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Dear Captains, Has been a long time since the last update, but we have been working continuously, especially the last months. We are now at the point, that this might be the last developer's update before release. X-Plane 12 As you already know, a lot of things happened the last year; the biggest one, the release of X-Plane 12. We were participating in X-Plane 12 alpha testing, from day one, and while we were proving feedback to Laminar, we also testing DC-3's compatibility, and how we will react to this change. Initially, without knowing XP12 release date, we were planning to release for XP11. But around Autumn, with the X-Plane 12 beta out, it was obvious we had to support X-Plane 12 as well. In those testing days, we were continuously switching between X-Plane versions, to be sure that things work right for both simulators. But, with the new stuff X-Plane 12 brought, it was obviously that we cannot have a common aircraft for both versions. Even we tried to have a version with only what works in both version, but that was going to be a half-baked product, so was no go. Also we took a decision (read below), that would have made parallel development impossible. Given the extension of our development roadmap, we were sure that DC-3 release will happen after the official X-Plane 12 release. So, we decided to move forward and support only X-Plane 12. Introducing DC-3, Modern aircraft version! While all the above was going on, brainstorming together with our beta testers, we decided to create a second aircraft with more modern avionics. While the, the now named, DC-3 Classic gives you all the vibes of the 1940's technology, it was going to be hard, if not impossible to perform flights specially in online networks. Also, the newer, "Modern" aircraft is more accessible to more pilots, having instrumentation that is very well known, widely used. Of course, that does not mean, just drop a few instrument (idk... like G1000s ) and call it a day. Everything designed and developed to work as per manuals. Here what is new: Pilots' Stations: 1. Pilot's HSI: Bendix/King KI-525A. 2. Pilot's RMI: Bendix/King KNI-582 Dual Pointer RMI. 3. 2 Course Indicators, one for each pilot. 4. 2 independent KDI-572 DME indicators, one for each pilot. Radio Stack: 1. Bendix/King KAP-140 Autopilot - Two Axis with Altitude Preselect. 2. X-Plane's GNS 530, with support for RealityXP's 530, which also provides controls for COM1/NAV1. 3. Bendix/King KX-165A VHF COM/NAV transceiver, for COM2 and NAV2 tuning. 4. Bendix/King KT-73 Transponder. 5. 2 Bendix/King KR-87 Silver Crown ADF systems. All radios and autopilot are fully simulated and perform all normal operations, as described in their manuals. For the rest of the systems, they were updated were needed, and adapted to operate with the new aircraft. The maintenance and airframe systems, are also apply to the Modern aircraft as well. Conclusion We are reaching the final stretch of this development road, and will be very happy to provide you 2 aircraft, the Classic for the vintage aircraft enthusiasts, and the Modern, which is more capable, in terms of IFR operations. Time for a couple screenshot of the new aircraft, right? (of course still WIP!)

Thank you Ilias, this is great news indeed! I'd have been a happy customer of the classic alone, but I love a good retrofit, so that second model is the icing on the cake for me. I'm really looking forward to flying its wings off.

I see, and for sure I only got near stall because that MD11's aerodynamic back then is not fine tuned so I'll go stall even at proper VREF. But most add-on I have use is simply sync to hardware as soon as AT disconnect and any hardware input movement, so it's my second nature to match throttle before intentionally disconnect AT, on many add-on with EICAS display there it simply a "fake" indicator on engine display, for 733 without EICAS the "ghost" throttle UI is perfect for that. So.. maybe make it an option?

There is also a potential - and much more likely - failure mode on your proposal. Most of the time, people will NOT have their hardware throttle at the "approximately correct" position when they disconnect their autothrottle, they will simply forget to align it before disconnecting. Then they will disconnect, and it will cause their engines to either spool up to maximum power or loose thrust to idle...which will mess up their manual flight and especially on short final is hard to recover. My advice to avoid YOUR potential failure mode is: Do not get into a situation where only adding full (overboosted) thrust will save the aircraft . In "most" situations of "being a bad pilot" and being too slow, the reversion modes of the autopilot or autothrottle (if in arm) will kick in to save the aircraft. In other situations you can click the TO/GA buttons to advance power automatically to maximum GA thrust. IF you ever get into a situation where you need to apply maximum thrust you need to remember to cycle the thrust levers from idle to full power once (which will take 0.5 seconds), but yes, you need to remember and this is different in the real aircraft. It is the compromise we have to make for not having motorized hardware throttles.

I need to make a correction on what I said before and I edited above post. flying through Merrill pass in Alaska was historic. The pioneer bush pilots used Merrill pass when visability was low. I consider myself a bush pilot in flight simulation. Love flying in Alaska. Not a place for the light hearted.

Thank you for the kind words Ian. We are certainly excited to be working on the IXEG again. On the one hand, the initial port to XP 12 is a bit more labor intensive than anticipated...but on the other hand...getting everything ported to modern workflows and features is ceratinly a welcome change on our end, ensuring less development pain once we get this initial infrastructure change done. -TomK