Spring marks the return of airshow season across Europe, and with it, the unmistakable presence of the Rafale Solo Display. If you are lucky enough to see it live, it is always a highlight. If not, you will soon be able to enjoy your own aerobatic sessions at home with our aircraft.
As development progresses, we continue to expand the experience. Wingtip smoke pods have been added, featuring a fully custom 3D effect designed to produce dense and persistent trails. Alongside this, the flares system is now alive. Rather than relying on a simple visual effect, each flare is simulated as an individual object with its own physics and lifecycle, resulting in a much more realistic rendering. We can also easily create various flare deployment scenarios by adjusting the number of flares and their release timing.
The flight model remains one of the most demanding aspects of the project. Working within the constraints of MSFS, especially when it comes to fly-by-wire, has confirmed that implementing a fully custom WASM flight control system was the right decision. It is now nearing completion, and we are very proud of what has been achieved. With the valuable input of real pilots, we are fine-tuning it across all flight domains, speeds, and altitudes to get as close to reality as possible.
Another key challenge is ensuring consistent behavior across all platforms and control setups, from high-end PCs to Xbox, while accommodating the wide range of input devices used by simmers.
Aircraft performance is also reaching a high level of fidelity. The drag and weight of each external store are carefully simulated to ensure consistent behavior across all mission profiles. As you may know, the Rafale can carry up to 1.5 times its own weight in fuel and stores, making this aspect essential to achieve realistic results with every possible loadout.
In parallel, work on avionics, a significant part of the project, continues steadily. More information will be revealed soon.
These screenshots highlight what we have described above and showcase some of the additional liveries among the many that have been created for our product.
Official Licensed Product – DASSAULT Aviation.
Developed by AZURPOLY in cooperation with JFEXP.
