Here’s the USS George H.W. Bush, a highly detailed aircraft carrier for MSFS

Miltech Simulations has released its first add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator, a highly detailed model of the USS George H.W. Bush supercarrier. That’s right, an aircraft carrier for MSFS, fully functional to enable carrier operations with catapult and arrestor cables.

USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) is a Nimitz-class supercarrier of the United States Navy, the tenth and last of its class. It entered operations in 2009 and is now available in MSFS with a very realistic 3D model that you can use with any aircraft in your hangar.

It may not be the most realistic thing you can do in MSFS, but this aircraft carrier enables any kind of airplane to take off and land from the deck, from a fighter jet to a Boeing 747. That’s possible because Miltech Simulations included a handy little tool to control the catapult and arrestor cables, with selectable launch speed and stop time, customizable for any aircraft.

From the start, this add-on is available in 7 static locations around the world, and you can request the developer to add new location of your liking, which will be added for free within 24 hours. Note that the carrier won’t move in any of the locations, but you can start a flight from each of the custom ICAO codes representative of each location.

To use the catapult and arrestor functions, you need to use an external app to setup each of the dynamics. It’s a simple thing to do, and it’s actually based on a tool (Kinetic Assistant by Touching Cloud) that has been used before to simulate thermals for glider flights in MSFS.

The developers understand the limitations of this product, both in terms of features and realism. Since the MSFS SDK requires airports to have fixed coordinates, the carrier doesn’t move. Also, there’s no animations at this time, no PAPI lights, and crash detection must be off at all times. But it sure looks pretty and should be a cool way to try a first taste into carrier operations in MSFS.

If this idea sounds familiar, you may remember to see a similar implementation by another add-on, MSFS Carrier Module. While both have similar functionality, it appears the USS George H.W. Bush is a very significant visual improvement.

The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) for MSFS is now available from Orbx Direct, priced at just $14.81 | €12,79 | £10.95.