As we head towards the eventual release of X-Plane 12, many are asking if its worth spending any money on currently available materials until we know what the upgrade pathway is for X-Plane 12. Another developer, Aerobask, has laid out their plans for the upgrade pathway as well as their plans for their in-development aircraft including the DA50 and the long awaited Falcon 8X. Let’s see what they’ve had to say!

Upgrade pathway

A message from Lionel from Aerobask on the X-Plane.Org Forums confirms what the well known and well regarded X-Plane developer is planning to do with their aircraft and X-Plane 12 upgrades. Some are going to be upgraded for free, a couple will be decommissioned, and at least one module’s fate still hangs in the balance as the team sorts through how easy or difficult it will be to bring it up to specification.

Here’s what Lionel laid out on the X-Plane forums.

• our upcoming Diamond DA50 will be our last aircraft made for X-Plane 11.
• the Dassault Aviation Falcon 8X (and other unannounced planes) will be X-Plane 12 only.
• the Phenom 300, Diamond DA50 and DA62, Epic E1000-G1000 and Legacy RG will get free updates to X-Plane 12.
• the Eclipse E550, Pipistrel Panthera and Velocity V-Twin may get an update (free or not) if technically possible with SASL2.
• the existing ViperJet LXR and Epic E1000-Skyview will be decommissioned (no update path to XP12, no coupon for eventual XP12 version).
• the fate of the Epic Victory G1000 is undecided.
• the X-Plane 11 fleet won’t receive updates anymore, unless for addressing a severe issue with latest X-Plane 11 version.
• Do not expect updates mentioned above to be available on day one of X-Plane 12, this takes time but we are committed to deliver.

This is very good news for the recently (in the last couple of years) released Aerobask aircraft. Although updates to X-Plane 12 aren’t expected to happen immediately, the great news is that these are on the roadmap. The Phenom 300, DA62, Epic E1000 G1000 and Lancair Legacy RG are the Aerobask modules that I own and highly recommend.

Other modules are not going to make the jump. They are typically older releases and no doubt the work needed to bring them up to date is more extensive. Aerobask has had a habit of returning to old favourites so we may see re-releases in the future.

Falcon update

Meanwhile there’s also some news on the Falcon 8x. Development time has been protracted but the development of the business jet is still carrying some buzz as small updates from the development team trickle out. Avionics work continues and we’ve heard recently that the needed audio recordings from the real jet have been recorded now – but not yet implemented.

Now we have a significant update on plans for the jet. I’ll let Lionel tell that in his own words.

After having discussed with Dassault Aviation and with the support of Laminar research, we have decided to make the Falcon 8X for X-Plane 12 only. Despite we have no release date for both, we believe we won’t be ready before X-Plane 12 and that the effort for converting the aircraft from X-Plane 11 to X-Plane 12 would add too much delay to the XP12 version. Our experience as shown that as soon a new version of XP is available the overwhelming majority of users have no interest in the old one, even if the new is still public beta. Since I’m the only responsible for the delay in the development I apologize to all those who expected having it available for X-Plane 11.

Lionel

Now we know what Aerobask’s plans are as well as a sense that development still has a significant road ahead that will need to be scaled before the team can release the jet. I sense that a number of projects in development are going to need to make this tough over the coming weeks and months as well.

Rumours are out there that Laminar has released an internal alpha or beta for developers to start working with and that may prompt a series of announcements soon.

Circling back to the DA50

Meanwhile, we now know something new about the DA50 RG. Aerobask plans to release it before the Falcon 8x and before X-Plane 12 takes over their development pipeline. This single engine aircraft powered by a 300hp Jet-A consuming diesel engine is built on the same overall design as the DA62. The DA62 was Aerobask’s best selling aircraft for X-Plane and I expect the DA50 to be a fun follow-up!

It will be interesting to see this aircraft come together to release – potentially happening sooner than later.

Stay tuned for more information!