I’ve had a chance to talk with the developers at X-Rotors and have a closer look at their now released AW109 helicopter for X-Plane. The X-Plane 11 releases just keep coming late into 2021 as everyone looks to the future of the series but while we wait for that to happen there’s no shortage of content. Let’s have a look at this new helicopter release.

Ferrari of the skies

Sleek design? Check. Italian heritage? Check! Apparently the AgustaWestland AW109 has been called the Ferrari of the skies as this luxury, popular twin engine powered helicopter is both fast and sleek for helicopters in its class. It’s this aircraft that X-Rotors has chosen to develop for X-Plane and it came out just a few weeks ago – although I haven’t had a chance to report on it until now.

There’s a pretty impressive feature list coming from X-Rotors as well. Pulled from their website, here’s the list of features

• Rogerson Kratos NEO AV 500 EADI & EHSI with NAV (N) and BRG (B) functions
• Primary EDU with functional START and CRUISE menus
• Secondary EDU with functional MAIN and AUX menus
• Custom CAS advisories, cautions and warnings *
• Helipilot, fuel management console and overhead panel with motorized PMS
• Realistic 3-axis autopilot with cyclic and pedal trim functions
• Bendix King array of functional radios COM/NAV 1 & 2, ADF, XPDR and Garmin 530
• AeroTech LC-6 chronometer w/local time, UTC time, flight time and stopwatch functions
• Custom FMOD sounds package
• Extremely detailed 3D model with hundreds of moving parts and 4K textures
• 3D lights and PBR textures
• Fast installer and uninstaller for Windows, Mac and Linux powered by Amazon S3
• Five corporate liveries included
• PSD template included to make your personal livery
• Reference guide included with instructions and checklists
• Optimized for X-Plane experimental flight model
• Ready for X-Plane 12

X-Rotors does note that there is a bug in the underlying LUA system that will prevent custom CAS advisories until X-Plane 12 comes out. And that is worth noting that the team behind this release is expecting full X-Plane 12 support to be available so that makes purchase a bit easier.

Initial problems recovered?

There have been some initial kinks for the team to work out. X-Rotors initial 1.0 release had some installer problems on Windows as well as some bugs with the helicopter, however, the team has been producing near constant updates since release and the 1.03 release looks to solve a number of them.

X-Rotors has also setup a new Discord community and it’s always good to see a developer look to engage with their customers more frequently. A community like that can really help. Be sure to check them out! For more information about the helicopter, visit X-Rotors.com. The helicopter is on sale for 33,99€.