(Update: coming September 28th) The Junkers JU-52 has been delayed “a few weeks”

Update: The Flight Simulator team has announced a new release date for the JU-52: September 28th!

Sad news today for everyone looking to explore the recently released World Update VI with a brand new, locally famous airplane: the Junkers JU-52, initially planned to be released along with World Update VI, has now been delayed for “a few weeks”.

The announcement comes after we learned that the JU-52 would come this Thursday, September 9th. Well, it seems the Flight Simulator team needs more time to finish their work with the aircraft. Here’s the official statement:

As announced previously, we are introducing a new series called Local Legends: historic aircraft that coincide with World Updates. Today, World Update VI: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, was released and the plane to go with it, Junkers JU-52, was set to release on Thursday. The team has decided to postpone the Junkers JU-52 a few weeks in order to polish a few remaining bugs present in the aircraft. We will announce the release date shortly as well. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

“A few weeks” is somewhat of a vague estimate, but hopefully it won’t take long. It’s another unfortunate delay for Flight Simulator, after the Top Gun: Mavericks expansion suffered the same fate just a few days ago.

The Junkers JU-52 has been looking spectacular from the few teaser images we got. The developers promised an extremely faithful virtual version of the aircraft, where every switch and function works as in the real plane. To help in this task, the team has access to extensive documentation from the manufacturer and also the helpful feedback of real pilots.

The JU-52 will be the first in a series of “Local Legends”, which will see regionally famed aircraft come to MSFS together with new World Updates. The team is going to great lengths to digitally preserve the JU-52 in Flight Simulator. They have been working with Bernd Junkers, the grandson of the original creator of the JU-52 (Hugo Junkers), who has a large number of insider materials about the aircraft. They are also counting with the help of an organization that preserves one of the last surviving examples of the JU-52, which has enabled them to fully scan the plane from inside-out, in order to achieve an unprecedented level of detail that goes down to 1mm. 

We know many of our readers, especially those in Germany, have been eagerly anticipating the possibility to fly this amazing airplane in Flight Simulator. That will have to wait now, so stay tuned to know more once we have a new release date. Pricing has already been revealed: at just $14.99 it will be a really attractive new addition to your hangar!