Carenado’s Beechcraft Staggerwing is coming to MSFS next week

The MSFS team recently announced a new series of airplanes for the simulator, the Famous Flyers, which looks to highlight notable aircraft from all over the world. We were expecting the ATSimulations An-2 to be the first of these Famous Flyers but, despite being ready to release, the MSFS team revealed that it has been difficult to get a licensing agreement from Antonov, which has led to the delay of this release. The last estimated date for the Antonov An-2 was March 1st, next week, but another possibility was brought upfront… This week, the MSFS team has confirmed that the new Famous Flyer will in fact arrive next week… but it’s not the An-2!

When Carenado’s Fernando Herrera showed up last month during a Developer Q&A with the MSFS team, he proudly showcased the beautiful MSFS model of the also beautiful Beechcraft Model D17 Staggerwing, under development in partnership with Asobo to be one of the next airplanes in the “Famous Flyers” series. At the time, it was hinted that it might actually come out before the Antonov An-2, despite being initially planned to be the second aircraft in the series.

Now, it has been confirmed that the plans have indeed changed, and we will see the Staggerwing hit the platform next week, instead of the An-2, which continues on hold. As spotted by some keen eyes in the community, the latest MSFS development roadmap update includes updated data about the next releases, most notably the replacement of the An-2 by the Staggerwing as the first Famous Flyer.

The images above are courtesy of Twinfinite, since the original Twitch stream is no longer available.

Right now, the plan is to release the Model 17 Staggerwing, along with a respective trailer video, on March 1st. As for the An-2, a tentative new release date has not been revealed, nor if it’s still scheduled for a release at a later stage. With war now underway in Ukraine, Antonov’s home country, the people involved will the matter surely have more important stuff to worry about at this time. We’ll have to wait for Asobo’s or Microsoft’s word on this one.

As for the Staggerwing, it’s another Carenado airplane coming to MSFS, and it will likely showcase the developer’s renowned modeling and texturing capabilities. Fernando Herrera was clearly proud of Carenado’s work on the aircraft, but it will be particularly interesting to see how it behaves, since it’s pretty much a given that it will look great.