This week was no doubt a crucial seven days for many major aircraft developers. We saw the mammoth release for HotStart’s first product, the TBM-900, the surprise reveal of the FlightFactor 767 expansion pack, and a series of lovely previews from Attitude Simulations and AFM’s partnership “TorqueSim”.

HotStart is off to a hot start

The TBM-900 takes the main spotlight this week. Released yesterday, HotStart’s first product is branded as part of X-Aviation’s family of high-end “Take Command!” aircraft simulation series. Users are welcomed to stunning visuals and an incredibly detailed system simulation. Saso Kiselkov, the project’s programmer has frequently live-streamed his progress on the TBM-900 and Goran Matovina has frequently shown progressions of his craftsmanship on the TBM’s visuals.

Priced at $65, the aircraft release has also raised some eyebrows for its asking price, for it is a small business turboprop with an airliner simulation’s price tag. Nonetheless, knowing X-Aviation and its developers, each product is carefully developed with the utmost accuracy, dedication, and love.

‍

ATR-72 Cockpit Textures

Speaking of HotStart, one other hot product to come to X-Plane is MilViz’s well publicised ATR 72, developed in conjunction with other simulators on the ESP platform. The aircraft is highly desired in X-Plane as the only other ATR add-on is the ageing McPhat ATR product (which was designed for X-Plane 10). Two screenshots of the interior modelling and texturing were showcased on their Facebook page, highlighting wear and tear around the panel edges:

The previews show that the cockpit buttons and knobs aren’t imported yet, but they, of course, will come in time.

Concorde

Colimata have provided more details about their upcoming Concorde, namely the first interior shots of the “paraffin pencil”. COLIMATA have stated they aim to animate and make as much of the cockpit as interactive as possible, and that the flight model is in an early stage but will be refined.

The planned early access release is around March 2019, to celebrate Concorde’s 50 years of Concorde.

OpenSceneryX 3.0

The popular freeware library OpenSceneryX has been updated to version 3. V3 brings a host of new items, many of which came from the RE_Library, which has now been absorbed into OSX. Other modifications include the updating of numerous old objects, including animals, which have been around since X-Plane 7.

FlightFactor 767 expansion enters beta

The FlightFactor team has teased the upcoming expansion pack for the 767. In a post on XPD, beta-tester Emma Bentley showcased the 767-200. More variants would also come with the expansion, namely a freighter version, complete with all different engine options and flight dynamics for all three variants.

JustSim EBBR released

Following JustSim's tradition of virtually simultaneous Prepar3D/X-Plane releases, Brussels XP released just a few hours ago. Back in September, we reported on the announcement of EBBR for both sims. Unfortunately, we heard very little about the X-Plane version since the P3D release, something strangely out-of-character from JustSim. Nonetheless, the scenery can be picked up here for $25.60.

SimCrew announce Vans RV-7

SimCrew have announced their very first X-Plane 11 aircraft, the Vans RV-7. Due to the experimental nature of the RV-7, SimCrew plan to allow for the user to switch between tail-dragger and full nose gear configs, as well as between two and three propeller blades.

Check out the previews below:

BlueSkyStar announce Rotate MD-80 sound pack

BlueSkyStar has announced their next project, a soundpack for the Rotate MD-80, on their Facebook page. BlueSkyStar recently made headlines with the release of V1.0 of their Flight Factor A320 sound pack.

TorqueSim’s shows Pocket Rocket in-sim

TorqueSim have shown the Pocket Rocket in-sim for the first time in their Facebook group. The finishing touches are being applied to the texturing, with only the systems, animations, and FMOD sounds left to do.

That’s all for this week!

As always, you can give us some feedback on our Facebook page, or via the contact form here.

Happy flying - and have a wonderful day!