most realistic experience possible from the combination of the Flight Simulator, Scenery and more importantly the aircraft. If all three combine perfectly then you should get the feeling of real flight, and a real presence of a place. 

The model here looks totally authentic, very, very real to me in the simulator....  and X-Plane 12 dynamics really bring it alive!

The Cessna 172M, is the most popular aircraft ever built with 44,000 units constructed, and production is still going strong. The C172 is popular because it is just that right perfect fit for it's main role...  pilot training.

The important thing here is just that you have to have complete mastery of the aircraft, if you do, then you feel confident in the machine (that is a very good simulation as well). A stable platform in the aircraft is the total aim. Here you can do that, banks and rolls are perfection, holding the bank whilst not losing (or gaining altitude) is the sign of great aerodynamics, and I could twirl around the sky all day to perfection in the AeroFoilLabs 172. Note the excellent AOA (Angle of Attack) meter in your eyesight.

Instrument panel is nicely laid out, clean and efficient, and both the PFD (Primary Flight Display) and MFD (Multi-Functional Display), and both can popout and are highly scalable to size.

Set the middle lower panel are the three backup analog instruments for; Airspeed, Artificial Horizon and Altitude. Cabin is very nice... not old, old, but still nicely worn, and yes that word again....  Authentic!

Lovely dated and branded "SP Skyhawk", both Yokes can be individually hidden and rudder pedal design is well done deep in the footwell...

A side note is the excellent POH or "Pilots Operating Handbook". Situated lower left door pocket, it has a POH introduction, then LIMITS, NORMAL, EMERGENCY and PERFORMANCE data and checklist. Scalable again it is very easy to use.

Almost a year on, and I'm flying the same route as that early beta version Brisbane YBBN to Gold Coast YBCG, settings include "real Weather", and yep looking out of my window, the sky looks exactly the same as the X-Plane Simulator download.

Unfortunately its a total pristine clear day (early September days in Australia are like that, until the sheer heat kicks in), they can come with no heavy cloud around...   but it makes for nice flying.

It also shows off X-Plane 12 as well. But I wanted to come up here and see more heavy weather, but you can't doubt the quality of the aircraft and the simulator producing a perfect rendition of the day. I'm very impressed

Menus

There are a lot of options and menus available on the AirfoilLabs 172SP. The menu options list is sensational, the best in the business, with eight different categories, and 35 different selections...

View options include internal and external walkaround. There is a "General" settings panel, and all the main Menu selections are also available on the optional AviTab tablet.

Lycoming IO-360-L2A (200hp - 149kW) engine and it's mounting frame and accessories are all here to admire, interactive as well...

....  you can check the oil, or see the wear on an engine or system component, you can fail it, or repair the element. All ties downs, inlet, pitot covers, chocks and portable power supply are all available here.

Standard or Tundra (large) tyres are also available, as all doors open (cabin and small baggage access). Other options includes several types of wheel covers, or streamline fairings, neat are the small opening flaps in the Wheel Fairings to check the tyre pressures.

The Skyhawk is very comprehensive, so anything detrimental? really only one... the Replay doesn't work? press Alt-R and you get an immediate X-Plane CTD or Crash to Desktop, Save a situation and it is a lucky shot as well, I recovered two saves, but also had an instant crash a few times. A better save feature would be a nice addition as the XJet plugin requires custom settings.

Finished after a long day's flying...  then just wrap up and cover the aircraft for safety, you gotta love it all!

As noted earlier, this is just a reacquaintance of the airfoillab Skyhawk and to highlight it's benefits, honestly not much has changed on the aircraft, but you have to acknowledge on how much has changed around the 172SP Skyhawk. X-Plane 12 has evolved hugely over the last twelve months. Even back then you felt the conversion to X-Plane 12 was excellent, and nothing here really changes that aspect, but still the AirfoilLab Skyhawk seems to be better than ever.

The main point here is the 172SP itself, like with the Thrandra 172, it is the platform for the pilot that is the most important thing, the line to be at the top of the list. Yes the options list and features all here are outstanding, but the basics have to be perfect if the Cessna is to be usable in the simulator, the 172SP is above all and everything else still a training aircraft, the dynamics and control feel are the most important aspects of this aircraft.

This flight down the coast was excellent, everything combined to create a perfect simulation, sounds are great as well, with 320 sounds + detailed, layered engine samples with audible failures simulation.... so there it is this totally "authentic" atmosphere around it, In then I think that is why the AirfoilLabs C172Sp Skyhawk is the highest standard currently in X-Plane if you want a very good Cessna 172SP.

Highly Recommended.

Requirements

X-Plane 12 or X-Plane 11 - both versions included

Scenery Update : KDEN - Denver International Airport HD v2.0 by X-Codr Designs

We all look at the extremely created MSFS (Microsoft Flight Simulator) scenery, and dream of the same detail for X-Plane. The fact is a bit of a misnomer, in that highly produced video's can hide the reality of the weaknesses of the product. A lot is very, very good, but it is also not the full story.

In X-Plane that superlative quality and quality is available if you want it, surprisingly it is not the most expensive scenery on sale either. Only issue is, there isn't enough of it. But the point here is that the same level and quality can be done or achieved in the X-Plane Simulator, and yes it can match MSFS when it wants to.

Two names come to mind. ShortFinal Designs and their magnificent San Francisco and Munich, both are currently updated to X-Plane 12. The Second is X-Codr and his first mega scenery in Denver... or KDEN, Denver International in Colorado, USA.

Big here in Denver it is on another level again. DEN is by land area the largest airport United States, and second largest in the world. At over 16,000 feet long, runway 16R/34L is also the longest public runway in the United States, and seventh longest in the world. Big here has another dimension added to it, not to mention the extra taxi fuel required to get to the takeoff points, in fact on some routes, you can spend more time taxiing on the ground at KDEN, that being actually in the air.

X-PlaneReviews covered the release of the KDEN mega scenery for X-Plane 11 here...

Scenery Update : KDEN - Denver International Airport HD v1.5 by X-Codr Designs

On September 5th 2022 there was a version update for the DEN scenery, "Added link for the X-Plane 12 version", and that was about it. The update allowed you to use the scenery in X-Plane 12, but it was not actually a X-Plane 12 scenery, if that sort of makes sense. There were no X-Plane 12 features or details, it worked...  and that was about it.

X-Plane 12 KDEN v2.0

First of all is the install. Basically you have to totally rip the guts out of the earlier version and replace it with the new. And not just the actual scenery either, but all the plugins as well. There are three downloads...  Main Scenery file (7.54 GB), KDEN Mesh (3.82 Gb) and the X-Codr Library (2.97 Gb), and all have to be downloaded to replace the original files, and they are all big download sizes to a total 14.33 Gb. Then there is another change to Living Scenery Technology (LST) as well, so that the correct plugin in v1.10 has to be installed for it all to work. The SAM3 Plugin is also required, but again the correct one in version v3.1.10. It is all slightly complicated, miss or not install a step and it won't all work correctly, get it right and lo and behold you get quite a sight...

Your covering a very large area, and have a huge if massive object count as well. Does that affect your framerate...  unfortunately the answer is yes, a lot. But there are options. The best is to reduce your "Rendering Resolution" from OFF (Full Resolution) to Ultra, oddly reducing the Texture Quality won't have any impact on the framerate, RR will, and gave me a far more working movement in the scenery. So there is a payoff in using the scenery.

Notable are the hard areas between the custom (photo/ortho) base and the X-Plane default, it is a lot like that in the real world, but not as pronounced. The problem is not the custom textures provided by X-Codr, but the far older X-Plane default textures, overall it still works fine, but again this highlights the age of the ground textures in X-Plane. That said, all custom mesh is new and updated to current standards, no grass though, but it is a gigantic area to cover, and maybe a framerate killer to far.

Denver International Airport

IATA: DEN - ICAO: KDEN - FAA LID: DEN

07/25 - 12,000ft  (3,658m)  Concrete

08/26 - 12,000ft  (3,658m)  Concrete

16L/34R - 12,000ft  (3,658m)  Concrete

16R/34L - 16,000ft  (4,877m)  Concrete

17L/35R -12,000ft  (3,658m)  Concrete

17R/35L - 12,000ft (3,658m)  Concrete

Elevation : 5,431 ft / 1,655 m

Not obvious at first, but all the Terminals and three separate huge concourses have all been remodeled, re-textured as well. And close up the buildings are all quite different (wear) in look and feel. "Grittier" is the word I would use, and not so "shiny, shiny"

Remember that X-Codr's original KDEN was quite early in his career, brilliant actually for the time. But there has been a lot of developer progress in the intermediate years, certainly with his surface materials in the later work (stone and concrete here is all very realistic). That aspect certainly shows here, as you don't stand still in making the product more realistic with the better tools and skills you have.

It's impressive to spend time on just looking at buildings and the detail, it is all quite impressive.

The main arrival Elrey B. Jeppesen Terminal and it's unique sail roof is hard to get right. It can come across as modeled, but here the flowing fabric feel is now very evident, extremely well done.

The first release of X-Codr's Denver was late November 2018, five years ago. Since then and partly displayed in the earlier scenery releases, was the terminal developments going on at DEN. There are two. First is the new inner section on the Concourse B (East) Gate B62-B71...  all new and it looks like it, but the detail here is extremely realistic.

Second is the extensive extension to the Southwest Concourse C (again on the eastern side) Gates C48-C71.

Clever is the relationship between the original and new structures. Both have weather wear, but the new Concourse feels and looks more modern, so hard to get right, but very authentic...  There is a lot of see through glass in the new Concourse as well, exceptional is the word again.

Both the United and Frontier Hangars have been re-textured, again with that exceptional concrete feel, and come with more ground detail.

All new at Denver is the Southwest Engineering facility, and now also depicted here in the KDEN scenery. It is situated in the far north section of the airport.

The General Aviation area has also been remodeled and textured, with an excellent "Signature" facility centre (Terminal).

Cargo is not a really big feature at Denver, the facility is big, but not huge by comparison. Again the area has had a lot of attention, remodeled and has far better "grittier" textures that are excellent up close.

With the change to Living Scenery Technology (LST), and away from the very dated GroundTraffic plugin. This technology allows more flexibility and the introduction of new features. The Original KDEN had realistic interiors, but now you not only get a full internal interior, but an extreme fitout as well...  certainly as good or even better than of the many MSFS scenery standards.

I will repeat that point... every part of the INTERIOR! The arrival Terminal, all three Concourses, even the connecting bridges are all modeled internally here, the TOTAL area is totally explorable and accessible, the detail is totally overwhelming....  Mindblowing!

The new Southwest C Concourse is simply well worth a few minutes of your time to explore, as is the new B Concourse, so masterful is the work, this is DEN in miniature, all of it...  even the McDonalds.

The above alone is enough to blow your mind...  but we haven't finished yet? there is also the animations, walking people, flexing people, people reading their phones....  moving escalators, yes real operating moving escalators between floors...  "you gotta be kidding me!"

It's just all so damn awesome...   even then the new Signature (General Aviation) reception is also expertly modeled internally.

Control Tower Internals are also modeled... lovely glass! also is the lower control room modeled as well. A tip is that you can listen in at LiveATC.net which provides live air traffic control (ATC) broadcasts from air traffic control towers, and KDEN is on the list.

But even the experience of all this external and internal detail, can be ruined by getting something else wrong, that is not the case here of course, but it is worth pointing out... and that is the mentioned glass. Getting glass wrong here would have made the interiors not work at all, it is getting the feel right, too clear and it looks artificial, too dense and you can't see the internal detail. But that aspect is covered well here, as all the glass is excellent, even perfect in it's "see-through" factor, but not hiding the interiors. Aircraft are visible as well from the internal perspective.

SAM3 interaction works here as well, and on every gate. (Plugin required)

Reasons are multiple. But here is the (real) Denver International update to X-Plane 12 with all the X-Plane features like wet surfaces and more importantly for this part of the world, snow and ice. Grunge was always brilliant here, but add in rain and pooled water, and it brings the excellent dirty elements to the surface...  the realism is overwhelming.

Colorado or Denver is famous for it's spectacular snow in's. X-Plane 12's winter seasons can now oblige in that factor as well.

This KDEN Denver scenery by X-Codr Designs, does show the heights that can be obtained in quality and extreme features for the X-Plane Simulator...  almost to being the standard bearer of what can be achieved with in the X-Plane 12 platform currently. Yes it can out perform MSFS, even then some more with exceptional talent and a minute attention to detail.

______________

Summary

This is the X-Plane 12 update from X-Codr Designs of KDEN Denver International to version v2.0, in Colorado, USA. Originally released in late November 2018, now five years ago. This is a comprehensive update to X-Plane 12.

Not just a quick transition to X-Plane 12. But a full modeling and texture overhaul, including new extension terminals on Concourses B and C, new Southwest Maintenance Facility, redone GA Signature Terminal, and total ground texture update. Added also are excellent animated active people, with moving escalators, and a full interactive coverage of all interior areas. Detail of such externally and internally is simply off the planet. Probably the best airport scenery example currently in the X-Plane Simulator

Download is however quite large (total 14.33 Gb), and a change or update to the Living Scenery Technology (LST) plugin, and SAM3 has to be the current version, it is complex and requires time to get right, but the wait is worth the effort. Framerate can be hard as expected, so minimum a 8Gb+ Graphic capability is recommended, Adjustments to your graphic settings may also be required, but considering the extreme requirements here the scenery is however very usable in the Simulator. This is also a free update to anyone that has the current (X-Plane 11) to the X-Plane 12 version, another brilliant deal, with no upgrade cost.

Really the X-Codr KDEN scenery should be labeled "Extreme", but for all the right reasons. In every area the scenery would score a perfect 10, a deserved award...    certainly the current contender for the best airport scenery of 2023, and it's only September!

Denver International HD will blow your mind! Certainly it can top anything Microsoft can throw at quality scenery, and all this for under US$30 bucks....  "Blows your mind man!"

______________

Yes! KDEN - Denver International Airport HD v2.0 by X-Codr Designs is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :

KDEN - Denver International Airport HD

Price is US$29.95

Requirements

X-Plane 12 or X-Plane 11

Features

NEWS! - Navigraph introduce Flight Telemetry, ATIS, OFP to Charts

Navigraph has again done an significant update to their subscription charts application. This is version 8.29.0. Three new features have been added in with; Flight Telemetry, ATIS, OFP. These features integrates Navigraph’s Charts product even more with the very popular SimBrief application, after being acquired by Navigraph in 2021.

Flight Telemetry

First is Flight Telemetry. This new feature will provide live "Telemetry" from the flying aircraft in the chart. Selected from the horizontal main menu banner, it shows you twenty five different parameters/metrics of the aircraft in a strip lower MAP including such as airspeed, altitude, ground speed, estimated time to destination, and much more. Selecting one of the options will bring up the menu to add or delete a parameter. Another way is to use or edit the list, is to use the "ADD METRIC+" tag at the right of the list.

It's really good, but I didn't get every parameter required? Missing was my Indicated Altitude, Rate of Turn and Transponder data, although all were active? But being able to edit the list, allows you to set only the parameters that you need.

OFP

Operational Flight Plans (OFP) from SimBrief are now available in Navigraph Charts as well. Under "Flights" is a new button "View Simbrief OFP" to select the currently generated SimBrief Briefing OFP...  which is then shown in Charts.

More options include selecting "Maps" to see the Simbrief generated maps, including wind information.

And you can even save the current generated Briefing (OFP) to a .pdf, to view or printout from within Charts. This aspect was great with my iPad(OS) and even on my iPhone, to scroll down through the briefing without going to the computer...  just really good.  

ATIS

Final new feature is to view the Automatic Terminal Information Service or ATIS also from within Charts... Note that ATIS will not work everywhere? Mostly just in the United States.

Select Airport/Weather and you can have ATIS information in four options; Real, IVAO, PilotEdge and VATSIM

It also shows Departing and Arrival Runways (very handy), Message (current Information) and Designator ( (ICAO identifying code).

You just wonder of where our Norwegian freinds keep coming up with the ideas, this is now a very significant tool/package for chart use. It works with the Charts IOS and iPadOS applications as well.

Just so brilliant... at only a slight cost per month.

_____________________________________

Yes! Navigraph v8.28.0 is now Available via Subscription, or if you already have a Navigraph account, then just update to the latest v8.28.0

Navigraph

Subscription only on a monthly or yearly basis or EUR 9.05 / mo or EUR 81.64 / year

Download

Download applications are available for both Windows and Mac. SimLink is also available for download and is inserted into your X-Plane Plugins folder....  Internet connection is required for this application.

SimBrief is now also intergrated into the Navigraph application, get it here: SimBrief

Navigraph Charts Review version v8.28.0

NEWS! - Scenery Updated : KDEN - Denver International Airport HD v2.0 by X-Codr Designs

X-Codr has released v2.0 of KDEN Denver International Airport in Colorado, USA. This massive sprawling MEGA airport by land area, is the largest airport United States, and second largest in the world. At over 16,000 feet long, runway 16R/34L is also the longest public runway in the United States, and seventh longest in the world.

X-Codr's Denver did already have a X-Plane 12 update, well sort of, on September 5th 2022. But that version was not actually a full transition to the new X-Plane 12 version. That aspect changes here with a full X-Plane 12 conversion, plus a lot of nice goodies to keep the scenery updated, plus a few nice new clever features, like walking animated people and even animated escalators. This is also an update, not an upgrade, so for previous purchasers of the X-Plane 11 version, this update is free...  just go to your X-Plane.OrgStore account.

Notable is that you have to change everything for the new v2.0 KDEN to work. This includes the Main Scenery file (7.54 GB), KDEN Mesh (3.82 Gb) and the X-Codr Library (2.97 Gb), There is another change to the Living Scenery Technology (LST) as well, so that plugin has to be installed for it all to work. The SAM3 Plugin is also required. The X-Plane 11 version of KDEN is still available on request.

Version 2.0  September 6th 2023

• Completely remodeled terminal areas
• Completely remodeled main cargo area
• Completely remodeled GA area
• Retextured hangars
• New concourse extensions
• New Southwest hangar
• Vastly improved ground textures
• New animated 3d people
• Improved mesh smoothness
• Various improvements throughout airport
• Various bug fixes

Now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore...  the price, for all this, only a brilliant US$29.95

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Yes! KDEN - Denver International Airport HD v2.0 by X-Codr Designs is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :

KDEN - Denver International Airport HD

Price is US$29.95

Features

NEWS! - Scenery Updated to X-Plane 12: RPSP - Bohol Panglao International Airport - Philippines by Airwil

On the 24th August 2023, Airwil Sceneries updated their Filipino scenery RPMD - Davao International Airport to X-Plane 12. So here is another previously released Filipino scenery that has also received the X-Plane 12 update. Although not officially noted, but in the changelog, the update is all very X-Plane 12 focused.

Bohol-Panglao International Airport, also known as New Bohol International Airport, is a newly constructed airport on the island of Panglao in the province of Bohol. This airport is dubbed as the Philippine's first eco-airport and green gateway. This brand new airport replaced the old Tagbilaran Airport for better tourism within the region. The Bohol-Panglao International Airport is consist of a single runway with three (3) jetways and seven (7) ramp parking bays. Being just an hour away from Manila by plane, flying from Cloudsurf Asia Simulations' RPLL Scenery to Panglao-Bohol (RPSP) is one of many ideal short inter-island hops in the Philippines.

• X-Plane 12 version now available 
• Updated Pavement Textures (X-Plane 12 Features) 
• Took advantage of X-Plane 12 tire marks effects
• Improved look on the Terminal building
• Reduced grass vegetation inside the airport to match orthophoto (XP11/XP12)

This scenery is available for both X-Plane 11 and 12 with this package.

There is a pressurized G version, here Aircraft Review : Cessna T337G Pressurized Skymaster by Skytouch it's not bad actually 🙂

X-Plane 12 : State of the Union

It is really hard to believe that even at this point in time, that when X-Plane 12 was finally released, or as it was labelled as in it's "Early Access" and "Beta" release form. Such has been the developments of the last twelve months.

Last year around June 2022 there was still a lot of speculation mixed in with a bit of fear. The X-Plane 12 development was seriously dragging on, and even a Dev Deep-Dives series with FSElite (10 episodes) didn't quell the uneasy feelings. And Austin Meyer the X-Plane Simulator founder, by then also became more and more outrageous in his broadcasts to cover the waiting. We tried to look between the cracks, but mostly the development process was kept very close to the chest.

Almost a year on and the 2023 FlightSimExpo in Houston was in progress, Laminar Research was there and competing with Asobo Studios/Microsoft, now with an announced version of the next installment or version of MSFS, called "Flight Simulator 2024".

For Laminar Research it had already been quite a journey. Starting not with the development of X-Plane 12, but to overhaul completely the core of X-Plane Simulator's API to the more modern Vulkan/Metal standards, to note, X-plane 12 could not even existed on the older OpenGL platform. But developing both the API and a new X-Plane version together has been an enormous task for the very small, but tight core Laminar development coders.

We expected Laminar Research to bring their latest version of X-Plane 12 to the Expo as well (X-Plane 12.06, even if in parts), so maybe it was a good time to see what has transpired since the original "Beta" release, then the formal release in December 2022, and the current state of were we all are now a year on. In a way the XP12.06 release was to be a highly anticipated significant one. For one it will end the development and release update phase of the X-Plane 12 release. Certainly not all the fixes and bugs would have been covered, but the majority of the changes should now be behind us. Going forward means not spending time fixing, but maturing and developing the simulator to a higher degree.

But again it was not to be the case, if v12.06 was shown at the Expo it is was in a raw form, and certainly Laminar didn't crow about it as both Austin Meyer or head developer Ben Supnic were notably absent. Oddly or more important is that for the first time X-Plane 12 was being scrutinized directly against Microsoft's Flight Simulator, both are interesting as this as X-Plane 12 in it's current refined form, and MSFS in already promoting it's next upgraded version in MSFS 2024. Significant also was the factor that neither were noted doing seminars, just floor demonstrations, but Microsoft turned that aspect on it's head at the last minute and did a "Lite" seminar session. The truth is Microsoft stole a lot of X-Plane related ideas for the release of MSFS 2020, and X-Plane replied with a lot of MSFS ideas in X-Plane 12. MSFS 2024 as announced in that seminar, now goes even further in stealing more X-Plane features in helicopters, SARS, water and fire particles, oil rig scenery and landing pad, crop dusting, wildfires and even animated skydivers (yes X-Plane does have animated skydivers).

One important point to make though at the 23 Expo, was that almost every demonstration stand was running X-Plane, not streaming MSFS 2020. Why, because it is still a simulator in the box, not relying on a internet connection, a change of the times from earlier Expos, when almost every single vendor was using Flight Simulator to show off their wares, and when back then X-Plane was in the small minority.

But first we will look back before looking forward. As always I explain details to anyone coming into simulation for the first time, yes it goes over a lot of old ground to regular users, but it also puts the simulator situation into it's proper context.

X-Plane 12

The X-Plane Flight Simulator was originally released as X-Plane 1.00 back in 1995 which is now 26 years ago. Basically around every 4-5 Years, Laminar Research the X-Plane's developers releases another numbered upgrade version of the Simulator, the current version is X-Plane 12 that was released originally back in September 2022. The earlier version was X-Plane 11 (v11.53 was the final version) that was released originally back in March 2017.

Each release is a new version, and to use it, it has to be repurchased. The cost of X-Plane 12 is US$59.95. But the initial cost also covers all development and any new features for that full version run, up until the next version is released in the development cycle in approx another 4-5 years.

The "Beta" release was a public purchase test version, so everyone can now access the new simulator and it's new features. But it's not a final release, as it was still noted only as an early development release or "Early Access" Beta. The X-Plane 12 Beta ran from the 6th September 2022 (called alpha 38) and it was expected to go "Final" just before Christmas, and in "Release Candidate" RC 6 form it did, 17th December 2022.

My first impressions of the "Beta" release were very favourable, X-Plane 12 on it's release was actually far better than we had expected. Early indications showed it was a major leap forward than X-Plane 11, of which it should be. Lighting was excellent, as was the weather and seasons, also the fauna and trees. Grass was left out of the XP12 because of it's very high framerate use, or in my guess the limited development time. ATC had a huge revision, and again this was highlighted with another three major updates at later dates thoughout the year.

With the huge jump in quality over X-Plane 11 we expected our systems to groan under the sheer weight of the more excess demands of X-Plane 12. To a point the new version did require a substantial upgrade in hardware to cater for it, but oddly not initially, as XP12 ran quite nicely on most lighter cards. Several areas on release however became controversial. First was the "Black Hole" of the internal lighting. Heavy shading made it impossible to work in most cockpits. Now it must be said that early aircraft were configured to X-Plane 11 lighting, not the new X-Plane 12 dynamics, but there was clearly a problem. Even as the early configured X-Plane 12 aircraft were released the internal lighting didn't work, more so was the time it took (keeping developers waiting) in finding a fix. Another early problem was high winds at altitude, this one was a nasty issue, and it even flowed down at lower altitudes, aircraft active surfaces twitched very badly to the wrong wind information, so clean flying was almost impossible.

Beta Phase

Early beta releases fix updates also focused mostly on 3rd party items like the excellent upgraded X-Plane 12 default fleet of aircraft, all were very highly well received, except for oddly the AirbusA330-300. Here the promised custom MCDU was not available on release, all round the A330 felt a bit underdeveloped, why odd? because the aircraft was X-Plane 12's major default focus aircraft feature, and it was the worst developed in the release.

Personally I found the first few months with X-Plane 12 quite nice, even if it was in a beta development, even with the dark cockpit and wind issues. It had smooth framerate wise and the lighting was very good as it had this nice 3d effect, even MSFS in look. In fact as the beta's focused on the extra elements and not the core of the simulator there was not many changes to the sim with the early beta process. There was however the nasty emergency hot fix for broken draped polygon textures, which sent your scenery blank, or with grey walls...  but it was fixed very quickly in about five days. In the Beta 8 release there was some significant additions. One new default item was in cockpit pilots. A male and female quality styled pilot's were added to all the default airliner aircraft, and 3rd party developers snapped them up quickly for their own use. The second major addition was the excellent ALIA-250 eVTOL aircraft.

Altogether there was 14 Beta releases for X-Plane 12, a lot less than the 17 Beta releases for X-Plane 11, then you went into 6 "Release Candidate" (RC) updates. These high density filled RC releases showed that Laminar was on a mission to get the Simulator into a major release before Christmas 2022. They did it...  on releasing X-Plane 12 to the general public 17th December 2022.

In reality the full X-Plane 12 release was a false dawn. In any form users know that no Simulator is finished, as they are all in a constant forward development, but in X-Plane 12's case that shorter beta period run was or should have been a warning sign of things to come. In the RC3 release it came with a warning "the auto-exposure system is still being modified", and Austin also changed the flight model considerably, both these areas would have serious repercussions later. My question at this time was "Why are Laminar still messing around and changing the Flight Model, three months after the introduction of the Simulator?". In reality items like these should have been refined and done before any release at all, as they would impact highly on X-Plane conversion development in progress. In a bonus Laminar had come up with a solution for the dark cockpits, now as you glanced downwards into the murk, it would artificially lighten the lower view. It worked, I liked it, but a lot of users didn't, but it was a nice solution.

X-Plane 12 early release

Something went seriously wrong with the v12.01r1 release, the second one in the New Year 2023. Before this release we had a capable working Simulator (even in a beta form), what we had now was a disaster. My guess is that in trying to get more efficient framerate out of the Simulator, Laminar messed it up, suddenly we had serious "Vulcan device loss errors", and the high winds were also now more nasty than ever.

On the "Vulcan device loss errors", a lot of users actually had them even from the initial beta release, but these were users that also had very weak computer systems anyway. Now the goal posts had changed, even mid-powerful machines (meaning me) now didn't have enough Graphic capability to run X-Plane 12. The already very heavy demands of running X-Plane 12 had now suddenly gone even higher, from this point on you would need a pretty powerful chip and card combo to do even the basic of simulator flying, and it cost you serious money to get an upgraded card into your machine just to do basic X-Plane Simulations.

Around this time (probably related) I found the lighting went a bit awkward as well. Basically duller under cloud conditions. In clear conditions it was fine, but add in a bit of cloud cover and everything underneath it went all dull and flat, internally in aircraft it was also dull and hard to see and the external lighting disappeared. Another lighting condition that changed was the lighting reflections in the daylight, say glareshield dropdown lighting, this lighting effect also disappeared, external views (from the cockpit) went brighter (glary) as well.

Laminar's focus however was somewhere else. It was called Zink. With the change to the Vulkan/Metal API, a lot of the original OpenGL plugins didn't work. So Zink was installed to convert (or to be a bridge) between the old OpenGL and newer Vulkan/Metal API's. I don't use Zink, mainly because I don't have a big library of plugins, but a lot of users also needed the fix as AMD users out there got a lot of flickering and CTD (Crash to Desktop). Then the.dds files started to fail? .dds is the format used in textures, a more efficient system than say the bulky .png format, that was another hot fix from Laminar.

Then another when the "GRIB_get_field failed", in other words the NOAA or "NOAA Operational Model Archive and Distribution System", pulled the GRIB Files that X-Plane 12 uses for the Simulator for downloading live global Weather. And Laminar had to do another quick fix on that. It is still problematic now, as NOAA still has a habit of shutting down (or shutting out) at crucial times.

12.03b1 then delivered a lot of new DSF files, these delivered more data on the tile and in a lot of the areas better detail, a few more autogen items were delivered as well, but not the huge feature list noted in the pre-release videos, of say port infrastructure.

12.04b1, late in February was a game changer (no pun intended). It fixed (finally the high winds problem), the clouds and the sky got a lot better as well (not perfect as you still had those horrible pyramid shape clouds, and zebra-stripes at high levels). To a point the .04 beta did allow developers to get their aircraft into a more stable condition relating to X-Plane 12, so you got a load of aircraft conversion releases around Easter. Also important was the release of the SASL 3.16.1, which (finally) provided native plugin support for Mac M1/M2 arm64 architecture. In English it means users on Apple systems could finally fly X-Plane 12 aircraft. However for most of .04 beta, it was used to fix loads of Zink bugs.

Then at the end of March 2023 came v12.05b1, and Laminar finally delivered the update for their A330-300. Here included in this release was the custom MCDU for the aircraft, but again oddly it still had initially a default FMS feel to the system. And the followup v12.05r1 had another significant load of changes and fixes that came for the A330 as well.

X-Plane12.06

Which brings us to the significant v12.06 release. It comes with a noted VRAM re-architecture, claims improvements for performance and reduces the risk of blurry textures. The biggest improvement is up high in the sky. Here those nasty pyramid shape clouds, and zebra-stripes have finally gone, and have been replaced by major improvements to the flexibility and the visual quality of the clouds, including adding in the missing cirrus clouds. The the development roadmap for this crucial version went on for months, and right on past that crucial Expo date, you thought it was ever never coming. It finally came on the 20th August 2023.

But the version v12.06 did live up to it's gamechanger forecast...

...   with the beautiful and wispy the new Cirrus high level clouds, and they are a major improvement. My test area is the North Atlantic, in flying long haul you can usually cover all the range of clouds, and yes finally in v12.06r1, they are looking gorgeous after more tinkering through the 06 beta.

But we are not out of the woods (or clouds) yet...  There are still too many elements here that are straight lined, or open space rectangles, they are plainly seen, another element are what I call "Cliff Faces" or clouds in long blocks that go straight up? But after the earlier pyramid shape clouds, and the zebra-stripes, I'm willing to accept these elements as a huge step forward.

But two images are interesting, if excellent. Seen at dusk, they were very, very good in highlighting the X-Plane weather system when it all works together, the slight bands of light, in a rather gloomy night sky is simply sensational.

Another translation of dusk, it works, very nice...  but I still wish for more moon light (It is a full moon at this point), as when it goes dark, it goes black with almost no highlights, those clouds should be bouncing with light.

With the early V12.06 betas the lighting was still poor. everything under the cloud, was dull and flat, a brief moment you saw the sunlight break though the blue patches in the sky (noted as XPD-14318 – Cirrus need to allow more sunlight to reach the earth) and the weather not matching the METAR (too many clouds, too much rain). This has made the biggest impression on me over the last eight months, dark aircraft and blacker cockpits, made reviewing hard work in translating the visual aspects of X-Plane to the reviews, it is better, in fact far better in v12.06... but not what I would still call naturally realistic, I would like more control (graphics/menu) if Laminar can't get it right, at least give us some options to twiddle the lighting, rather than none.

But it is working...    it suddenly looked wonderful, in v12.06b7 as these images attest, but currently is X-Plane 12 still overall missing that magical something?

Interesting is comparing images from the release v12.01 (beta) and current V12.06. The top two images I took at the beta release twelve months ago, the lower four images are current.

Earlier the lighting is very soft, but the haze is very realistic...  below everything is now harder, clearer and any cloud will dull out the aircraft, the ground is always very harsh, sharp. The debate is if it is in the real way you look at the environment. As you might like the look of a more open solid feel, rather than the more softer one, to you the lower images will look more dynamically realistic, were as I prefer the more romantic view, to me the lower is more monochrome. My guess the real look and feel is somewhere in the middle.

But X-Plane 12 is night and day better than X-Plane 11 in it's look and feel factor.

OpenXR support, this will translate into easier access to the X-Plane VR system for 3rd parties. This will increase the variety of VR headsets compatible with X-Plane over time.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford class in X-Plane now has a full complement of static aircraft, cranes, tugs and more, on deck and below in the huge deck hangar. These additions include also a fully animated SH-60 Seahawk, that is constantly patrolling the vicinity.

Notable is that now the water is still not translucent below the surface, I loved looking at the hulls of ships, but honestly it is not at all realistic. In v12.06 and a year on, this aspect still has not been fixed.

ATC has had a lot of improvements in v12.06, including that the ATC is now aware of TCAS (but only the X-Plane A.I), and the controllers can now use multiple available channels, reducing radio contention in the cockpit. Generated flows now align to the longest runway instead of always cardinal directions, and generated calm flows now only use one runway. Wake separation is also now taken into account when issuing line-up or takeoff instructions. A big one for me is the option to allow editing of basic flight data if something required is missing, even if the flight is already under way, the fixed flight data is thankfully in the past, now you can change it on the line.

LOD (Level of Detail) has not been great either, you can see grass being added as you went down the runway, or the blank areas on the horizon, the poor horizon line didn't help either? Its noted (XPD-14364 – XPLMInstance LODs do not cull object at max LOD), also the Anti-Aliasing, is still tooth saw visible on the higher settings.

V12.06 is certainly the breakthrough version that the promise of X-Plane 12 is starting to shine though (no pun intended), it is more stable and even better refined, framerate is now also better. But this point is twelve months on, or a whole year of development, Laminar are still fixing things, not fine-tuning things?

More atmospheric scattering improvements, and exposure recalibration and even bloom Lighting Effects are coming later with X-Plane v12.07. In other words even more refining with the sky and lighting. Other notes for v12.07 include Turbine Engine improvements, avionics and OBJ restructuring, networking.

So this all adds up to a very bumpy first year for X-Plane 12, so are we through the worst? Personal experience says absolutely yes, but this has been one of the most unpredictable X-Plane Releases I can remember, I thought the beta was very good, then it went seriously wonky at the start of 2023, only now is X-Plane 12 getting back to somewhere reasonable. But eight months is a long time to repair the damage, less said is in that you still don't actually close X-Plane 12 after a session, but rather "Crash...  freeze" out of it?

But overall you have to look at the benefits of X-Plane 12. The photometric lighting engine is absolutely sensational (when it works) and so now are the cloud formations (I say better, not the best). Seasons are also sensational, but again you have to manually get the effects you want, not the real world current environmental situation. Aircraft are better at flying, one through the better dynamics, look far better in that 3d effect. Water is also sensational (probably the highlight), and lives up the hype. 3D forests and vegetation are also very good, but let down by the poor texture mesh, just a higher texture mesh resolution would help. Provided default aircraft are also excellent, as good as payware in many instances, even the Airbus A330 is now up to standard that would also pass as payware.

The problem facing X-Plane or any simulator. Is that the standards in this decade are now extremely high, gaming (not really related) but a significant parallel in what users expect from visual quality and framerate. Obviously MSFS raised the bar, but not totally, in many areas it is quite poor to X-Plane. Any updates to MSFS 2024, are more in the external (fun) features than to the basic core Simulator.

Overall we have to understand the full complexity of the X-Plane 12 release. This was not a simple version release. As noted the Simulator was already into a very deep internal engine change, but it was only halfway through the process. To a point Laminar are now at the end of that huge overhaul of the API, and X-Plane 12's release was also a big part of it, we are now on the other side.

So the next twelve months are interesting...  refinement will need to be the buzzword, but I also think that Laminar also need to pull something special out of the box, a sort of reward for all the pain we have gone through, attract the punters back, make X-Plane desirable, and not just to be an alternative Simulation option. 2024 needs to be a solid year, a positive year, not just in attitude, but in the Simulator actually been reliable in using the software, in other words quality software...  we will see the answer to that question at the State of the Union 2024.

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Review System Specifications

Windows  - 12th Gen IS1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU - 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - PNY GeForce RTX 3080 10GB XLR8 - Samsung 970 EVO+ 2TB SSD

Software:   - Windows 11 Pro - X-Plane 12.06r1 (This is a release candidate review).

Plugins: Traffic Global - JustFlight-Traffic (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$52.99 : Global SFD plugin US$30.00

Scenery or Aircraft

- Airbus A340-600 XP12 by ToLiSS (X-Plane.OrgStore) - US$89.99

- Airbus A319-100 XP12 by ToLiSS (X-Plane.OrgStore) - US$89.99

Behind the Screen : August 2023

As you are aware, there was no "Behind the Screen" edition for July 2023. Two reasons, one it was the X-PlaneReviews 10th Anniversary, or 10 years of posting reviews on this site, and we are pretty proud of making that significant milestone. It is hard to do that in this really fast electronic environment, change is massive, coming at you all the time, then throw in a pandemic, and everything goes really screwball. More on that in a minute.

Second reason for a no show, and for me being non-posting for nearly two weeks was...  I had to move house, and quickly. It's not fun to move house (or unit here in Australia), so the system was packed down, then rebuilt again 5 km away. Nothing got lost (well maybe a bit of my sanity), but an odd thing happens on that life changing journey. You sort of clean away the old, and let in the new.

If you want to dwell on circumstance, that moving home on the very day the site was started exactly a decade later, should be considered significant. Overall it makes you take stock. Interesting was the fact that the Ten Year Anniversary post was done on a laptop, in an almost cleared out empty room, and not like this post, at my usual position at the same desk, with my usual iMac and massive 32" monitor, with a completely different view out of my open doors (four floors up and now looking over a lake). The Laptop post was also the only post in a decade that was different from the usual. You can dwell on it, surmise the situation, but overall it denotes change.

The other change is significant as well, for Simulation. If you wanted again to be very critical of circumstance, then the last few years in Simulation were just as big as a total upheaval for our surrounding Simulation environment as well. Basically we hate change, but also want to move forward, the next big thing or that new, new...  which is a total paradox, not wanting anything to ruin what you already have, but also wanting it to change, obviously to the better.

But the last four years has been a complete upheaval. Massive changes, and not just to Simulation, but also to the complete world around us as well. My best friend said, "It's not the pandemic I fear, but what comes after it", and she was absolutely right. We sat through the pandemic, but the shear colossal changes ongoing currently are far more consequential, certainly we will never be the same, some good, but also a lot bad, in time we will note this point in history as an upheaval of the world, there would be before the event, and now after it. And everyone in some way got affected by it, and really nobody got away unscathed.

X-Plane also turned on a dime. No doubt the reintroduction of MSFS or Microsoft Flight Simulator has changed the landscape (no pun intended). But the timing for X-Plane didn't help either. At the end of one version run (X-Plane 11), and a very late development cycle for X-Plane 12, it fell into a hole, but the external real world Influences didn't help the situation either.

Money is not as free-flowing as it was four years ago, wallets are now tight, so pick and choosing product becomes even a more important situation...  value and quality is now more than ever the important questions for a long lived investment, so X-PlaneReviews reporting is also now more important on making sure the money goes to the said value and quality.

Users will say "Most stuff I get is free, anyway". To a point they are right, but not totally, as doing "Free" always comes with compromises. Unfortunately I don't personally like compromises. I like it right, realistic and it adds value to my Simulation experience. If I have ever had to go "Free", it always comes with those compromised conditions, say a non-completed (meaning non-working) aircraft or scenery that is sort of like the real one, but also in not being photo looking like the real environment I'm supposed to takeoff and land from. That aspect totally ruins (for me) the whole idea of what I am ultimately trying to achieve, meaning real world flying in a Simulator, or as close to a real world environment that I can get...  nothing annoys me more than having an aircraft in not to doing what it should do, mostly in the basics of flight and the controls, or crappy airports made of blocked facades.

There was released an Airbus A220-100 recently, a model really with no cockpit? "Why?" really what is the point of releasing (yes a very pretty external model) but with no cockpit? That is just stupid or dumb.

I at least want an aircraft I can fly or can use out of the box, yes there maybe bugs, even downright obvious ones, but the basics are there, working and useable. A small note on this conversation is in the fact of older aircraft, or classics. As we move forward to another X-Plane version, in most cases a lot of beloved simulation gets left behind. Hopefully developers will update their aircraft and scenery. But in a lot of cases we loose important pieces of our X-Plane world...  a few come to mind, Carenado obviously, Aerosoft sceneries (still crying over the lost Aerosoft Bergen). In fact 12 months on and Aerosoft haven't updated one scenery to X-Plane 12, that's poor business, and hell it's probably why Mathijs Kok left Aerosoft for PMDG.

It's now nearly twelve months since the X-Plane 12 (beta) release, and nine months into 2023 after the X-Plane Release in December 2022. And although this massive version change has happened, X-Plane 12 is now only starting to move again (or say Takeoff, yes pun intended), I want to show the full impact of that year, and that post will be coming on the year's anniversary of the X-Plane 12 release on 6th September 2023, called "State of the Union", it sums up the full year's development.

So change is coming, accept it, the new, new, but there are still things I don't want to lose from the past, they were important then, as they are now...  so not everything should be thrown away with change, and a lot of people should take stock of that aspect, when it's gone it is gone...  like forever. Then in time they realise that in doing those immediate selfish actions, they also lose a bit of themselves.

See you all next month

Stephen Dutton
3rd September 2023

Copyright©2023 X-Plane Reviews

Update Review : EDDM Munich v1.2 by ShortFinal Designs

There is no need for an introduction to ShortFinal Designs, or if you prefer to call him "MisterX6", as the reputation of this extremely skilled developer knows no bounds. But I will still highlight his work with LAX - Los Angeles International and SFO - San Francisco International, which are both award winning sceneries, then add in SFD Global, a tool to replace the boring twin American and European X-Plane autogen with different cultural facades in the different areas of the world, say, Australian, Arab, African and Japanese...  yes it all so brilliant, and the quality sticks to everything MisterX6 does, or Justin Kissling...  want to know more of MisterX6? then check out this current "Developer Spotlight" interview with Dominic Smith.

Which brings us to another ShortFinal Design masterpiece...  EDDM Munich.

X-PlaneReviews did a full review of the X-Plane 11 release of Munich International in January 2019; EDDM - Munich by ShortFinal Designs and this scenery won...   Best Airport Scenery : EDDM - Munich by ShortFinal winner 2019 🏅 in other words it was the best scenery overall in the year 2019.

The MUC scenery then had an update to v1.1 in January 2021, with mostly nips and tucks that covered the latest in a construction site at T1 and updated taxiway layout, introduction of SAM Seasons and an updated layout of apron 5 and 13 (East of T2)... but they were all for X-Plane 11.

So here is Version v1,2 of Munich International from SFD, and its also an X-Plane 12 update as well, it is still also compatible with X-Plane 11 (and included in the package), but obviously the X-Plane 12 elements don't work.

Munich Airport, also named "Munich Franz Josef Strauss Airport", is an international airport serving Munich and Upper Bavaria. To the German Aeronautical Information Publication it is known as "Muenchen Airport". It is the second-busiest airport in Germany in terms of passenger traffic after Frankfurt Airport, and the ninth-busiest airport in Europe, handling 47.9 million passengers in 2019. It is the world's 15th-busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic, and was the 38th-busiest airport worldwide in 2018.

The airport is located 28.5 km (17.7 mi) northeast of Munich near the town of Freising. It is named after former Bavarian minister-president Franz Josef Strauss. It has two passenger terminals with an additional midfield terminal, two runways as well as extensive cargo and maintenance facilities and is fully equipped to handle wide-body aircraft including the Airbus A380.

It serves as hub for Lufthansa including its subsidiaries Lufthansa CityLine, Air Dolomiti and Eurowings, as well as a base for Condor and TUI fly Deutschland.

Nothing really prepares you for the size of EDDM, it's absolutely massive, and this is also a complex scenery. But also highly refined for a very good framerate return, thankfully there isn't a lot of autogen around the airport like at EDDF Frankfurt, but still a reasonable expectation on what your computer can deliver to the reality of the complexity here is still a welcome point. I get upper 47 frames on my specs (below), which I would call out as being exceptional.

It's not called a masterpiece for nothing, this is one amazingly detailed and realistic scenery.

First of all v1.2 is an update, not a pay upgrade which is very nice, but for those (few) that don't currently have the SFD EDDM, it is priced at only US$26.95, a crazy price for the amount of quality and detail here.

With the X-Plane 12 update, you now get the X-Plane 12 effects, like brilliant rain, lighting and widespread snow winter conditions, very good it is...

So the added SAM Seasons in v1.1, have now been again removed for X-Plane 12 (but available for XP11). Another odd point with X-Plane 12 is when I run the download of any real weather, it always rains? ALWAYS? never a nice day or any clear skies at Munich MUC. So here to get a normal day, I had to switch to the manual weather settings...  very odd.

In v1.1 you had the cranes over a new terminal development, the cranes have now gone in v1.2 to be replaced with the new terminal 1 extension building, but the extension is still under development with currently a fence around the new T1 Terminal, also here there is no Airbridges attached, so it looks like we may have to wait to v1.3 to get a working terminal area... but clever isn't it.

Terminal 2 satellite (another recent addition) has also had attention with improved facade textures, they were quite good before, but this is refinement 101. It's new but in a wear of a few years way.

Also improved are the Terminal 2 satellite entrance buildings

There is both a new EFM building (EFM – Towing and De-icing) and new fire station building, both situated northeast by the T2 Satellite

Southeast, and Apron 35 has also been completed and is now available for use, it comes also with new blast fencing in 3d.

On the same note, in X-Plane 12, there are now 3d trees (very nice and move in the wind), and the new high quality fencing is 3d as well, not facade style.

With the release of SFO -San Francisco. ShortFinal Design has moved away from the GroundTraffic plugin to X-Codr's...  "Living Scenery Technology" plugin (Plugin required). The newer faster, but more importantly flexible plugin allows more movement in the scenery, more vehicles and animations...  even realistic walking ground staff.

So clutter is far better, all locally branded as well. Traffic is also excellent, but not overwhelmingly so, but enough to create that perfect active environment.

One note are the taxi bridges. In the X-Plane 11 version there was an option to stop (harden the bridge) in for traffic aircraft, that bounced down through the bridge and then climbed back out of the underlaying gradients. They do that again here, but ShortFinal have noted a patch is coming to bring the hard surface bridges back to normal.

In the X-Plane 12 version, orthoimagery has been totally updated. It's a bit strong in my eyes and doesn't blend in as much as before, but it is still well done, the already noted 3d trees are also changed within in the airport boundary areas...  any other changes like taxiway names and linage have all been brought up to date.  Grass is nice, very nice.

Lighting is still excellent, but now also X-Plane 12 powered, so everything is sharper and brighter...

...    the runways (lighting) are also ICAO compliant (X-Plane 12), and the navigation signage is exceptional...  and ground reflective.

The ShortFinal Design EDDM still uses the SAM 3 system for airbridge connectivity, and for opening the doors of five Lufthansa Technik Hangers...  AB Technik (left and right doors), Lufthansa Cityline Technik, and Lufthansa Technik (left and right doors).

I think that Munich has the most number of active gates on SAM, maybe San Francisco can cut it close, LAX, well maybe when the new extension is open, but here the numbers available are still in the hundreds...  that is a lot of choice and very impressive.

Summary

An award winning scenery always has a lot to live up to. This masterful reproduction of Munich International Airport released in 2019 by ShortFinal Design (or MisterX6), has everything and of course won the best of the year award from X-PlaneReviews for the same year.

This is the Munich scenery update to X-Plane 12, or Version 1.2. The X-Plane 11 version is also still available, but without a lot of the dynamic features noted here. This scenery is an update, not an upgrade considering it is a move over to X-Plane 12 from eleven.

X-Plane 12 effects cover; Rain, Snow (winter conditions), scenery lighting, X-Plane 12 animated 3d trees, and the far better Global Lighting effects (you can throw dynamic clouds in there as well). The effect is huge of course on the useability of the airport, but also on the look with the now four different seasonal conditions. 

Changes to the Munich Airport in real terms are also noted here, The new T1 Terminal extension, done but not yet operational. T2 satellite comes with better refined textures, Apron 35 is now completed, as is there is also a new Fire Station and EFM building. New 3d fencing and blast fences also are in the update. Ground orthoimagery and taxiway signage have all had attention.

Like with SFO -San Francisco. ShortFinal Design has moved away from the GroundTraffic plugin to X-Codr's...  "Living Scenery Technology" plugin. It requires a new plugin in your X-Plane/Resources/Plugin's folder, but the more dynamic (and more modern tool) gives the scenery a more lively and animated feel.

You don't really have to explain or venerate the accolades to MisterX6 - ShortFinal Design's tools and sceneries, the reputation in the X-Plane Simulator well proceeds that... value is also a huge factor as well, with this exceptional massive framerate friendly scenery coming in at only US$26.95, a steal really or a very valuable investment, as it doesn't much regard in anyway you look at this airport, It's brilliant, useable, dynamic...  and now available in X-Plane 12!

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Yes! EDDM - Munich by ShortFinal Designs v1.2 is now Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :

EDDM - Munich Airport

Price Is US$26.95

Requirements

The v1.2 update is free to all current SFD EDDM-Munich purchasers, just go to your X-PlaneStore account...  Download is 770Mb

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Review System Specifications

Windows  - 12th Gen IS1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU - 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - PNY GeForce RTX 3080 10GB XLR8 - Samsung 970 EVO+ 2TB SSD

Software:   - Windows 11 Pro - X-Plane 12.06b7 (This is a beta review).

Plugins: Traffic Global - JustFlight-Traffic (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$52.99 : Global SFD plugin US$30.00

Scenery or Aircraft

- Airbus A319-100 XP12 by ToLiSS (X-Plane.OrgStore) - US$89.99

NEWS! - Scenery Released : KSAT- San Antonio International Airport by SXAD

SXAirportDesign or SXAD are an old fashioned Prepar3D scenery developer that has recently also moved into MSFS (Microsoft Flight Simulator), now they are releasing airports for the X-Plane Simulator. Product seems to be centred on the American Mid-West, with this release being KSAT- San Antonio International Airport in Texas. Other MSFS/P3D airports include El Paso, Houston Hobby, Birmingham-Shuttlesworth, Corpus Christi and Nashville, hopefully more of these excellent sceneries will be ported to the X-Plane 12 platform.

San Antonio International Airport is an international airport in San Antonio, Texas, United States. It is in Uptown Central San Antonio, about 8 miles (13 km) north of Downtown. It has three runways and covers 2,600 acres (1,100 ha). Its elevation is 809 feet (247 m) above sea level. SAT averages 260 daily departures and arrivals at its 27 gates, which serve 14 airlines flying non-stop to 53 destinations in the US and Mexico.

Detailed recreation of San Antonio International Airport include

• A detailed recreation of the entire airport and buildings
• The new car park and rental building
• 1ft/pix Seasonal photo scenery
• A significant area outside the airport modelled
• Custom night lighting
• Custom PBR ground textures
• Baked night lighting and Ambient Occlusion

This KSAT scenery is in both X-Plane 11 and X-Plane 12 versions, but the XP11 version will not have the XP12 effects and lighting shown.

Designed by SXAD

Images are courtesy of SXAD

Nice to have you onboard SXAD...  great value price as well!

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Yes! KSAT- San Antonio International Airport by SXAD is now Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :

KSAT- San Antonio International Airport

Price Is US$19.95

Requirements

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NEWS! - Scenery Released : St Helena Airport by Cami De Bellis

Saint Helena is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island 1,950 km (1,210 mi) west of the coast of south-western Africa, and 4,000 km (2,500 mi) east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.

It's famous for...  In that the British government selected Saint Helena as the place of exile for Napoleon Bonaparte, after the Battle of Waterloo, his second abdication (on 22 June 1815) and his final surrender, to Captain Frederick Maitland, on HMS Bellerophon (15 July 1815). He was taken to the island in October 1815. Initially Napoleon stayed at the Briars pavilion on the grounds of the Balcombe family's home, until his permanent residence at Longwood House was completed in December 1815. He died there on 5 May 1821.

After a list of upgraded scenery to X-Plane 12, including VNKT - Kathmandu Tribhuvan Intl, VNDP - Dolpa Airport Nepal and La Tontouta Noumea - New Caledonia. Here is a new fully created scenery of FHSH St Helena Airport from Cami de Bellis, note the extensive interview with Cami by Dominic Smith here;

Developer Spotlight Feature Cami De Bellis With a celebration of Cami's 15 Years of creating X-Plane Scenery.

NEWS! - ShortFinal design updates EDDM Munich Airport to v1.2

ShortFinal Design are known for their very impressive mega sceneries like SFO-San Francisco (X-PlaneReviews best of the year award 2022). Earlier they had released EDDM Munich Airport for X-Plane 11. Here is v1.2, and releasing now is the much wanted converted Munich for X-Plane 12, and for its more modern effects.

Munich Franz Josef Strauss (IATA: MUC, ICAO: EDDM) is the second busiest airport in Germany after Frankfurt Airport, handling 44.6 million passengers in 2017. This also makes it the seventh-busiest airport in Europe. It offers flights to 266 destinations. Munich is a hub for Lufthansa, Lufthansa Regional, Lufthansa Cityline and its Star Alliance partners. Located about 28.5 km (17.7 mi) northeast of the city of Munich, it features two passenger terminals with an additional midfield terminal, two runways as well as cargo facilities. Construction of the airport began in 1980, and it commenced operation on 17 May 1992, replacing the old Munich-Riem Airport and taking over its ICAO and IATA codes.

Extensive changes in v1.2 cover new 3d fences and trees, new apron 35, new custom airport vehicles, new X-Plane 12 mesh, added also is the EFM building and a new fire station building. Jet blast deflectors are also added, as is the new terminal 1 extension (under construction). Notable like SFO is the switch to Living Scenery Tech plugin (required for the scenery).

Version 1.2 (August 24th 2023)

NEWS! - Airwil updates RPMD - Davao International Airport - Philippines to X-Plane 12

Last year, Airwil released a few airports in an area X-Plane hasn't had a lot of attention, the Philippines. Including RPVE Boracay and RPSP Bohol Panglao... Another scenery release was RPMD - Davao International Airport on the island of Mindanao in the Southern part of the Philippines, some 800 miles (1300km) from the country’s capital Manilla, and the airport is known locally as Francisco Bangoy International Airport.

Nicely valued in price, these are great sceneries to explore a very different country and its landscapes in the X-Plane Simulator. A full X-Plane 11 review of RPMD - Davao International Airport by Stuart McGregor is available here;

Scenery Review: Davao International Airport by Airwil Sceneries

Although not officially noted, in the details it shows that the Francisco Bangoy International Airport has now been updated to X-Plane 12, with the latest effects. 

Some smaller other adjustments, like taxiworks (noted as in progress in the release version) and the improved ground textures (again to X-Plane 12) are also part of the v1.1 update.

NEWS! - X-Aerodynamics adds more Enhanced Flight Models

X-Aerodynamics are making a big impact on the X-Plane Simulator. Mostly at first it was behind the scenes on tweaking the dynamics of payware aircraft, they are good at it, and the brand of X-Aerodynamics is growing with each release.

In June, X-Aerodynamics released an "Enhanced Flight Model" for the Laminar Research (default X-Plane 12) Cirrus SR-22. Here now are more flight model versions of the aircraft with now 3 Cirrus models: SR22 (original), SR20, and SR22T (Turbo) noted as version v2.0.

SR20: NEW. Same basic aircraft, but with a smaller engine and reduced weight. This model is especially popular for pilot training.

SR22: This is the 'standard' model today, and the basis of the stock X-plane model.

SR22T: NEW. Again the same basic aircraft, but with a turbocharged engine and higher weights. For pilots who need higher cruise and climb performance. It is certified up to 25,000ft, but it is capable of flying much higher if certification means nothing to you!

• Utilizes the excellent SR22 graphics and sounds included with X-plane 12 by Laminar Research.
• Improved ground handling, with ‘springy’ main gear, as in the real aircraft.
• Cruise speeds accurate across all altitudes and power settings.
• Accurate maximum speeds.
• Accurate stall speeds, flap up or down.
• Correct rates of climb.
• Accurate take-off and landing distances.
• Accurate ‘feel’ and handling.
• Accurate fuel consumption at all altitudes and power settings.
• Accurate wing airfoils for accurate handling (stock uses the same airfoil as the C-172!).
• ‘Cuffed’ wing modelled in airfoils and geometry – outer wing stalls after inboard wing, so that full control is maintained.
• Aircraft CG and payload weights moved to accurate locations.
• Tail and all controls adjusted to correct shapes, areas, and deflections.
• Fuselage shape and drag revised.
• Increased flight model detail throughout.
• No plugins to ‘force’ the flight model.
• No hidden parts.
• No cheating the sim.

 

This package is a set of new flight dynamics that connects to the already graphically excellent SR22 that comes with X-plane.

X-Aerodynamics has researched and prepared extensively to develop the most accurate and thorough SR22 flight dynamics yet seen for desktop flight simulation.

While the stock SR22 is very good graphically, audibly and so on, the flight dynamics have some limitations.

 

Important: This an upgrade of the stock (default) Cirrus SR22 that comes with X-Plane 12. No other purchase is necessary to use it. And here you can just get maximum accuracy and careful tuning to get the full potential out of an X-Plane aircraft!

Earlier Purchasers of the X-Aerodynamic Enhanced Flight Model, can update to v2.0 for free, just go to your X-Plane.OrgStore Account.

Images are courtesy of X-Aerodynamics

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The Laminar Cirrus SR-22 Enhanced Flight Model is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore!... Here:

 

Laminar Cirrus SR-22 Enhanced Flight Model

Price is US$19.99

You Save:$5.00(20%)

 

Requirements

X-Plane 12 

Linux, Mac, and Windows

4 GB  VRAM Minimum - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended

Current version : 2.0 (August 18th 2023)

Please follow the installation instructions carefully.

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News by Stephen Dutton

19th August 2023

Copyright©2023: 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 Right Reserved.

 

New Skunkcrafts Standalone Updater Client v3.0

The X-Plane Simulator first got an Updater Client with FlightFactor, and the X-Updater application back in 2018. Based on Java, the application could remotely up date aircraft files directly to the installed folder. First it scanned the current files in the folder, then compared the list with the one on the developers application, the missing files were then uploaded to the users folder, and the older files were then removed. The system allowed the user of not having to download the full aircraft package (say from the X-Plane.OrgStore) every time there was an update. Biggest savings were when the developer want to do a quick, or urgent update or patch. The Updater Client could do the job far quicker and remotely for you.

Personally I didn't use X-Updater in the early years. It had a habit of not downloading and inserting the files "Cleanly", so I was always trying to fly buggy, file damaged aircraft, a few of those and I always then went back to the full complete download from the Store to be safe of a clean download.

Later came the Skunkcrafts Updater by Lionel Zamouth. The Skunkcrafts Updater was slightly different from X-Updater, in that it was created as an X-Plane Plugin Application, so it sat in your Resources/Plugin Folder. It worked, but you had had to switch out of your current loaded aircraft to update it, it was a little slow as well, in processing the ever growing list of aircraft.

So here is a new version of the Skunkcrafts Updater Client v3.0. It is a slightly different version in that it is now a desktop Application and not a Plugin Application. The new updater has been by Lionel Zamouth completely written from scratch in go with the fyne UI library and takes advantage of concurrency, so allowing up to 32 simultaneous downloads (configurable). The Application is available for Windows 10/11 (.exe), MacOS (both Intel and Apple Silicon.app) and GNU/Linux (tested on Ubuntu 22.04) (.lin) and you place the required app file into your main X-Plane root folder...  On MacOS you must authorise the app for it to run through Settings/Security.

Clicking on the Updater file will activate it, and then you can save the Icon to the Taskbar (windows) for easy use.

The interface format is the same, if slightly more modern in look and feel, but you use it exactly the same way as before...

You can "Rescan all local Configurations" to check for new additions to the aircraft folder (Sceneries and Plugins can also be updated), then "Check all available Updates" to see if any aircraft need updating...  of which the updater will show on the list. Finally "Update or repair all Addons" will go through the list and do the remote updating of the files. You can of course update any single aircraft, by selecting that aircraft and doing the singular "Update or repair all Addons" selection.

When all done, everything in the list should be green, and successfully updated.

There are a few options you can choose from. One is the amount of concurrent downloads you can use (to 32) and the text size of the interface.

Several enhancements are very noticeable...  you don't have to close an aircraft now to update it, or mostly you would usually run the v3.0 Skunkcrafts app before you run the X-Plane Application. It is FAST, seriously Skunkcrafts is now far faster than before, and the (confusing) BETA logo is now more prominent and accessible. The Application feels far, far more sturdy as well, it works fast and clean for me. So it is a very good update to the tool.

Overall all Updater Client tools have evolved very well over the last few years from their buggy beginnings. More reliable, and yes even I is using them on a regular basis without now downloading the complete file package. This is a very nice, even welcome update to the Skunkcrafts Client tool.

You can download this updated v3.0 Updater free here;

SkunkCrafts Updater Standalone client

Just press the "Download Link!"

NEWS! - Upgraded v1.04 Citation C-560XL by AirSim3D XP12

The excellent AirSim3D Citation C-560XL finally came to X-Plane 12 in April earlier this year and X-PlaneReviews shouted about it.

Aircraft Update : Citation C-560XL X-Plane 12 by AirSim3D  If any aircraft was suited to X-Plane 12, it was this amazing Biz Jet from AirSim3D

So here is a new class upgrade to version v1.04. Mostly to cover the changes from the Laminar v12.06 release, the Citation was one of the first to prioritise the internal lighting. A brave act as X-Plane updates could have rendered the changes useless (still could), but here in v1.04, you get the opposite effect, in certainly one of the best Biz Jet cockpits in the X-Plane Simulator.

NEWS! - TaiModels releases Oslo Gardermoen Airport for X-Plane 12

It has become a bit of a game...  what major airport would TaiModels do next? My money was on WSSS or Singapore International (again), but no TaiModels made me lose my office bet a second time by releasing Oslo, Norway...  or Oslo Gardermoen Airport. Either way it was a good choice.

From my perspective I use ENGM Gardermoen a lot in X-Plane, in personal flights and for reviews. That is the Aerosoft Oslo XP version. Very good it is, but this Aerosoft version was made for X-Plane 10, and had only a few updates for X-Plane 11. It is still very good, but also now showing it's age.

Will I switch? that is a very good question, but the attraction to a more modern version of ENGM and X-Plane 12's active dynamic winter features is a big, big drawcard, but I am also very much in regard for the Aerosoft version... a review might answer my question.

Oslo Airport Gardermoen is the main airport serving Norway’s capital, Oslo and the municipals surrounding that area. It is located about 35 km to the North of the city. A surface area of 13 sq km, two runways and more than 100 international destinations make it the busiest airport in Norway. Gardermoen also serves as a hub for Norwegian Air Shuttle, Scandinavian Airlines as well as Widerøe.

Aircraft Review : Diamond DA20-C1 Eclipse by SimSolutions

A few months ago, I reviewed the SimSolutions DA40NG Diamond Star, a four-seater General Aviation aircraft by Diamond Aircraft of Austria and later Canada. That aircraft was interesting, as it also an aircraft design that put it on a collision course with Aerobask, a very well renowned developer, of very high quality Diamond aircraft at a value price in the X-Plane Simulator. Considering the price advantage the SimSolutions DA-40NG, came off very well against the Aerobask version, but could never be really considered in the same context.

Here now released from SimSolutions is the earlier two-seater aircraft in the DA-20 C1 Eclipse, this time it comes up against not Aerobask, but X-Hanger with their X-Plane 12 Diamond Katana DA20 C1, a well done aircraft with G500 Avionics.

The DA-20 Katana/Eclipse is also a variation of the earlier two-seater Diamond HK36 Super Dimona, but that aircraft is a motor-glider, longer wings, less power and not a general use everyday aircraft of which the DA-20-C1 is. The Eclipse version of the Katana comes with rear windows for better visibility, and is powered by a 125 hp (93 kW) Continental IO-240-B engine. The aircraft entered production in 1999, and 1000+ aircraft have been produced since then.

The Super Dimona had a wingspan of 16.0 m (52 ft 6 in), cut back for the Katana to 10.87 m (35 ft 8 in), but the T-Tailplane stays the same...  so the Katana C1 possesses a higher glide ratio than many of its competitors; its glide ratio is 11:1 and the DA20-A1 is 14:1. The glider heritage comes through in the design.

...   so overall the aircraft shape and the design stays totally the same, with that long fine boom tail. The Super Dimona had a powerplant 115 hp (86 kW) Rotax 914 F3 or a F4 turbocharged engine, compare that with the more powerful 125 hp (93 kW) Continental IO-240-B engine in the Eclipse. So the same shape, bigger engine and the shorter wings sums up the changes.

The modeling of the earlier SimSolutions DA-40 was very good, but also a very clean aircraft, you get the same here, so modeled parts are part of the design, not again textured over like you would get from Aerobask, also like the DA-40, the DA-20 in many ways comes off little bit modeled in feeling, but being a plastic aircraft, or a composite airframe which is constructed of glass-carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, you can get away with that aspect, but personally I like a bit of real world feel to my aircraft.

Important are the smooth form shapes of the aircraft, which are very good here. As used are very nice tight wireframes, which show clean surface angles, and very little straight cut lines...  yes important on such a super smooth surfaces. Highlights are the inner fairings, and excellent wingtip shape to the outer lighting element. Overall I'm impressed by the detail, hence the T-Tail control arms.

Glass is very similar to the DA-40, very good, but also feels a bit thin, and also not very grazed with wear and tear.

Gear is very basic, just struts rear and the nose has the dreaded castor wheel system, so turns while taxiing are made with differential braking, with rudder steering becoming more effective as airspeed increases, so there is no steering. Struts are hard, with no suspension or hydraulics to cushion the ride, the tiny brakes are cable operated.

Unlike the SimSolutions DA-40 NG, there are no menus on the DA-20? All external options are via hotspots. There are separate wheels chocks, pitot cover, "Remove before flight" banner, nose engine cover (hard to find hotspot, left lower?) and a tank (dip) stick that works via touching the fuel filler left rear. The stick is stored on the real shelf. The Hotspot system also requires you to clean up the aircraft every time you load it up (even in the replay), which is a little time consuming and even annoying if you are flying the DA-20 C1 regularly.

So there are no weight & balances pages, fueling is done via the standard X-Plane Weight & Balance Menu. Fuel is noted as 93L or 24.5 US Gallons. Oddly there is no manual provided? only a nice and very detailed 12 page pdf checklist.

There is a one-piece bubble canopy , which is hinged at the rear, enabling easy entry using the built-in side steps. Hotspot handles are nicely done with great detailing, small stuff but authentic.

Twin seats are layback sheepskin covered, its tight in there! Notable are the twin control sticks that have been just positioned on the sheepskin, it doesn't feel or look very realistic with no base ring or separator to the seats? most control sticks have a leather cover around their base. Picky yes... but it doesn't look right, or is cheap looking.

There is a non animated pilot provided, but he is pretty scary? a sort of drug crazed zoned out Goth zombie, frightens the living daylights out of me?

The instrument panel sits high out of the cockpit, all analog, it is very nicely done. Avionics are basic and set centre. They consist of a Garmin GMA 430 Radio, Garmin GNS430 GPS and a Garmin GTX327 Transponder.

Flying instruments are the standard six in the default layout; Airspeed, Artificial Horizon, Altimeter...  second row Turn Coordinator, Heading Dial and Vertical Speed (V/S). Two more instruments make it up to a 8 pack, with RPM meter and OBS dial far right. Up top are both a DAYTRON M803 clock and a built in compass. Add also is a SUCTION dial left and the Electric TRIM setting right.

Lower is the lighting panel, Instrument and flood lighting knobs, starter switch (no key?), Avionics master, fuel pump and GEN/BAT switches. Centre bottom panel is the three phase flap switch and indicator.

Right panel are the analog gauges, 8x2 rows including; EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature), A pressure gauge (no description or manual?), Fuel Pressure, Fuel Quantity, Oil Temperature, Oil Pressure. Ampere Gauge and a Volt Gauge, below is a hour Hobb's meter. All the rows of Circuit Breakers (fuses) are non-active.

Centre console has upper; HEAT(ing) Controls (non-working), and Park Brake. Lower; Three levers for ALTERNATE, POWER (Throttle) and MIXTURE. Rudder pedals are nicely done, but toe-brake action doesn't work? odd because it is required here with the castor wheel.

Flying the Diamond DA-20 C1

First a few notes...   This is version v1.01, with an update put out on the 3rd August 23. Annoying are the amount of bugs still in here? Start up and you will get a "Sound Bank" and "Brake " issue alert box, also when you close the alert box the GNS430 then goes dark?

The developer says to turn on the GNS, click on the top left knob as like you do with a real Garmin, but it doesn't work? frantic clicking will finally start the GNS startup procedure? Looking there is no Hotspot on the knob, but to use, you just turn it on via the top left knob....  again no manual?

Park brake doesn't work well either, it will select OFF , but not ON, unless you do it manually? A second brake note is that you can't select OFF either, if the chocks are in place...  this seems to affect the Park Brake action?

The lighting in Navigation lights and Taxi/Landing lights were also attended to in the v1.01 update, but they don't work in the Simulator here as all lighting is still blank in the daytime? The strobes flash, but then very oddly? there are also a couple of other things we will see when flying...  the point is, these sort of quibbles should have been easily covered in the first update, v1.01, but they weren't and to date still have not had any attention either. Another slight annoyance as noted is that every time you start up, you have to hide all the hotspot external static elements, and change the livery back to one you last used, it all gets a little wearing.

There is a "Primer Pump" switch to obviously prime the fuel. It works by just holding it down, then it primes by itself (3 pumps is about right)...  and there is no key (missing) in the starter switch of which you just turn to start the IO-240-B engine. Primed and with the Mixture RICH, the DA-20 will start quite easily, again you don't have to prime if the engine is hot, only cold.

If being a regular reader, you may know my feelings towards free wheels, or taildraggers, castor steering...  I seriously don't like them. But there is a lot of free travel and a soft touch here on the toe-brakes will guide the DA-20 quite easily, mostly your touching lightly the right rear wheel, as there is already a powerful asymmetric thrust from the propeller even on the ground.

Keep the speed low, and a feather touch on the toe-brake, and you can taxi quite easily. Only when I lined up on KLAL (Lakeland) Rwy 23, only then did the caster wheel go side on whonky.

Power up and first the focus was on getting the Diamond straight, so a slight 17,000 RPM to get you rolling, then feel the brakes and then finally the rudder becomes active around 60 knts, it's tricky but doable.

Flaps one, takeoff (rotate) is around 80 knts or around the end of the white flap indicator...  plenty of power at 27,000 RPM, and a good rate of climb at 5.1 m/s (1,000 ft/min), but on average you would use 500 fpm-700 fpm.

Being a very small light Sporty aircraft it is all feet and light touch stick. The DA-20 is VERY responsive, but clean in its manoeuvres, almost aerobatic in feel. Flying notes include...

"The wings have washout, which causes the wing roots to stall in advance of the wingtips, which has the effect of the ailerons being fully effective well after the onset of a primary stall condition. Other unfavourable flight conditions are often guarded against, such as a wing drop, which may be produced only as a consequence of prolonged and excessive elevator application during a steep climbing turn, and can be rectified by the relaxation of back pressure. The control forces across all regimes are however very well-balanced, which reportedly reduces the frequency to which trimming of the control surfaces may need to be performed." The aspect of having basically glider wings on a General Aviation aircraft is felt, so sitting reclining, the Eclipse has a sort of glider aspect feel about it.

Trimmed out, the DA-20 still wanted to climb, so small inputs were required to keep your height correct, same with your heading...  with the strong right pushing asymmetric thrust, you are always wanting to pull the aircraft back to the required heading, a slight roll or even a slight weight on the rudder will do that, but it gets tiring after a while, so you wish for a rudder trim to take the load off the controls for a while.

If you change the heading dial to help in course corrections, then there is a trick to realign the dial back with the compass... you hit the key D, and it will automatically realign the heading.

But once fully trimmed and slight pressure on the stick, you can settle down and cruise along quite nicely... It's not fast by any means is this Eclipse, but capable; Cruise speed is 256 km/h (159 mph, 138 kn), with a Range of 1,013 km (629 mi, 547 nmi) with 30 minute reserve, and quite a high Service Ceiling at 4,000 m (13,120 ft). In reality you would never fly that high, but using the glider capabilities, it is allowable to climb and slightly soar.

Sounds? Very good actually. Not your high fidelity sounds, but certainly well done, as you get the real aural feel of the Continental donk in the front and changes through the throttle range. The DA-20 in this configuration is know to be quite quiet in the cabin, even headsets are sometimes are not used in the real aircraft to drown out the sounds.

Lighting

There are two instrument panel lighting adjustment knobs. One for the glareshield LED cast, and another for the Avionics. Overall the Instrument panel looks excellent, and nicely adjustable. Another panel switch gives you a overhead MAP light.

You get the glow of the MAP light, but not the source light, up and behind you?

With the darker environment you can finally see the Navigation, Landing and Taxi lights...  but they are still weak, and the main lights are not refined, just blobs of light. The SimSolutions DA-40 NG was very poor in the lighting department, its not much better here?

Not related, but the updated X-Plane v12.06 lighting at dusk here was sensational, very impressed.

Cruising along (nicely) and the view out of the Diamond is very good, the large bubble canopy gives you a very wide aspect view of the air. To the rear the cone like rear shelf is well done, as is the mottled fibreglass internal shell is also very realistic. Note the small slide windows that can be opened on the ground.

Nearing the coast, western South Florida, it is time to descend. I was ready for the action that when just adjusting the trim, it wouldn't make me go down? so you actually also have to reduce the throttle power to control the descent as well, less throttle... more vertical descent speed, more throttle and up goes the nose. Because the DA-20 is a small (sporty) machine it acts like that, but those long slender wings are built for soaring lift as well, so you have to adjust you flying skills to that aspect.

My destination is KFMY Fort Myers. Oddly I haven't been using Page Field a lot lately, but the neighbouring Southwest Florida (I flew the DA-40 there), but this time I wanted to check out KFMY for a change...  there is a stadium hold point at CALOO, before going into ILS (IFMY 110.70) on the Rwy 05 Approach.

So I track into the holding track and parallel O5 (231º) then go around the western holding track turn directly into the 05 ILS...  it is a long, long sweeping turn...

...   until I use the OBS cross-lines to line up the runway, hidden well out in front of me. I'm not doing a ILS landing, as I don't have a autopilot (I wouldn't use that anyway), but use the OBS as a guide only. No VOR pointers are also really a thing I miss in here. Flaps down!

They are huge long deep flaps for such a small machine, three settings (not marked?) is UP-MIDDLE-DOWN. They don't give you a lift on deployment of which I expected, but you can control the speed quite easy around 68 knts. This IS a light SPORTS aircraft but coming over the fence I got a short of flutter that the aircraft was flying on a cushion of air? I could control it, but it was weird, a high ground effect feeling...

....  my guess it is those long thin wings reacting to the wind, wanting to soar...  it was an usual feeling, but very authentic. 60 knts and you are now gliding down to the runway, nice control...  again very gliderish, that stick and rudder control.

Nice flare, nose up and a lovely sink down to the runway as the speed ran off, Stall speed is 45 knts (83 km/h, 52 mph), but you can use the stall point to get the right descent speed.

Obviously I was worried about the castor steering... but brake cleanly with both wheels and you will stay on the line, even turning around at the end was expertly done, by using one wheel over the other...  I'm getting good at this!

Then to the GA ramp by the Club House and engine shutdown.

Liveries

There is one (white) blank and seven liveries with the DA-20 C1, all pretty much the same flow design with different colours.

________________

Summary

This DA-20 C1 Eclipse is the second Diamond aircraft from SimSolutions after the earlier DA-40 NG released back in April 2023. The DA-20 Katana/Eclipse is also a variation of the earlier two-seater Diamond HK36 Super Dimona, but that aircraft is a motor-glider, longer wings, less power and not a general use everyday aircraft of which the DA-20-C1 is. It is powered by a 125 hp (93 kW) Continental IO-240-B engine.

There are a lot of similarities between the two aircraft of the DA-20 and DA-40. In the styling and the modeling, both are very well done, but in a modeling way and not in a model and texture design, so the DA-20 comes across as clean. Another difference is that there are no menus here (no manual either?), but hotspots for external elements, fuel stick and opening canopy. Annoyingly you have to clear them all every time you want to fly, even in the replay?

Overall the DA-20 C1 Eclipse is a very nice aircraft with gliderish tendencies, not a bad thing, and different aspect to flying the aircraft, basic, but very rudder and stick in feel and touch. The castor nose wheel is for once forgiving if you can be light on the toe-brakes, but the Goth looking pilot is very horrible to look at and not in keeping with the developers skills (feels very last minute)...  overall the aircraft is sound, but has a few glaring bugs that should have been covered by the developer a month after release, also like the DA-40 NG it has very poor lighting (Instrument panel is very good), but everything else is dismal.

Do I like the DA-20 C1. Yes absolutely, great value at today's prices, but the bugs and annoying static elements cloud a nice aircraft here, the Eclipse is a nice aircraft to fly, and to catch that soaring wind...     you will enjoy the experience!

NEWS! - COWS DA-42 closer to release

Very early into 2023 there was an an announcement from a new development team COWS...  COWS? Yes an odd name but it represents "Creator Of WorldS", still odd, but anyway. It is a new development team that consists of four developers; Mitchell (3D artist), Jacob (Programmer), Boris (Sounds: FMOD & WWise) and Peter (3D, branding & admin). Their first product for the X-Plane 12 Simulator is a Diamond DA-42, later to be also ported to the MSFS platform.

For Diamond aircraft we have always revered Aerobask, known for their excellent quality, and value pricing. No price or release date of the forthcoming COWS DA-42 has yet been announced, but that date is now finally getting closer... via the release of new new images of the aircraft and a comprehensive look at the custom avionics.

Notes on the release of the Diamond DA-42 are breathtaking in a little bit of promotion. But the aspects are sound, from "The project brings the best of both worlds rarely seen together in X-Plane: a robust bespoke system simulation and a beautiful, and accurate visual model".

The flight model, electrics, fuel, engine control units, de-ice system are all carefully recreated based on the aircraft’s manuals and first hand experience flying the real life aircraft. 
The flight model has been tuned to accurately match performance tables and it is now performing so close to the real plane, you can handle it just as anyone would in the real world and it will do the exact same things. The performance of the flightmodel is validated through the shared experience of flying the real aircraft from me, Jacob, and our testers. All flew DA42s in the real world, and the experience is used to fine tune the flight model appropriately.

Notable is the major feature of the custom Garmin G1000NXi. This avionics package has been recreated using manuals, first hand experience and Garmin software. This means it can be as accurate to the real Garmin as possible. Everything that the real Garmin can do, our Garmin will also do. A big proclamation, but it will be very nice to move on from the standard installation of the Laminar G1000 default installation. Here is an excellent video demo of the G1000NXi's capablities.

The Garmin G1000NXi does indeed look quite impressive, and obviously once released...  X-PlaneReviews will do a comprehensive review of the DA-42.

Keep an eye on X-PlaneReviews NEWS! for more announcements of the COWS Diamond DA-42.

Images and videos are courtesy of COWS

NEWS! - Magknight Boeing 787 Aviators Edition to X-Plane 12

Like a lot of developers, Magknight initially created a flyable X-Plane 12 version (on 31st May) of the Dreamliner, but overall it was a very basic conversion. Again most developers then followed up with a fully revised X-Plane 12 version 1.10 and that is what we have here from Magknight for their Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Notes include not only the adjustments to the usual X-Plane 12 features, like dynamics, lighting and weather rain effects. But also attention to bugs that have plagued the aircraft for awhile... like the consistent throttle spoiling, VNAV autopilot issues, autopilot not predicting waypoints and so on... also there has been improvements to the wingflex, landing gear and finally better improved GE engines. The full changelog list is below.

Version 12 (May 31st 2023)

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is an American wide-body jet airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After dropping its unconventional Sonic Cruiser project, Boeing announced the conventional 7E7 on January 29, 2003, which focused largely on efficiency. The program was launched on April 26, 2004, with an order for 50 aircraft from All Nippon Airways (ANA), targeting a 2008 introduction. On July 8, 2007, a prototype 787 was rolled out without major operating systems, and then the aircraft experienced multiple delays until its maiden flight on December 15, 2009. Type certification was received in August 2011 and the first 787-8 was delivered in September 2011 before entering commercial service on October 26, 2011, with ANA.

At launch, Boeing targeted the 787 with 20% less fuel burn than replaced aircraft like the Boeing 767, carrying 200 to 300 passengers on point-to-point routes up to 8,500 nautical miles [nmi] (15,700 km; 9,800 mi), a shift from hub-and-spoke travel. The twinjet is powered by General Electric GEnx or Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 high-bypass turbofans. It is the first airliner with an airframe primarily made of composite materials and makes extensive use of electrical systems. Externally, it is recognizable by its four-window cockpit, raked wingtips, and noise-reducing chevrons on its engine nacelles. Development and production rely increasingly on subcontractors around the world, with final assembly at Boeing South Carolina in North Charleston, after being assembled in the Boeing Everett Factory in Washington until March 2021.

Currently there is also a 20% sale on this aircraft.

_________________

Yes! the Boeing 787-900 Aviator Edition Dreamliner XP12 by Magknight is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :

B787-9 Aviator Edition

Price is US$44.95 (You Save:$11.00(20%))

Current purchasers can go to their X-Plane.OrgStore account and download the new X-Plane 12 version 1.10

Requirements

X-Plane 12 or X-Plane 11

Windows, Mac or Linux

4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM recommended

Download Size:  1.2 GB

Current version : XP12: 1.1 (August 5th 2023)   XP:11: 1.8

NEWS! - Air Hauler 2 by Just Flight updated to v3.0.0.13

Aircraft Simulators are great, great for flying, and also great to experience travel to all parts of the globe. But like in life, if you don't have a purpose or focus, then it can in time then slowly become boring. This where a clever tool in Air Hauler comes in.

Air Hauler puts you in complete control of your own freight and passenger company - you take charge of operations both in the boardroom and in the cockpit. You can also 'go global' and create your own Virtual Airline and recruit other AH2 pilots to fly for you with attractive payouts, or you can join another pilot’s booming airline and fly for that alongside your own company. In other words your flying online with a the purpose of putting you own aircraft to work.

As the pilot charged with delivering the goods or passengers on time, you can decide to fly a job in multiple legs or stop anywhere enroute for refuelling or maintenance. Create your regular passenger routes and look out for special humanitarian missions. Contend with real-world weather conditions if you want the extra challenge and keep a watchful eye on your fuel economy. The level of complexity is also up to you - simply fly jobs between bases and buy or lease aircraft, or carve out a career in the air freight or airline industry by hiring AI pilots and risking everything on loans to fill up your dream hangar. Its fun, and gives you a focus for your everyday flying.

The first version of Air Hauler was released June 9th 2020. This is the latest update, or updates as there are two releases with the same v3.0.0.13 on the same day. Obviously the most important aspect of the v3.0.0.13 release is that it is now for X-Plane 12, and Air Hauler is for Windows only.

v3.0.0.13  (March 30th 2022)

• Now supports XP12 (minimum version 11.50+)

- Fixed issue whereby the cargo loading screen buttons would not be visible

- Fixed issue whereby the "Take out new loan" button would not be visible

 

AIR HAULER 2 FEATURES
Cargo jobs – a wide variety of job types, from flying high-tech electronic equipment to potatoes and fruit, with differing rates of pay, from hundreds to hundreds of thousands!
Passenger operations – fly single passenger jobs between any airport you choose, or set up a schedule and routes for your airline to fly. You can let your AI pilots fly these routes or you can fly any of them at any time.
Missions - take missions from new contacts you meet as you travel to new airports and destinations.
Virtual Airlines – create your own Virtual Airline and recruit other AH2 pilots from around the world to fly passenger and cargo jobs!  Advertise your airline on the Air Hauler 2 Hiring Bulletin Board. Accept and fly jobs from the Global Job Board and compete with other airlines for the best hauls.
Humanitarian missions - respond to real-world disasters by manufacturing and delivering relief supplies to local airports.
AI pilot skills tree system – AI pilots can be ‘trained’ in over 18 different skills which bring benefits to your company. As the AI pilots improve, they ‘level up’ in rank which gives them more skill points to spend. There is a skill tree which has five different tracks with individual skills in each and these can be unlocked by spending points. So, for example, an AI pilot who has five points in ‘Bungee Warrior’ will be subject to less in-flight cargo damage as a result of rough handling than one who has less (or no) points in that skill. Other examples are ‘Rocketman’, which provides a more efficient cruise (lower fuel costs), and ‘Short Stripper’ which lowers the runway landing requirements for AI pilots.
Take missions from clients at airports – supply them with rare commodities or perform photo recon flights or private charter flights.
Commodity trading – buy and sell commodities rather than just move them for clients. Make your own fortune trading between airports!
Upgrade your bases – upgrade them with fuel depots and commodity storage facilities, allowing you to hedge fuel prices and store commodities long term.
Factories and production – build factories at your bases and use them to produce desirable commodities which can’t be bought on the open market.
Find aircraft parts from vendors – find these at larger airports and use them to repair your fleet or build new aircraft yourself rather than buying them!
Type rating system – get qualified on aircraft before you or your AI pilots can fly them.
Buy and fly aircraft in your personal fleet – you can also transfer money from your company into your own personal account.
Buy new aircraft direct from the manufacturer, or buy second hand – have the aircraft shipped to you or go and collect them yourself and fly them home.
Map views with great circle routes – several map tile choices are available.

NEWS! - Updated to v2...  AKD Studio Gulfstream 550 v2 - The Ultimate Business Jet

Here is a full version update to the Gulfstream 550 to version v2 by AKD Studios. A significant overhaul of the aircraft covers; a completely overhauled external model, a new custom MCDU (Multi-Function Control and Display Unit), improved textures and a Mango Studios revised sound FMOD package...  all of the above are also available in both X-Plane 11 and X-Plane 12 versions.

• Completely overhauled model
• Added Custom MCDU(XP12/XP11)
• Added Custom VNAV with custom RNAV approaches(XP12/XP11)
• Added new FMOD sounds(by:Mango Studios)(XP12/XP11)
• Added improved textures(XP12/XP11)
• Added some improvements in 3D Models(XP12/XP11)
• Added some system improvements(XP12/XP11)
• Added NEW Checklist Display Controller page(XP12/XP11)
• Tuned flight model, autopilot(XP12/XP11)

A later update v2.02 covered a bug and fix updated these items, when they were also covered...

The Gulfstream G550 is a business jet aircraft produced by General Dynamics' Gulfstream Aerospace unit in Savannah, Georgia, US. The certification designation is GV-SP. A version with reduced fuel capacity was marketed as the G500. Gulfstream ceased production of the G550 in July 2021.

The G550 (GV-SP) with improved engines received its FAA type certificate on August 14, 2003. In 2014, Gulfstream looked at a re-engine with the Rolls-Royce Pearl BR700 development announced in May 2018 for the new Global Express 5500 and 6500 variants but preferred the BR725-powered, 7,500 nmi G650. The 500th Gulfstream G550 aircraft was delivered in May 2015. (wikipedia)