It’s high time that someone did a Bombardier Global business jet and several months ago we learned that iniBuilds was taking on the task. An unbranded Global 6000, iniBuilds are calling it the Global Jet and we’ve got our first significant update on the project. We’ve also learned and seen some new details around the A350 v2 project and a bit more on the latest for the A380. Let’s go!

Flying Globally

The folks at iniBuilds are talking about their Global 6000 project similarly to how I approach a lot of business jets. The appeal for them, over a typical airliner experience, is in performance and variety. With the ability to climb to FL 510, fly at Mach 0.88, cruise over nearly 7,000 miles, and land on a 3,000 foot runway, the Global 6000 is very capable as a platform.

The team have revealed that they are working with Echo 19 on the sounds, are using a version of the jet with the Vision Flight Deck which itself is running on Avionics Software Version 5.8. The reference jet, based at an FBO at Al Maktoum International Airport, was used to help collect the references for sounds, systems modeling and more.

Clearly inspired by the systems we’ve seen on the Black Square projects as well as on the recent Flight FX Hawker 800XP, the aircraft’s EFB will have a systems overview and diagram so you can see how the systems are working in real time – love this!

Two cabins and a variety of cabin interactivity including custom lighting controls are part of the effort as well.

A teaser video gives you a sense of what is coming.

Airbus updates

iniBuilds have just recently released their A380 Airliner project to the world and I’m generally hearing quite positive reviews from the project. Version 1.04 has apparently been submitted to Microsoft for the Marketplace and will reportedly bring in PlayStation 5 compatibility though they seem to think that it may be pushed to 1.05 if not completed in time.

The rest of the focus in this update is on the A350 which as two big updates on the way. In the near term, version 1.2.7 is a stability pass with new WASM crash reporting system built in (so you can submit your crash to iniBuilds). WASM crashes has been a big problem for some A350 users and while iniBuilds has ironed out a lot of issues over the last year of release, problems continue to appear and it sounds like they really want to drill down into specific instances that may be difficult to replicate.

Also in the 1.2.7 update are LNAV updates with an improved following mode as well as flight model adjustments.

The feel and overall approach to the A380’s flight model were extremely well received, and we are now bringing that same level of refinement to the A350. This work was originally planned as part of A350 Airliner V2, but we have brought it forward so existing customers can benefit much sooner through version 1.2.7.

Further on into the future is the V2 update with systems improvements, an EFB overhaul, deeper ECAM simulation, art and geometry updates to the airplane, as well as new and improved sounds. The team reportedly went to Paris to do laser scanning of a real A350 to improve the accuracy.

The dev report includes some cool comparison shots showing the adjusted geometry in V2. Check out the full report on the A350, the A380, and the Global Jet project here.