X-Plane’s developers, Laminar Research, took to the stage at FSExpo Friday to announce some of the things the team has been working on for the simulator. New assets for the community gateway, a new weather radar, numerous improvements to the A330, and more were revealed at the presentation.
Community Gateway
X-Plane’s community gateway, a way for the community to improve X-Plane’s default airports, will be receiving new assets very soon. After taking some community feedback on what assets creators would like to see on the gateway, Laminar Research has decided to add some of these assets. The assets coming on the update include emergency vehicles, construction vehicles, airport lighting masts, ground assets, and new hangars.
As part of this update, Zermatt heliport in Switzerland will also be receiving an overhaul. The update including all of these assets will be released next Friday in X-Plane update 12.2.1.
Weather Update
X-Plane’s weather radar will be receiving significant improvements for the platform’s next major update. The “Weather Update” will include a weather radar with API, a weather API, enhancements to the G1000 including synthetic vision, and upgrades to the A330.
Weather Radar
X-Plane’s new weather radar will use information from the GPU’s cloud rendering to draw the information on the weather radar display. This new radar will feature all working controls, including tilting, gain control, terrain drawing, auto tilt, multi-scan, and more.
Advanced radar features will also be available. These features include altitude selection, ground clutter suppression, predictive wind-shear warnings, vertical scans, and more.
A weather and weather radar API will be available for third parties. These APIs will allow developers to create images for the weather radar, control the weather at airports, get weather at any point, and set immediate or gradual updates to the weather.
Synthetic Vision
Garmin’s G1000 and newer avionics suites feature a synthetic vision system, which is being improved for X-Plane’s implementation of the G1000. The new synthetic vision system will use the same method as the weather radar to draw the terrain on the screen, as well as airport paths, obstacles, other traffic (both AI and from online networks), and more.
A330 Upgrades
X-Plane’s default A330 will also be receiving numerous upgrades as part of this Weather Update. Starting with the visuals, the exterior and interior will be receiving better textures and materials, which add dirt, weathering, improved metallic materials, and more. Additionally, fixes to livery issues, enhanced brake effects, and other adjustments will also be included.
New detail textures add extra detail to the paint work, plastics, carpet, and other areas of both the interior and exterior.
Enhanced interior lighting includes improvements to the screen illumination, backlights, enhanced bounce from flood lights, automatic cabin lighting brightness depending on the phase of flight, and more.
The FMGC, which is also used for some of X-Plane’s other aircraft, is also receiving numerous bug fixes and improvements. Among the improvements are geometric and file segments, deceleration segments, missed approach phases, in-flight starts, and secondary flight plans. Perhaps one of the biggest additions is the datalink function, which works with X-Plane’s default ATC to provide ATIS information, weather requests, and even pre-departure clearances.
Lastly, some additional miscellaneous improvements to the A330 include a fixed GPWS and improved VNAV, autobrake, autoland, and a lot more.
All of the upgrades from the Weather Update will be included in X-Plane’s 12.3 update, which is going into private beta next Friday.
After 12.3 and Closing Notes
After update 12.3, Laminar Research plans to introduce updates to improve X-Plane’s performance. These improvements will introduce multicore capabilities to a lot of X-Plane’s functions to take more advantage of the CPU. GPU and VRAM optimizations for cloud rendering and night lighting, two of the most demanding areas, will also be introduced.
This was all for Laminar Research’s X-Plane presentation at this FSExpo Friday. Be sure to check out our FSExpo 2025 portal here for all of today’s exciting announcements.
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