The F-22 Raptor is coming soon to MSFS

There’s a new payware military jet coming soon to Microsoft Flight Simulator. Top Mach Studios, who have already provided a freeware F-22 Raptor for some time, are now finishing their work on a “premium” payware version of that same aircraft, currently expected to come out during this quarter.

Top Mach Studios is a small team of developers working in their spare time on this project. Their goal is to offer MSFS simmers an authentic aircraft that looks good and flies according to the known specifications. 

The real-world F-22 Raptor has been a closely guarded secret since its inception, with little known about its actual combat capabilities, so Top Mach Studios will resort to extensive research of publicly available materials to make the best out of the native model they are creating for MSFS.

This F-22 has been in development for well over a year and will be coming with a promising and comprehensive list of features. Besides the expectation of a great animated 3D model with high-resolution textures, Top Mach Studios also promise a fully animated and functional cockpit.

Top Mach Studios is implementing a fly-by-wire control system in the F-22 that will hopefully recreate the exceptional maneuverability capabilities of the Raptor, within the current limitations of MSFS. The developers say the aircraft will be capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 1.7 at over 50.000 ft while also being able to perform pure dogfighting maneuvers at high angles of attack.

Along with these specialized flight characteristics, the developers are also adding custom visual effects such as flight surface and wingtip vortexes, afterburner heat plumes, vapor clouds when breaking the sound barrier, and more. Excellent visuals are one of the main goals of this project, as we can see from the selection of teaser images that Top Mach Studios has recently revealed.

Top Mach studios made this project public a few months ago, when IRIS Simulations announced their own development of the F-22 for MSFS. Unfortunately, we’ve never heard about IRIS’s endeavor ever again, making the Top Mac Studios version even more interesting.

For now, development appears to be reaching the final stages, with the package undergoing a beta test with a few select users, intending to set a release date for this quarter, Q2 2022.

A nicely-detailed F-22 Raptor would definitely be a welcome addition to the growing list of military jets in Microsoft Flight Simulator, pairing beautifully with the Indiafoxtecho F-35. It’s true that these fighters can’t wage any kind of war in MSFS, but they can still be entertaining and challenging to fly, and they look striking in the beautiful world of MSFS! With that in mind, the Top Mach Studios F-22 is looking great!

We’ll keep you posted about any new meaningful development updates coming from Top Mach Studios, but you can also check their recently launched official website, where you’ll find some of the latest development updates, plenty of technical and feature details about the project, along with a variety of beautiful teaser images.