After teasing the aircraft for the first time in their New Year wishes, Airfoillabs have taken to their website as well as social network profiles to officially announce the development of the Dakota project which should bring both C-47 and DC-3 to X-Plane 11, in study level.
As well as some screenshots, a good amount of information was included in the post mentioning, that the reason why the developers have decided to work on such aircraft is that they started a cooperation with French Association Merville-Dakota who are providing them with necessary information on the aircraft.
Airfoillabs aims to make the aircraft user friendly as well as realistic for the “hard simmers”, as the post said. As of right now, we know for certain, that the Dakota project will feature both C-47 (Military) and DC-3 (Airliner) variants, a custom FMOD sound pack based on real Pratt & Whitney engine recordings, and generally a certain level of realism as the whole project is consulted with a real DC-3 pilot and is based on the real aircraft.
As mentioned earlier, a set of previews has been attached to the post showcasing both the aircraft exterior and interior from the modelling software. The screenshots are representing the current state of the 3D modelling and PBR texturing.
The developer aims for high realism of both the systems and flight model, however, that can take some time and so there is no release date set. It was further said: “(..) we want a study level Dakota that we dream about and that is the priority.“
