At this weekend’s FSWeekend event, Laminar Research took the stage to announce some exciting news. In December, after the Early Access release, X-Plane 12 will be fully available to the public. By dropping the early access moniker, the full release of the simulator shows that the team is confident that it will eventually push for release through other means.

Those waiting to own the DVD version of X-Plane 12 will have to wait until early 2023 to get the simulator on physical disc.

Since X-Plane 12 was released to early access, the simulator has had 11 updates that address numerous bugs and feedback from the community. Added ALYA-250 along with various improvements to ATC and VR.

Another major update is in the works for the A330 included for X-Plane 12. Earlier it was said that the plan was to bring a functional MCDU to the aircraft. This is something that Laminar Research has been working on for some time, but progress is being made for a highly functional and accurate MCDU.

There are many other improvements to the A330 coming soon, including weather support, B612 fonts (for improved clarity) and also RNP/GLS approaches. All of these are scheduled to arrive at the release of X-Plane 12’s full release.

VR was also mentioned during the presentation. Laminar will implement OpenXR support, paving the way for many more devices to be compatible with X-Plane 12. But this will be after the full release of the new simulator.

Although X-Plane 12 will be fully released soon, Laminar Research intends to continue improving the platform. As we saw with X-Plane 11, more improvements will be made to the platform over time. As the team continues to grow, they also hire new scenery designers, network engineers, marketing teams, and more. are trying to expand the workforce with

We’ll be sure to update you if we hear anything else from the team over the weekend.