Bluebird Simulations has this afternoon taken to the main stage in Las Vegas at the annual Flight Sim Expo, where CEO Shervin Ahooraei shared a comprehensive development update on their upcoming 757 and 767 projects.
Shervin also used his presentation time to announce a brand new 787 coming soon from Bluebird Simulations. For more information on that surprise reveal, check out our companion article here.
757 Update
The presentation started with an update on the progress of the studio’s Boeing 757 project, which has been in development since June 2021. Shervin says that the 757 will be the most accurate and immersive 757 ever made for any flight simulator, and will reflect the passion that the team feels towards flight simulation. It will ship with a complex electrical system, simulating 20 electrical buses with their relevant circuit breakers.
The plane also has an accurate flight model as tested and verified by over a dozen real-world 757 pilots, along with custom sounds recorded from the real plane courtesy of Boris Audio Works. Accurate night lighting has also been worked on extensively by the developers in the Bluebird team to ensure maximum immersion, with Shervin commenting that the team has spent hours working on this with over 35 dimmer switches in the cockpit.
Other simulated systems will include the air conditioning system, which will take into account which of the various doors and windows on the aircraft are opened or closed.
We also saw from some of the preview images that were shared of the new aircraft that an EFB was present in the cockpit.
The team chose to focus specifically on the FMS during their presentation, though. Here, Shervin talked about the fully custom autopilot which has been built from the ground up in-house by the Bluebird team. Work on this started last year, and the system will include three separate flight computers each working on their own circuit. The FMS will come with the LNAV and VNAV, including the ability to perform RNAV procedures, as well as pilot-entered waypoint speed and altitude restrictions for a 1-to-1 recreation of the real-world system. A custom debugging tool is also present onboard to make sure no one system is taking up too many of our precious frames!
The plane will also be able to accurately fly curved courses and correctly follow complex paths and will feature Simbrief integration on launch. Shervin finished by describing the system as a “1-to-1 representation of the real 757 FMS”
Moving on, Shervin focussed on the flight deck of the virtual airliner. Here, the team has worked with thousands of photos from real 757s to accurately model correctly scaled aspects of the flight deck. Over 70 colour samples from the 757 have been used to achieve accurate representation of the cockpit in the sim, with 3D scans of the yoke also being used accurate to 1mm.
Shervin also added that customers will have the option to use the aircraft with 2k, 4k, or hybrid textures, catering to users on desktop systems of varying processing power.
767 Progress
The second part of the presentation focussed on the progress of the 767. This project was announced a little while ago now but until today we haven’t seen as many details for this addon as we have for the 757.
Not a great deal of time was spent on this project, and from the video shown to demonstrate the progress made thus far, it is clear that the 767 is still in its infancy, with all the renders we saw today being external to the simulator in the Blender 3D modelling program. Shervin says the team has an “immense” amount of data from 3D scans of the aircraft, as well as over 9000 pictures, sounds and videos. He also revealed, though, that 90% of developer time right now is going into the 757, which would explain why progress on the 767 has been slower to this point.
It was confirmed on stage that the initial release of the 767 will be the -300ER variant, the most popular of the several that were manufactured by Boeing, and that this variant will ship with both the General Electric and Pratt and Whitney engine options. The Rolls Royce RB211 engine option will come sometime after release as a free update.
Simmers looking to get their hands on the -200 variants of the aircraft will have to wait a little longer, as these will be released later on and be bundled into a separate paid expansion pack, presumably requiring the -300 base pack to be used.
Shervin was clear in his goal to make the Bluebird 767 the most detailed and accurate 767 simulations ever produced for a flight simulator, with accurate flight dynamics tested by real-world 767 pilots. Further textured previews of the addon are promised to be shown off later this year.
That was it for Bluebird Simulations’ FSExpo presentation! Be sure to check out our companion article for details on their surprise announcement of a 787 for simmers here, and check out our FSExpo page for continuous rolling coverage of all the announcements and news coming out of Las Vegas!
