Digital Flight Dynamics shares A350 for MSFS development update
The A350X from Digital Flight Dynamics is one of the most promising freeware projects currently underway for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The goal of the team is to release a high-fidelity freeware simulation of the A350 for MSFS, the modern Airbus wide-body twinjet. Today we’re taking a closer look into the latest development update, shared this week by the team on Youtube, finally providing some new details after many months of quietness.
The team has faced some development difficulties over the past few months, particularly with slow advancements in the 3D modeling of the aircraft. DFD reveals that the team didn’t have a unified way to share large files and references that are crucial for the work of developers. This and other factors contributed to a bottleneck in the team that has led to a slow pace of development.
Another thing to consider is that the A350 is the latest jetliner in the Airbus family. Therefore, there’s still not much data or reference materials for developers to work with. Since Digital Flight Dynamics is looking to create a highly accurate replica of the A350, the lack of reference materials also generates slow development times.
The good news is that DFD has managed to mitigate most of these problems and has since been able to speed up 3D modeling, bringing it up to speed with the systems development team. This had led to significant improvements in the overall visuals of the aircraft since the last time we saw it.
This second episode of the A350 development series is rich in new images of the aircraft, both in terms of modeling and also inside the simulator itself, where we can start to get a clear picture of how the mighty airliner will look in MSFS.
In the video, which you can see above, Digital Flight Dynamics shares plenty of views of the flight deck, showing the central pedestal, overhead panel, side stick, screens, and more. It’s clearly in an advanced state and looking very promising indeed, even if it’s safe to assume that there’s still quite a lot of work to do.
The external model also looks quite impressive. The distinctive nose of the A350 looks very authentic, and we can even see a detailed animation in the engine. A nice teaser of things to come from Digital Flight Dynamics!
This development update is focused on the 3D modeling aspect of this project, so there’s little to know in terms of systems and overall coding of the whole simulation. In any case, DFD says that the team working on that side of the project has been making good advancements, and we can even see some of that work on the screens depicted in this latest update.
The A350X for MSFS appears to keep moving ahead at a reasonably steady pace, and we can’t wait to see what Digital Flight Dynamics will be able to bring to the simulator once the project is finished. We’ve seen some similar freeware endeavors end up in the bin, but the persistence shown by this time raises our hopes that this will continue to be a project to track down the line.
For now, enjoy the excellent assortment of new preview images and watch the video to hear some words from the developers too. As always, you can count on our continued coverage of this project to bring you any new meaningful updates!
