(With video!) North American Rockwell OV-10A Bronco in development for Microsoft Flight Simulator
Update, May 11th – The Bronco can now be seen in action in MSFS thanks to a new video shared by the developer. Watch it below!
Virtual aviators are always looking for new and exciting projects to add to their list of airplanes to consider for future purchases. By now you’ve realised that we like to bring you the news of obscure projects where we find some promising signs, which will hopefully translate into a final product that reflects a level of quality MSFS simmers demand in this day and age. Today, we’re introducing you to one such project, which seeks to bring us a detailed rendition of the North American Rockwell OV-10A Bronco.
The project began a year ago when Arie Baba, who was training to become a B777 captain before Covid hit, took on the challenge of bringing the Bronco to Microsoft Flight Simulator. After being inspired by a video of a scale model Bronco OV-10A, Arie decided to take on the challenge of replicating the aircraft in the simulator. The coding was not as easy as he thought, but, as he told us, “the internet can be helpful”, and he was able to create an impressive and functional model of the Bronco that is now nearly finished.
Arie Baba’s Bronco is now flyable in the simulator and, according to the developer, offers a fun flying experience. Arie still has to finish the implementation of some systems like fuel indication, fuel tank dropping, and TACAN, and is also looking to include checklists and labels, as well as writing an aircraft operating manual. Currently, the Bronco uses the sound of the King Air, which Baba believes sounds similar to the real-life Bronco and works as a decent compromise at this time considering the expected difficulties in recording real sounds from an actual aircraft.
Arie Baba has applied for a developer license from Microsoft but has yet to receive any feedback. He plans to release the Bronco on the Marketplace but is considering alternative options if the process is too difficult. He has seen some low-quality planes in the Marketplace and believes his Bronco is of a higher standard when compared to much of what is currently available in the platform, so he’s confident that the Bronco will eventually be worthy of consideration with a low price tag attached.
The developer told us that he’s looking into sharing the aircraft with a few content creators in order to get some feedback and get the project out there, which may help his chances with Microsoft. The Bronco certainly looks very fine in the preview images the developer shared with us, which you can see in this article. That said, we’re likely to see the Bronco show up on our feeds elsewhere if the developer manages to grab the interest of the community!
So, what about a planned release date then? Well, Arie was pretty candid about that: “No release date yet, but if I look at the state of some Marketplace planes now, my Bronco can be released tomorrow”, he said.
