Hey guys,

Quick update for you today - things are cruising along at breakneck speed at the moment. I'll keep things brief today as we'll have a bigger update post coming shortly!

• Alpha v2 has been sent out to our full Grob/Vigilant Pilot Test Team and feedback has been excellent so far. With the base Flight Model all but completed, the advanced performance tuning is well under way and getting closer to real life everyday. Drag Tuning, Propeller fine tuning, Engine tuning and ground handling are close to completion; lift/climb and stall behaviour is being perfected now
• The G109b has a unique ground handling/steering system which has now been coded and is working fantastically 
• Art is progressing further & further each day, with things really starting to take shape and more and more detail is being worked in
• Manipulators are being refined & perfected, ready for both VR & non-VR. Dodgy manips are a thing of the past
• A basic popup GUI Test has been successfully made (and fully VR compatible), and work on the GUI is now ready to commence
• Similarly, we have successfully been able to code the tablet as a fully-functional touch screen tablet display, and have managed to fully integrate Avitab with a successful test run. Work is now ready to begin fleshing out all the 'apps' and functions of our custom Tablet
• Most, if not all of the primary animations are now animated & working
• Sound is being continually refined & remixed; so far feedback from the test team has been positive despite it being an early WiP
• An early iteration of the Pilot Model has been added for externals (WiP)

Here's a few screenshots to whet the appetite

Here's another mini-update:

Just some news for you: State-saving has now been accomplished and is being added to the aircraft. Right now the aircraft has persistent essentials; including fuel levels, PAX weight, CoG, Total Flight time (essential for proper maintenance scheduling). These will be saved after every flight and automatically loaded when you start your next flight; the aim being to simulate aircraft ownership.

Now that we've been able to achieve this, we are working on integrating much more persistent features. The key features that will persist across flights will include:

- All maintenance/damage/condition levels (Such as oil levels, Fuel contamination, Battery Charge, Wear & Tear from Flight Hours etc.)

- Switch positions (this will make shutdown procedures meaningful, for example - leave the battery on, quit X-plane, and when you come back the next day you'll find you have a dead battery)

- User Settings / Preferences on the GUI/Tablet

Development of the Tablet is coming along well (pics to come soon), Sound & Art are being tightened up, lighting tuned and textures being enhanced. Static Elements (tie-downs etc.) are modeled in, pre-flight procedures and the walk-around are being programmed in and AO shadowing is largely in-place. Things are coming along quite well! One of our key remaining challenges now is getting the Aircraft temperature behaviour correct, so that it can work hand-in-hand with our damage/maintenance model. We are almost at the stage where we are ready to start sharing videos, so stay tuned!

Cheers,

Dan & Alex