The QualityWings Simulation 787 Ultimate Collection is one of the most desired after aircraft in the community right now. After the launch of the aircraft back in October 2017 for FSX, those on Prepar3D have been waiting both eagerly and patiently. However, the time waiting may soon be over. Just to clarify once again, the following is purely speculation for now.
Over the past couple of weeks, there have been numerous snippets of information regarding the upcoming release of the aircraft into simmer’s hands. Back on April 1st 2018, QualityWings made a statement saying that “The work for Service Pack 1 is largely complete and we’re currently testing all changes / bugfixes along with the P3Dv4 version of the plane.” Whilst we have been subject to waiting a long time for the aircraft, this was the first glimmer of hope for a release sooner than later.
Come forward to May and a few new tid-bits were unexpectedly released into the wild. On May 13th, FSFX Packages updated their 787 Immersion Pack via the VFXCentral software. This new version was designed to update the product with “Prepar3D v4 support”.
Less than a week later, Simflight.nl writer Matthias, seemingly ‘confirmed’ that the product was in the final stages of beta testing and would be released in the next “two-weeks”. There was a caveat of a delay in case of any last minute bugs. But his article was pretty clear (although in Dutch) indicating of a release. When we were made aware of this story. We reached out to a few of our contacts who said they were unfamiliar with this beta tester. However, the information regarding the release was neither confirmed nor denied. If the information is accurate, then that would place a release in May.
The final piece of evidence comes from a developer at QualityWings. In a Facebook group called “QualityWings 787 Dreamliner – Pilot Club“, someone asked the question “Any chance [of] a release for p3d4 this year?”. Understandably this went very much unnoticed as it’s uncommon for a developer to then reply. In this case, developer Ernie Alston replied with this surprising statement: “It will be out sometime in May…….. (yes 2018).” Having met Ernie multiple times, I can confirm he is indeed a developer at QualityWings.
Funnily enough this comment was made a week ago and was completely missed by the community.
To wrap up, nothing has been confirmed via official communication channels by QualityWings. The hype is most certainly real and if a release is around the corner, then this summer will certainly be an incredible time for simmers. We have reached out to QualityWings ourselves to try and get some form of statement.