Horizon Simulations has recently announced their work on a rendition of Boeing 787-9 for Microsoft Flight Simulator and you can see the coverage of this announcement here. Yesterday, Horizon Simulations shared the very first development update of this popular long-hauler.
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The Development Update
In this development update, Discord user davidn123 shared a few words on the Boeing 787-9 and even shared some in-sim preview screenshots of this aircraft.
He mainly spoke about the EFB, model and paintkit, as well as the flight model.
The EFB in the 787-9
With Sim Update 13 being released, it brought a lot of changes to the default Boeing 787 and 747, which Horizon Simulations took advantage of. The EFB is now implemented in the 787-9 and is functioning well according to the team.
There is still some work to do, but that is because they want to match Boeing 787-9 performance numbers as accurately as possible to the real counterpart.
The EFB is going to be available on both engine variants of the 787, and there is going to be a feature in which you can send all your data from the EFB right into the aircraft’s FMC, which is going to ease up the workload significantly.
Model and Paintkit
At this moment, Horizon Simulations didn’t include any external previews of this aeroplane. This is because the 787-9 is still going through some external model fixes and improvements, and the team wants to be more than satisfied with the final result before showing it off to the public. Currently, we are still being shown older builds of the aircraft.
Speaking of the paintkit, it is going to be available shortly after the release of this aeroplane. This all depends on how much time they will need to polish it, though. Even though many pilots would love to create their own liveries immediately, there are going to be some high-quality liveries available on release.
Flight Model
Regarding the flight model, according to the Horizon Simulations team, the aircraft is currently flying well. Despite that, the team is not that satisfied with the results of how it flies at the moment.
They need to tweak mainly the fuel burn to match the exact numbers of the 787-9 in real life. Whilst this might seem not as important at first, it makes more sense for people who would love to do ultra-long-haul flights (over 15 hours), so you don’t end up making a cruise ship out of your Dreamliner.
In the end, the aeroplane flies, but it doesn’t feel like a 787-9 yet, says Horizon Simulations.
Conclusion
The team is not at the moment able to speak about dates, and they didn’t provide us with any release date most of us might be interested in. However, the team assures us that the plane is going to be worth the wait.
Currently, their rendition is closing the first stage of beta testing, this means new screenshots for the community, as well as more news.
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