Leaderboard

Kicking off a series of development updates, we will travel to the past, from when DC-3 was born to today, to understand the significance of this aircraft for the whole airline industry. Douglas Aircraft Company, after a TWA inquiry, started development of a new series of aircrafts, designated as Douglas Commercial (DC), the DC-1 in 1933, and DC-2 next year. Although DC-2 was successful, it was a bit narrow for what American Airlines wanted, which led to the development of one DST prototype. DST stands for Douglas Sleeper Transport! Yes beds in the airplane! Flew first time on December 17, 1935, the 32nd anniversary of Wright Bros first flight. The aircraft was fitted with 21 seats (instead of 14-16 sleeping berths), and designated as DC-3! Totally built, up to 1943, 607 DC-3 aircrafts. But WWII has begun and many DC-3s were put into military service. The needs for a military transport aircraft were huge, and with DC-3 fitting the bill, the C-47 Skytrain was created. It was based on DC-3 with few changes needed for the operations in the military, most notably the reinforced floor that allowed for higher gross weight, and the dual cargo doors. A total of around 10,000 C-47 aircrafts (and variations) were constructed. Many C-47s, after WWII, became available for civilian use, and even today, there are many DC-3s and C-47 in use! Later, in 1990, another variation was developed by Basler Turbo Conversions, retrofitting P&W PT-6 turboprop engines, and airframe modifications, designated as BT-67. Our Leading Edge Simulations DC-3 (v2) is based on the original, 21-seats, variants. The aircraft has a maximum gross weight (MGW) of 25,200 lbs for take off and landing, and can reach speeds up to 207 mph (180 knots). 2 Pratt and Whitney PW R-1830 Twin Wasp radial engines, providing 1,200 hp each, driving a 3-blade Hamilton Standard propeller. In the next weeks leading to the release, as development progresses, we will look into each area of the aircraft in more detail. For now, I will leave you with a few more random images. Keep in mind that everything you see here, up to the release, is work-in-progress, not final! (source: Wikipedia)

Thanks for the heads up Jan. Have a good weekend.

Beta 15 seems to have caused all sorts of problems. I'll let Laminar know about it. The only way to "fix" this is to not use unstable beta releases of X-Plane! Or stick with OpenGL mode until they fix this.

Thank you for taking the time to reply with your experiences. Much appreciated.

Just a follow up, I upgraded to a SSD last year (and a 48 inch curved monitor!) and had no problems. In fact, I left the copy of X-Plane on my old drive AND installed it on the SSD at the same time by just copying the folder over to the new drive. Ran it on both drives so I could see the difference, and have had no problems with either one since then. I have since deleted the one on the old drive and only use the SSD now...BTW, I also upgraded to the Vulkan Beta version and selected the Vulkan setting in the graphic setup and have almost doubled my FPS! That and the SSD have made an amazing improvement!