Third-party developers had news to share about upcoming add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator, including aircraft and scenery.
We start with the reveal of new screenshots and a development update about Just Flight's mighty Cold War-era bomber Avro Vulcan.
Since our latest update, our modelling and texturing artists have been hard at work fixing any bugs as well as adding some new features and customisation options that weren’t present in our previous simulations of the Vulcan. We do still have a couple of new additions to add here, so we’ll save all of these for a future in-development update.
Our livery artist has now supplied all 18 liveries that will be included in the Vulcan package. These highly detailed 8K liveries cover the Vulcan’s many operational squadrons from early in its service life, right the way through to its final retirement from the RAF Vulcan Display Flight in 1992. A significant amount of research has been undertaken to ensure all liveries are as accurate as possible with period correct roundels, squadron logos, and equipment configurations. We have also included a few short lived liveries, including XM607 with its dark grey belly from the Black Buck missions, and a representation of the “Kiwi” zapped onto the RAF roundel of XH562, which was applied when the aircraft visited New Zealand in 1972. We hope you enjoy the attached screenshots showing a selection of the liveries in the simulator.
Work on the systems coding has been temporarily halted in the run up to the F28 Professional release, but will resume shortly. The aircraft is already in an advanced state with the majority of systems already functional, so the remainder of the time allotted for systems coding will be spent fine0tuning the code and adding new features. To that end we are very confident this will be the most complete simulation of a Vulcan bomber that has ever been developed for a flight simulator!
the required work on integrating the Vulcan’s iconic sound set into the simulator is also due to begin in the coming weeks which promises to raise the bar for sound quality in MSFS. We cannot wait to show you how incredible the Vulcan is going to sound in the simulator!
Work has continued on the flight model, with special emphasis taken to replicate the Vulcan’s unique flight characteristics, including the ability to hold the nose wheel off the ground during the landing roll to provide aerodynamic braking.
We also hear from Orbx, which revealed two upcoming rural airfields in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, Harvey Field (S43) in Snohomish, Washington, and the nearby First Air Field (W16) in Monroe.
Developed by Andreas Hegi, they will be released as a single package for Microsoft Flight Simulator offering the following features:
- Complete dynamic & emissive night lighting
- Full PBR UHD texturing
- Incredibly detailed, high-definition rendition
- Photo-realistic HD textures created from on-site photography to provide the most immersive experience possible
- Perfect landing challenges for the VFR fliers
We also get a few screenshots, which you can enjoy below.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is currently available for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, including Game Pass. If you'd like to learn more, you should stay tuned on TechRaptor as we have daily Microsoft Flight Simulator news to keep you updated on the many add-ons coming and released for the sim.
We have also recently interviewed Microsoft's Jorg Neumann about the Antonov An-225 "Mriya" and iniBuilds' CEO Ubaid Mussa on the work of the popular third-party developer.
If you're interested in reviews, you can check out Orbx's Stockholm Arlanda and Oslo Gardermoen Airports, iniBuilds' New York-JFK Airport, and RHDSimulations' Boeing 767-300ER.
