A pair of new screenshots from Laminar Research shows off the latest work on X-Plane 12 with a shot of an airport taxiway with markings and a very nice shot of an SR22. Let’s have a look!
Featuring the SR22
The Cirrus SR22 is the feature of these two latest screenshots. One shows off a complex taxiway at Santa Monica airport and runway with plenty of parked aircraft while the second shot is showing off the Los Angeles city skyline, a low sun angle, atmospheric haze, and some pretty good lighting effects all around.
A friend of mine also pointed out that there’s a Bell 206 (helicopter) parked on the ramp. No idea if this is an older model from X-Plane 10 or if this is a revamped helicopter that’s shipping with the sim.
Small collections of images continue to trickle out as X-Plane 12’s development builds continue to progress. We’ve not yet heard if they are approaching a beta status but it does sound like developers are getting an early look at the sim now as they make plans for and aim to release new content or upgraded aircraft from X-Plane 11.
As always, I’ll be keeping a keen eye out for more news on this as X-Plane 12 develops.
Stormbirds 
Very exciting! I’ve gone back to X-Plane after just being worn out by MSFS 2020 and all it’s updates breaking stuff, changing the goal posts for devs, breaking the hard work the community puts into its substandard default planes. X-Plane 11 currently has an outrageous amount of study-level, pilot approved, addons all with flight models on another level to MSFS. The only problem is it doesn’t look as good. X-Plane 12 will improve this platform even further which is why I’m all in – even before it’s released, lol)
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Exactly GASMAN! I am to wait patiently wait for XP12 for the same reason..
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Although the graphics are not nearly as good as in MSFS2020, I find myself using Xplane11 for its realism and the fact that Microsoft made some changes that completely broke my VR experience. I ran out of patience. I pimped up my Xplane with Orthophotos and a few other addons and I’m good to pretend I’m a real student pilot 🙂
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Looking at this image more closely a day later, I’m still concerned about the X-Plane lighting engine’s ability to properly shadow scenery. In this image the sun is setting at a low angle and yet all the trees from the camera POV look like they’re overlit. This is an existing problem in X-Plane that I hope gets worked. The sky and airplane do look great.
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Sure, but if you look at the intro to Austin Meyer’s video from Michael Brown, he clearly states there’s a lot of work yet to do in these areas. Honestly, MSFS has missed the mark so much that I would fly the TBM 900 from Hot Start in X-Plane 10 over the MSFS 930 version in MSFS2020.
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X PLANE11 IS FREE?
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No. But there is a demo available.
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