Sky Simulations Adds Military Variants of DC-9

By popular demand, Sky Simulations has added some new military variants to their DC-9.  These include the C-9A Nightingale aeromedical and evacuation aircraft (USAF), the C-9B Skytrain II passenger/cargo transport (USN/USMC), and the VC-9C VIP transport (USAF).  All of these are available at no charge to existing Sky Simulations DC-9 customers, and are now included with new purchases.  Enjoy!

Flight Sim Labs Shows Off A320-X Screenshots

Check them out here.

Wow - so many neat projects in the pipe.  It's a great time to be a simmer!

External Views of the PMDG 777

PMDG gave us some additional eye candy of their 777, with these screenshots of the external model.  It appears that the 777-200LR will be the initial base model, with the 777-300ER coming along later as an expansion.  Can't wait to hear more on these from the PMDG team!

GNU Aerospace: Reborn from the Ashes of ACES?

There was another recent interesting announcement in the world of flight simulation this week.  The GNU Aerospace project has been announced.  The goal of the project appears to be to create a new development paradigm for flight simulation, using the "crowd funding" model: the products will be free, but interested customers can sign up to sponsor and fund development of the product.  The initial product will be known as TestPilot, which appears to be intended to be an open source drop-in replacement for FSX.  It will be compatible with FSX add-ons, but will reimplement and update the sim engine's graphics, effects, and interfaces such as SimConnect.  It seems unclear how they are going about this - not sure whether it will be a scratch effort, or whether they will leverage existing open source projects such as GNU FlightGear.  I will have to do some more investigation into this, but it looks very interesting.

Oh, they have recruited two former ACES developers to contribute to the project, too!

Flight Sim Labs Discusses A320-X

Also today, Flight Sim Labs was due to present some additional details about their upcoming Airbus A320 series, which seems to have been tentatively dubbed the A320-X.  I cannot find any specifics about their presentation at the 10th German Flight Simulation Conference yet, which may indicate that there was not much news to tell at this point.  If I run across any details or screenshots from their presentation, I will update this post.

As a refresher, Flight Sim Labs was founded by PMDG alumnus Lefteris Kalamaris, and their first product was the highly-regarded Concorde-X.  Now they have set their sights on an apparent PMDG-level simulation of the Airbus series, which will be very interesting to watch.

UPDATE - FSL has promised to publish an update on the Airbus series as presented at the Munich conference, once everyone has returned home.  Word in the AVSIM forums from those who attended is that FSL demoed a working model of the A320 at the conference, and they expect to release it to the public sometime around November.

PMDG Makes Big Announcements Today

PMDG showed up at the 10th German Flight Simulator Conference (sponsored by Aerosoft) in Munich today, and made quite a splash.  Captain Robert Randazzo showed off some screenshots of the 777, and they look very exciting.

Now, for the best part: apparently, PMDG has been holding out on us.  The 777 is nearly ready for beta stage!  Robert expects beta testing to begin within about two months.  Apparently, it will not be long before the first PMDG 777 models begin to take flight in our virtual skies.  No details yet on pricing, or expansion models, but I will be keenly watching PMDG for more information about the 777 in the coming months.

"But wait -- there's more!"

As has been widely rumored, PMDG has also been working on a refresh of the 747X "Queen of the Skies" product as well.  It is tentatively known as the 747 2.0, and will cover both the 747-400 and 747-8 models.  The same technology and processes used to model the NGX and 777 have also been incorporated in the 747 2.0, which should make for an exciting refresh of this product.  Robert says that they expect to have the 747 2.0 out to the masses about two months after the release of the 777.

Some exciting times for PMDG fans!

CoolSky/McPhat Studios Shows Off Some DC-9 Tails

Elsewhere, CoolSky and McPhat Studios have recently been teasing us with some screenshots of several repaints (tails only) from their upcoming DC-9.  This is usually a very good sign...generally, the fact that they are doing repaints now means that most of the other major items are out of the way.  We could see a release of this one very soonish.