The folks at SimWorks Studios have been busy recently and I haven’t had a chance to catch up on everything until just now. They are talking about their new multi-aircraft tablet system, support and upgrade plans for 2020 and 2024 aircraft, some really interesting persistence systems for the GA-8 Airvan’s failure module, a bunch of updates on the PC-12 and PC-12NG and even the company website is set to get an update that should help folks out. Let’s have a look!

Tablets and PC-12s

Let’s start with an update that came in at the end of May. The first item is a SWS aircraft specific tablet which the company has been working on for quite some time now. It’s planned to come with the GA-8 Airvan and then ported and adjusted to the PC-12.

The PC-12 is getting some updates with another update to the flight model to adjust for lack of drag at slower speeds. Updates for the flight model, avionics tweaks, and the tablet will come in a series of updates after which the team will begin to work towards converting it from MSFS 2024 compatible to a native aircraft for that sim.

The PC-12 is also expected to be picking up the same failure system developed for the GA-8 and previewed in previous updates. An updated engine simulation as well as systems failures for electrical system, avionics, propeller and governor, brakes, fuel, and oil system are currently planned providing for over 100 failure points. With both aircraft, these are add-ons that can be used to extend the base product.

SimWorks Studios is also working on their follow-up PC-12NG product with modern avionics and interfaces. Two images of the cockpit and interior were presented in the update.

Airvan failures, details, and release dates

SimWorks Studios GA-8 Airvan failures system is also going to have a persistence system baked into it as well. The aircraft will not only track usage but also rest times so if the aircraft sits unused for a lengthy period of time, age will still be a factor on the wear and tear of the airplane.

This isn’t new, but is needed to take things a step further: the plane keeps track of time even when you don’t fly it! If you hangar the aircraft for a week to go on vacation, next time you come back everything will be a week “older”. Your engine, your avionics, your electronics, your filters – even the plane itself will be dirty because you left it exposed to the elements!

This gives a true sense of ownership to the airplane, as not only will it remember how you left it, but it will also age when you don’t use it. Your oil filter has a replacement interval of 50h, or 4 months -now the latter makes sense!

The company is planning to send out review copies of the airplane soon so you’ll be able to see what other folks are saying about the airplane, not just my two preview pieces, very soon!

The team also picked up some great exposure on TwoToneMurphy’s YouTube channel which you can watch here.

Finally, just a couple of days ago we had a great little update on the release plans for the airplane.

SimWorks Studios say they are targeting release on the MSFS Marketplace for June 26th with their website release date to follow shortly after that. Users that buy the 2020 version of the aircraft will be entitled to upgrade to the 2024 version for free at the end of July when it releases into MSFS 2024.

The Marketplace release will come with the unique feature of being compatible with the career mode and be able to take part in career mode missions. This is only just starting to be rolled out this way for third party developers so its an early time for the feature and it seems like aircraft purchased elsewhere on other stores won’t be able to make use of Career mode in the same way. SWS are looking to see if it would be possible to enable that or adjust pricing to reflect the difference in featureset.

Look forward to learning more about how that works out.

One way or another, this project looks to be releasing very soon indeed!

A new website

The company have also announced that they are planning to launch a new website soon. The older one hadn’t been updated and their product portfolio has grown and become more complex so the significant update makes a lot of sense.

The company says that it will be cleaner, leaner, and have its own chatbot for support. Look for the change to launch soon on the company website.