I’ve been so busy with Sturmovikfest recently that some other news has fallen by the wayside but I fully intend to catch up. Starting with X-Plane 11 and the TorqueSim BN-2 Islander which is now available to fly including in the latest versions of X-Plane. Let’s have a quick look!

Utility and passenger aircraft

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The BN-2 Islander is a utility and bush aircraft first flying in 1965 and seeing 1,280 built over the course of its production. So far as I can tell, Britten Norman are still selling the aircraft with modern avionics and in a wide variety of variants that have both civil and military uses including as a passenger aircraft, a cargo aircraft, and other miscellaneous utility purposes including being used by para-jumpers.

According to TorqueSim, they chose a BN-2B-26 with 2 Lycoming O-540 engines. Their specifically modeled aircraft with 1800 pound useful load with full tanks and can carry nine passengers. The aircraft has a 730 nautical mile range and a 140-knot cruising speed.

The aircraft is known for its rugged construction and short field performance and that makes it an interesting type for X-Plane pilots who may want to fly from smaller less well known fields.

Announced and released in a short time

Torquesim only announced that the BN-2 Islander would be an aircraft released by their team on March 22nd followed by a couple of developer blog updates and then finally released just about a week ago. Development was happening behind the scenes for quite a while longer obviously and only more recently were the efforts pulled into the TorqueSim development pipeline.

The aircraft has also already seen an update that further improves some features including tweaks to the FMOD sound system. The aircraft also has all of the usual quality X-Plane release features such as PBR materials, detailed avionics and systems modeling including a custom electronics modeling, detailed animations, and 4K textures.

The aircraft has released to some good press and it’s been showcased by various X-Plane YouTubers including Jon Fly and Luna’s World.

Available for…

TorqueSim is making a reputation for making some highly detailed aircraft for X-Plane and the Islander appears to command the same reputation as their earlier Pocket Rocket aircraft release (and the SR-22T that I’m waiting for). That reputation does command a bit of a price premium and the BN-2 Islander for X-Plane 11 comes in at $39.95 USD on X-Aviation.com. This puts it at roughly a similar level to some similarly sized and detailed aircraft so it’s not overly pricey.

You can check out all of the features at the TorqueSim website and visit X-Aviation if you want to buy one for yourself.