Just Flight and their partners, Black Square and Thranda, have a bunch of updates that have come out over the last 24-hours with news of the imminent release of their PA-28 Arrow III for X-Plane 12 and a bunch of updates for most of the Black Square line-up. Let’s have a look at it all!
Arrow III for X-Plane 12
Partnering up with Thranda Design, Just Flight are preparing to release their PA-28R Arrow III for X-Plane 12. The aircraft is in final checks and is expected to release soon with a product page now up on their website.
The product is a reworking of their earlier version of the aircraft with X-Plane 12 features like PBR materials, rain effects, and detailed normal mapping. The aircraft has a detailed 3D model, tablet EFB, support for RealityXP GTN750, seven 8K liveries, an interactive log book, and more.
Just Flight will be selling the Arrow III for X-Plane 12 for $42.99 USD.
Black Square Starship, Dukes and other updates
Black Square’s Nick Cyganski has provided a couple of updates that have been published on the Just Flight website. The first is centered around work being done to bring the Beechcraft Starship to life in MSFS. This is a passion project for Nick who says that it is his favourite aircraft of all time. The aircraft incorporated a lengthy list of technological firsts including first certified canard wing aircraft, first business aircraft with a composite structure, first certified twin pusher aircraft and first aircraft with an all-glass cockpit.
The update goes on to mention that the Beechcraft launched the same year that GPS was first made available for civilian use and consequently did not have GPS support at first. Instead it used receivers for VLF radio stations to automatically calculate location. This early iteration of the Starship will be available together with more modern avionics too. Fascinating stuff! Read the full Black Square Starship update here.
Moving on from the Starship, Nick is busy with working on the rest of the Black Square fleet too. The Piston and Turbine Dukes just received a first quality of life update with minor bug fixes, new VR options on the tablet, control wheel steering, and beyond critical altitude turbocharger mixture control improved.
The TBM 850 will be getting a big update soon after FSExpo with new features like wing flex, new exterior elements, turbine engine failures, SU15 ground handling physics support, and more. It will also get the same tablet interface seen on the Dukes.
The Analog Baron and Bonanza will see updates too with new gryoscope physics simulation, voltage-based light dimming, new strob effects, KNS-81 autopilot coupling, SU15 ground handling physics and functional weather radar gain among the new features.
The Velocity XL, the first aircraft from Black Square, will see similar updates and will support the new Working Title G3X Touch. It will also get the same turbocharger simulation as other Black Square aircraft, functioning environmental control, inflating door seals and improved sounds throughout.
The Analog King Air and Caravan, developed from the default aircraft, are getting similar updates (bug fixes, autopilot coupling, weather radar, ground handling physics updates) but the more interesting news is that these will be set for an overhaul later on with the plan being to create stand-alone versions of all four steam gauge overhaul aircraft for MSFS 2024 freeing them from limitations of the default exterior models. That’ll be great in the long run I’m sure!
Stormbirds 
I haven’t yet bought a Black Square addon, mainly because a CFD (or better) flight model is generally one of my top requirements.
BUT, after reading his missive on the StarShip, I am absolutely going to give him money for that just based on the incredibly passionate description he shared.
And it’s an incredibly cool plane that I’ve only ever seen IRL once.
He’s putting too many cool custom things into this one to pass it up.
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Starship would be my holy grail of twin turbine prop, so much desire… only worry is if it’s ever going to be available from MSFS’s own marketplace? The previous BlackSquare products like TBM850, KingAir etc weren’t put on the marketplace supposely due to re-used default plane exterior model? I’m still waiting for the Duke to be available there as well. Just don’t want to install 3rd party app for using the plane addon or deal with addtional activation, etc…
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I think the world of Thranda want to support them through buying their name-brand products as much as possible but $42 for the v12 updates to these Arrows and the Duchess is a price I can’t justify. I recognize that the XPlane market isn’t big enough to support more reasonable prices, but their work to get the v11 versions working in 12 is more than enough (I hate to discourage that kind of good faith work but it’s true). I hope it continues to be financially viable for them, I’m sure it’s getting tight.
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