Calum Martin

We have known that DC Designs has been busy created a variety of fast aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator, but perhaps the biggest of those fast planes is the iconic Concorde. The team at DC Designs has today shared a teaser of it running in Microsoft Flight Simulator as a “properly adapted gLTF model.”

In particular, the team said that the PBR now looks “much better” than it has before, and the preview image isn’t yet optimised. DC Designs did say that there’s still plenty of work to be done but now seemed like a good time to share a brief snippet for where the aircraft is heading. Whilst this screenshot was taken at sub-sonic speeds, the team has been learning ways to make sure that the aircraft can fly as smooth and as fast as it did in real life. Bringing Concorde to Microsoft Flight Simulator will be a major re-build of the aircraft released on Prepar3D and thus work will start once the Tomcats are released.

Alongside the Concorde teaser, DC Designs shared a quick status report on the F-15 update. Whilst they have finished the update, one “tiny, but hugely frustrating bug” keeps causing the nose wheel animation to be incorrect. The team is looking at various solutions to fix the problem, and as such, the update will be released next week. Alongside that, the F-14 Tomcats will go back into development at pace and soon both be uploaded to the Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace for people to buy directly in the simulator.

You can learn a bit more about the DC Designs F-15 Eagle Variants for Microsoft Flight Simulator in our first look video. Otherwise, you can view a few more previews and details on the update on the DC Designs’ Facebook page.

Update May 7th 2021 @ 08:35z: Whilst we know many of you hoped for a weekend release, it has been confirmed that there will not be a release this weekend. In the forum thread, Lefteris said, “just to be a bit of a spoil-sport, do not expect the release to be this weekend… we’re working on some small fixes at the moment that will need testing.” That said, he did remind everyone that the NDA has been lifted so expect a flurry of screenshots and live streams for the aircraft in the mean time as they prepare the aircraft for release.

== Original Article May 6th 2021 @ 17:05z ==

Over the past day or so, social media and the Flight Sim Labs forums have been full of new previews of the upcoming Sharklet expansion pack for the A320-X and A321-X. Those who have the beta version of the upcoming Flight Sim Labs A320-X-SL and A321-X-SL are now able to share their previews as the NDA has now lifted.

We have been through many of the shots over the past day and collected just a handful of them to share with you all. The below previews come from a series of testers across social media and the forums. They highlight the new modelling, the level of detail in the sharklets (the LED lights are modelled) and also the EFB in action.

As we saw from the trailer last month, the expansion brings much more than just the sharklets being added to the model. Perhaps the most standout feature is the EFB (Electronic Flight Bag). The newly introduced EFB will come with a significant number of features, including custom programmed takeoff and landing performance calculation applications that can factor in-flight failures into their calculations, an integrated GSX application allowing you to control ground services from the comfort of your cockpit, as well as a connected ACARS system, allowing you to evaluate your latest flight release and loadsheet from the EFB rather than the aircraft’s FMGC.

Even by any standard, this hasn’t felt like the “shorter promotional period” initially set out by Flight Sim Labs, but as simmers, we’re fairly used to long-wait times at this point. Either way, the fact that the NDA is now lifted and numerous airline files are being uploaded is a good indication that the wait is soon to be over.

If you still need even more previews, you can read the lengthy “Sharklet Hype” thread on the Flight Sim Labs forums where testers are dropping new previews pretty frequently.

This was the result of about an hour of having the tab open…