Laminar Research recently issued a new X-Plane 12 beta build, which brings new boats, fresh custom airports, double jetway support, new cameras, bug fixes, and more. 

New boats were added to the X-Plane world, increasing the immersion when flying around islands and coastal areas. Ships feature region-specific accuracy, warranting that extra bit of realism. The number of boats shown will depend on the World Objects Density setting within the graphics setting. 

They have also added three new hand-built airports in the Caribbean, with custom buildings and ground textures: Princess Juliana International Airport (TNCM), Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport (TNCS), and Gustaf III Airport (TFFJ). 

This update also represents a major milestone for their Scenery Gateway, as the simulator now ships with 20 thousand 3D airports built by the community.

Additional camera commands were also added, with General Aviation pilots in mind. The first two commands allow you to tilt the cockpit view by 45 degrees to the left and right, and executing them again will tilt it by another 45 degrees. Commands to look up and down were also added. The camera tilts 30 degrees upon execution, and executing them again will make you look 60 or 90 degrees up or down.

By popular demand, Laminar has added dual jetway support, making widebody operations much more realistic. Aircraft and airport authors can now update their products to use this feature.

Lastly, new items were added to their general airport library, such as passenger stairs, airport buses, and a ground power unit. The remainder of the changelog follows below:

Support for VirtualFly Hardware

Included with 12.1.2 is support of four additional products VirtualFly in X-Plane:

- Switcho Engines Ignition

- Switcho Engines Electrical

- Switcho Lights

- Switcho Trims

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Fixes and Enhancements

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Replay System

We have focused effort on improving the stability of our replay system for this release. What good is a butter landing if you can’t show it to your friends later?

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Local Web API

When the WebServer cannot bind to port 8086 a warning will be shown to the user, but X-Plane will continue to start normally.

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Scenery

We updated the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas.

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Aircaft

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General

We fixed a problem regarding rain drops on windshields (XPD-15751).

Cirrus Vision SF50

We fixed an engine behavior bug in the Cirrus VisionJet. Previously, if you started the engine, shut it down and then immediately tried to start it again, nothing happened.

Beta ALIA VTOL

The ALIA 250 now has gauges for all four batteries on its display.

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Refer to their blog post for further instructions on installing the beta. 

Stay tuned to Threshold for more flight simulation news!

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