SimWorks Studios have now successfully launched a few aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Among them are the popular and well regarded Kodiak 100 and RV-14. Now we have new news about their RV-10, PC-12 and Dash 7 airliner. Let’s have a look!

Dash 7 for everyone?

The announcement came out in February that SWS would be partnering with PILOT’S GesmbH to produce the de Havilland Canada Dash 7 turboprop regional airliner. SWS is responsible for creating and developing the aircraft’s 3D model, animations, systems and flight dynamics.

The aircraft has been in development for quite some time and SWS have an update for us on the project.

The exterior is complete and fully animated. At this point in time we are refitting the liveries on the aircraft, as we had to do some corrections to the fuselage. The cockpit is modelled and in the process of being textured and animated. This is an arduous task as there are hundreds of moving parts in there and for some of them we have to wait for texturing to be finished before animating them -instrument needles, for example.

Three screenshots taken directly from the development process show the cockpit in progress.

Systems coding is reportedly already complete and performance is currently being tweaked. Interestingly, SWS have reported that their goal is to offer this product with both newbie pilots and more experienced airliner pilots in mind. A level of systems complexity that is both feature rich and newbie friendly at the same time? A difficult challenge. I’m curious to see where SWS is able to balance this.

RV-10 and PC-12

Meanwhile, two other aircraft are taking shape. SWS’ PC-12 exterior model looks to be coming along nicely and their update says that they are focused on engine programming right now. They report that they believe that the PC-12 will be able to offer a proper beta range and realistic beta experience beyond what is commonly found in MSFS aircraft.

We’ve also learned via an exchange in the comments that SWS will be offering both four blade and five blade variants of the PC-12.

The RV-10 is coming along as well. The exterior is complete while the interior is just getting underway. The RV-10 is a four seater kit plane in the same range as their two-seater RV-14 that SWS released recently and the report is that the RV-10 will be every bit as detailed as their RV-14 or perhaps even more detailed.

Meanwhile the RV-14 is apparently due to release on the Xbox but has a few remaining bugs. Look for that soon!

Keep tabs on the latest from SimWorks Studios via their Facebook page.