Flight Simulation developers shared news today, including aircraft and airports for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and X-Plane 12.
Simulation Daily publishes a roundup every day for all the news across the flight simulation field, helping you keep up to date with the ins and outs of the industry.
Before we move on to the flight simulation news, make sure to check out today’s episode of our “Can You Guess this Airport?” video series and see if you can identify the airport portrayed.
Without further ado, I leave you with today’s flight simulation news. Enjoy!
Dassault Rafale for MSFS 2024 Releasing Next Week: Pricing and Details Announced
Azurpoly revealed a product page for its officially licensed Dassault Rafale C for MSFS 2024, which we learn will release next week on the official in-sim marketplace for both PC and Xbox. It’ll come to third-party stores “over the next few weeks.”
The developer clarifies, as expected, that the armament will be only cosmetic and non-functional in the official marketplace release. That being said, you can enable its functionality via a patch that will be downloadable from the developer’s website, but only on PC.
Azurpoly also hopes to be able to release the aircraft on PS5 soon.
Pricing will be as follows:
- Rafale C, including 14 liveries: $44.99
- Special Livery Pack, including 6 liveries: $4.99
- Rafale Solo Display Livery Pack, including 9 liveries: $4.99
- Tiger Meet Livery Pack, including 7 liveries: $4.99
- Rafale C Bundle, including the base aircraft and all three livery packs: $49.99
You can expect the following features.
3D / Textures / Animations
- Complete and highly detailed 3D model
- 36 liveries, including a selection of operational and special schemes, split into several livery packs
- Highly optimized textures to ensure strong performance, including on consoles
- Optimized 3D model using LODs and the MSFS 2024 modular aircraft system, with more than 60 individual attachments
- Animated canopy, airbrake, landing gear, control surfaces, and external elements
- High-quality cockpit modeling with detailed materials, wear and labels
- Displayable mechanic avatar for pre-flight inspection
- Simulated tire deformation
- Canards and elevons animated according to flight physics and FBW logic
- Animated angle-of-attack sensors reacting to current aircraft parameters
- Animated front-sector optics during target tracking
- 25+ interactive accessories, including weapons, smoke pods, covers, protections, ladder, and more
- Fully custom animated Rafale pilot with natural head movements
- Fully custom Rafale helmet, based on the Gallet LA100
Flight dynamics
- Flight model developed alongside Rafale pilots, with a focus on reproducing the aircraft’s specific handling characteristics
- Fully custom fly-by-wire (FBW) system, designed to get as close as possible to a realistic delta-wing simulation without relying on the default MSFS FBW implementation
- Custom flight-envelope protections and control laws
- Multiple simulated FBW modes, with different maximum G limits depending on aircraft configuration and flight conditions
- Payload has a direct impact on aircraft weight, drag, balance, and performance
- Functional terrain-following system based on actual topography
- Custom autopilot with all its modes, including altitude hold, heading hold, flight-plan following, and more
- Custom autothrottle, including Rafale’s specific angle-of-attack hold mode
- Functional recovery system for spatial disorientation situations
Systems
- Reproduced electrical system with its main components and operating logic
- Custom fuel system with automatic fuel transfer logic and external fuel dumping
- Custom hydraulic and pneumatic systems based on the real aircraft architecture
- Partially implemented radar logic
- Numerous controller bindings associated with HOTAS buttons, cockpit switches, and aircraft systems
Avionics
- Reproduced avionics suite with four main screens and four auxiliary screens
- Custom flight plan management system with support for imported flight plans
- Custom alarm and warning system integrated into the avionics suite
- Advanced head-up display with:
- WASM optimization to ensure smooth display even at lower FPS
- Navigation, speed, altitude, attitude, and aircraft-state information
- Combat-mode symbology, including air-target tracking
- ILS approach and synthetic runway display
- Flight-plan symbology and waypoint projection
- Terrain-following-specific display
- Center display screen with:
- Moving map and several map backgrounds, including French DIRCAM map style
- Airspace zones and airports display
- Radar traffic display
- Flight-plan display
- Navigation and situational-awareness tools
- Vertical tactical situation display mode, providing a side-view representation of the tactical environment
- Lateral screens with more than 20 implemented pages, including:
- Aircraft systems pages, such as fuel, electrical, and hydraulic systems
- Flight plan configuration pages
- Navigation pages
- COM and IFF pages
- Radar and mission-related pages
- Warning, failure, and aircraft-status pages
- Auxiliary screens with their main functions implemented, including artificial horizon, fuel and engine status, chronometer, and more
- AzurPoly’s movable EFB tablet allowing extensive customization of the aircraft experience
Sound
- Immersive sound package crafted by Echo19, based on real recordings
- Dedicated AI and multiplayer sounds
- Replicated alarms and voice alerts
- Detailed cockpit environment sounds for improved immersion
- Switches, buttons, canopy, landing gear, payload, and interaction sounds
- Exterior flyby and distance-based sound behavior
Effects / Lights
- Realistic afterburner effect reflecting air density, shifting from orange to blue at high altitude
- Sophisticated interior and exterior lighting
- Custom heat-blur effects
- Rafale-specific wing vapor effects
- Custom airshow smoke based on flight physics
- Custom engine startup smoke
- Custom lighting effects inside and outside the aircraft
- Custom weapon, explosion, impact, and fire effects
- Adjustable map lights with free positioning
- Simulation of screen backlighting affecting the cockpit ambient light
Interactions
- Integrated pre-flight walkaround using MSFS 2024 interaction features
- Every cockpit switch and knob is clickable and has an actual impact on the aircraft
- Multiple exterior latches and panels can be opened
- Possibility to climb and walk on the aircraft using the ladder
- Interactive covers, protections, pins, accessories, and external elements
- Physics-based “remove before flight” ribbons
- Cockpit interactions designed for mouse, controller, and hardware bindings
Payload / Weapons
- Wide payload display capability for all users, including MICA, METEOR, GBU-12, AASM-250, SCALP, RPL701, RPL741, smoke pods, Damocles pod, and more
- Dedicated payload selection page on the EFB, including multiple ready-to-use configuration presets and the ability to save custom presets
- Payload configurations affecting aircraft weight, drag, balance, and performance
- Droppable payload objects as independent sim-objects including:
- Functional flares with physics-based trajectories and realistic, customizable release sequences
- Droppable stores for emergency release simulation
- Droppable fuel tanks, including RPL701 and RPL741
- Fully custom AI traffic generation system for interactive mission scenarios, controlled from the EFB, allowing users to:
- Spawn aircraft installed in the simulator library with a desired configuration, including position, heading, altitude, and speed
- Simulate air-to-air training scenarios with several compatible aircraft
- For PC users with the additional patch:
- Functional weapon system with visual and environmental effects
- Air-to-air missiles with target tracking, realistic trajectories, and simulated impact effects on the target
- Air-to-surface bombs with target designation
- Functional cannon with realistic salvo trajectory and simulated effects on air targets
Cameras
- Custom cameras created specifically for the aircraft
- Custom cameras allowing launched weapons to be tracked in flight
- Ability to jump directly to the target aircraft or selected ground target depending on active mode
User Experience / Accessibility
- Automatic startup procedures for beginners
- Complete checklists integrated into the simulator
- EFB assistance options
- Scalable complexity, allowing casual users to enjoy the aircraft while still offering depth for advanced users
Papua New Guinea Highland Bush Strips Pack 6 Revealed for MSFS 2024
Orbx announced a new Papua New Guinea Highland Bush Strips Pack by indie developer Ken Hall, specifically number 6.
The Orbx Direct store page is already available, but not yet purchasable. Yet, it should come soon.
It includes the following airfields.
- AYRM Maramuni Airport -5.13000, 143.48290, Runways: 04-22, Alt: 5,055 ft, Runway length: 1,655 ft
- AYPB Paiela Airport -5.3725, 142.9761, Runways: 19-01, Alt: 6,183 ft, Runway length: 1,680 ft
- AYQW Sumwari Airstrip -4.7508, 142.3686, Runways: 25-07, Alt: 452 ft, Runway length: 1,846 ft
- AYYD Yatoam Airstrip -5.0949, 142.3846, Runways: 10-28, Alt: 2,000 ft, Runway length: 1,965 ft
- AYXS Sisamin Airstrip -5.1363, 142.2840, Runways: 13-31, Alt: 1,622 ft, Runway length: 1,791 ft
- AYDM Duranmin Airstrip -4.9731, 141.9089, Runways: 06-24, Alt: 2,859 ft, Runway length: 1,707 ft
- AYFE Feramin Airport -5.2080, 141.6988, Runways: 30-12, Alt: 4,628 ft, Runway length: 2,008 ft
You can expect the following features.
- Over 15 models of damaged aircraft added
- 7 models of canoes hand-crafted from images collected in the area.
- 25 more huts added to the model LIB to accommodate the change in geographic location.
- Handcrafted bridges across the rivers adjacent to the runways.
- Several old relics of trucks that may have been used and abandoned.
- Over 200 Polygons were used to correct elevation and vegetation issues, many of them used to correct the rivers on approach to these airstrips.
- More than 200 hand-placed models, all with the latest PBR textures and Level of detail needed for optimum performance.
Nouméa – La Tontouta International Airport Released for X-Plane 12
Cami de Bellis Scenery Design released its Nouméa – La Tontouta International Airport (NWWW) in New Caledonia for X-Plane 12.
It’s available on XPlane.org for $22.40 with the following features.
- Highly accurate scenery for NWWW with all buildings modeled
- Animated airport vehicles (GroundTraffic)
- Autogate by marginal
- Mesh of airport corrected exclusively for this scenery, created by Matthias Seewald/Maps2Xplane and expressly authorized by Austin Meyer
- Photoscenery for the entire Airport area
- Detailed airport objects and vehicles
- Custom textured taxiways, runways and apron
- Custom surroundings buildings
- Custom airport lights
- High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures
- High resolution building textures – all in 2K and 4K
- Excellent night effects
- World Traffic 3 compatible
- Manual included
If you’d like to read more flight simulation news, you can find plenty in our previous roundup article from yesterday.
If you want to go further back, we have a handy overview video of the major flight simulation news in the past week. You can watch it below. As usual, leaving a like and a comment and subscribing to our growing YouTube channel is extremely helpful.
While Simulation Daily is owned and financed by Orbx Simulation Systems, its staff is afforded full editorial independence and will strive to cover products from all companies and developers impartially. Check out our editorial policy.
