Aircraft developer Magknight has released some previews of their next update to the 787-9 over on the X-Plane forum, including a completely overhauled cockpit and new Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines.
The 787-9 is the mid-sized variant of the 787 from Boeing, but by far, the most popular with over 700 orders for the type. The Dreamliner is considered the airliner of today which is economical and more ecologically friendly, burning 20% less fuel than most other aircraft of its size and allowing it to fly over 22 hours non stop from New York to Sydney.
Just 3 months after the release of version 1.4 of the 787-9 Aviator Edition, the team at Magknight has been hard at work putting together a whole new cockpit together for the aircraft with all new textures and 3D modelling. In the previews below, we are told that only the panels are partially textured at this point and that the cockpit colours may change between these previews and the release of the update. These shots also have some graining but this is due to the baking side effects and will not be visible within X-Plane. The forum post also mentions that the systems have also had a lot of work, including air systems and FMS/CDU. Both revamped cockpit and FMC/CDU upgrades will be ready when they are ready which may imply that either these will not be included in the next update, or that the update will be a little further away still.
Another focus of these previews is the 787’s powerplants. The Magknight 787-9 currently ships with the GEnx or General Electric next generation but the team has shown previous renders of their Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine for the aircraft. Both engine types have seen work over the past three months, the GE engines have seen new fan blades, textures and normals. We are treated to further previews of the RR Trent 1000 engines complete with PBR and textures. The team commented that the engines are almost complete with just some texturing issues to be completed.
All liveries will need to be updated to take advantage of the new engines but current liveries will still work, minus engine artwork.
Magknight will be making this update to version 1.5.0 free of charge for those that have purchased the 787-9 Aviator Edition, available through the Skunkworks Updater upon release. If you don’t currently own the Magknight 787-9 Aviator Edition, you can purchase it here on the X-Plane store for $44.95/£36.16/€41.24.