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The X-Plane Congress 2009 took place on the weekend of the 23rd May, 2009, at Gault Soigny in France. Some 85 people attended from all over the world to discuss the future of X-Plane.
Some of the more interesting announcements:
X-Plane 9.30
9.30 will be final soon. Austin is getting very few bugs reports so he expects that 9.30 will go final soon (don’t ask for a date though).
No new features will be added to version 9.30
X-Plane Version 10
- Better Scenery
- Integration of OSM (Open Street Map)
- Airport designer (an editor to quickly design your airport)
- Do not expect all airport terminals to be included by default in v10. with 20,000+ airport, this is virtually impossible . That’s why LR will provide this tool so anyone can make their own local airport quickly. Sergio is the leader on this tool.
- Improved WED and meshtool
- Better weather
- Very high on Austin’s to do list. Expect the weather to be more localized and to change as you fly to new destinations.
- Better default planes
- Dornier 328
- Sergio did a presentation on The Dornier 328. It will be highly detailed. From what we were shown, the cabin is completely modeled. All doors (including the bathroom door) are functional and can be open through manipulators.
- MD 80
- The MD80, also developed by Sergio, will be the new highly detailed airliner for v10
- Other planes will be selected
- Dornier 328
- Improved ATC
- Also high on Austin’s list
- Speech recognition ? (Austin likes the concept, Ben did frown on the idea)
- The list of new features is not set. Laminar Research will still accept new feature requests.
- Technology will also drive new features. As computers become more powerful, the Laminar Research team can add more features to x-plane 10 .
- Version 9 is still the current version and will still be updated. Do not expect X-plane 10 within at least 24 months (my own estimation. Laminar Research will not give any date, don’t even ask).
It’s good to see a roadmap developing for X-Plane 10. There are some features mentioned that a lot of people have been requesting for some time.
You can read the full summary of the congress here.
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