Boeing 787 Dreamers in Virtual Service

That past few weeks, the officially licensed version of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has become available for X-Plane. They won’t go into actual service for a few more months yet, but you can fly them in X-Plane. I bought it almost as soon as I got the e-mail, but this weekend I finally got to try it out on a cross country flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. I’m really surprised by much of the detailed 3D modeling artistry that goes into making these planes, so I’m happy to highlight the work. I have one shot that shows the wing-flex model. The Dreamliner is actually kind of scary in that regard. The wingtips will be well over the fuselage during flight. Most of the buttons and dials you see in the cockpit you can actuate with the mouse just like you would in the real version. Here are some of the shots from the trip. Takeoff from a muggy day in Philly, ascent to cruising altitude over Virginia, Sunset over New Mexico, twilight descent and finally landing in Los Angeles at night. Gives some idea of the detail that went into the model, as well as the X-Plane experience.

I wanted to do one with sound, because I think the model designers did a really nice job of incorporating sound into their model. The radio is just random X-Plane radio chatter, which I normally leave off, though you can actually fly with live air traffic control on VATSIM. The depths of loserdom you can descend into with flight simulators these days is astounding. I think this is all part of a plot by the military to train the next generation for the future UAV wars with the Chinese. But let me say, as long as I’m listening to flying instructions from some thirteen year old Canadian kid, there’s no way we’re losing that fight. The Chinese are barely discovering flight while our kids are piloting intercontinental airliners through the virtual skies. I know which side I’m betting on in that fight.

I do all my own flying in these, which you can probably tell by some of the over-controlling and various other issues, but it’s been a long time since I killed any virtual passengers :)