Boston Delivery, N45XS, radio check
— N45XS, reading you loud and clear.
The best way to take your X-Plane flying to the next level of realism is with Air Traffic Control (ATC)! Getting comfortable talking on the radio is a critical step in any pilot’s journey. With this release, we are improving the built-in ATC in X-Plane to add a new level of immersion to your flying experience. If you haven’t used our ATC system in a while, now is the perfect time to give it a try!
In addition to the the ATC system, we’ve also improved the weather system, added a new custom airport and fixed some errors in our aircraft fleet. Additionally, we also want to introduce an early implementation of the X-Plane Identity system. This is a big first step towards the forthcoming X-Plane Store and a solid milestone for us.
General
- Thanks to our friends at Navigraph, we have upgraded the default navigation data to AIRAC 2306
- Fixed rendering stutters when showing UI elements, like the menu bar
- Wakes from big boats such as oil tankers will now translate to seaplanes correctly
- Floating VR windows retain their positions when they’re re-opened, and move relative to the pilot’s seat when changing aircraft
- Improved the brightness of certain types of lights on aircraft, scenery objects and vehicles, as some where more or less invisible during the day when they should have been visible
- Flashing lights, most notably on emergency and service trucks, no longer go into-super speed when the vehicles move in certain directions
ATC
The ATC system got a massive overhaul. You can now interact with ATC more realistically than ever before. Start your flight with a radio check, request your clearance, get the altimeter and weather updates from ATC and verify your current position with the controller. You can even report a transponder failure, prompting ATC to ask for position reports periodically.
Manual
We have created a new and comprehensive manual for the ATC system. It has all sorts of useful details to enhance your experience in our airspace.
Setup
To more easily interact with ATC, you can use the push-to-talk option instead of keyboard and mouse. This works in a very similarly to transmitting in a real aircraft by binding a joystick button to the "Contact ATC (Push-to-talk)" command. While you hold this button down, you can control the ATC command menu by using your joystick’s hat switch to select your next transmission.
Enhanced support for VFR
This ATC update builds on our previous work for an improved experience while flying VFR. Start your flight by requesting a VFR departure. and follow up with requests for your desired en-route headings. Just like the real world procedure, this allows the controller to assign an appropriate runway for the take-off. Once you are airborne, you can request flight following, will get a hand-over to other controllers if necessary and if you contact the wrong controller by accident, ATC will tell you whom to contact instead, such like in real life.
Support for SIDs and STARs in IFR flights
ATC and AI aircraft are now able to use Standard Instrument Departure Routes (SIDs) and Standard Arrival Routes (STARs) in their flight plan, if available. A SID is a standard route defined by ATC that gives aircraft an expeditious path out of the congested airspace around an airport. A STAR is the exact opposite. SIDs and STARs help ATC to ensure a safe and efficient flow of all traffic while reducing workload for both pilots and controllers.
Please note that this feature is available only for planes with a cruise speed of at least 180 kts, much like in real life.
Other notable features:
- Copy & paste routes directly from Navigraph, Simbrief or other tools into the flight plan. The flight plan can subsequently be sent automatically to the FMS
- Request an alternative SID before departure
- Request an alternative STAR on arrival
- Request altitude exceptions where cruise altitude requires it
- Request per-turn instructions via radio, using a checkbox or using “NO STAR” in the plan
General Fixes and Improvements
We spent a lot of time overhauling the ATC system but we also implemented some new features and bug fixes. We can’t mention everything here, but the most notable improvements are:
- ATC transmission strength now depends on the location of the aircraft
- Transition Altitude and Transition Levels are now properly supported. We also support airport and controller-specific transitions
- It is possible to report a failed transponder, prompting ATC to request regular position reports
- Puerto Rico and Alaska now belong to the United States airspace in X-Plane
- For our Canadian friends, we updated the region to ICAO phrases and inHg pressure unit settings 🇨🇦 🫎
- Many improvements to ATIS broadcasts
- Ability to request a diversion during cruise, approach and landing to a nearby airports, if required
- Ability to request an alternative runway for arrival and departure, if desired
- Improved ATC instructions when landing on aircraft carriers, at holds and for go-arounds
- You can find the full release notes here for additional details.
Sounds
You can now select a different output device for radio sounds. This will be helpful if you want to have the aircraft sounds on the main speakers and radio (ATC) transmissions in a headset, just like in real life. The output devices can be configured on the Sound Settings page.
Weather
While these improvements were initially slated for Q1 2025, we liked them so much that we couldn’t help ourselves!
Principally – we fixed the annoying and sudden altitude and pressure changes during a flight. That was always a rough experience for our pilots. We also spent quite a bit of time improving the way we interpret METAR information and wind data. The results are very promising and the tester feedback has been extremely positive so far. Go give it a try!
We’ve also addressed some errors on the G1000 NEXRAD display and improved the visualization of clouds. We have more to come in the dedicated weather release but you can enjoy a good chunk of our work now in 12.1.3.
Following the awesome feedback on our Caribbean airports from 12.1.2, we’ve added another custom airport to this release. This time we are on the island of Manhattan. Our helicopter and ALIA-250 pilots will love this one!
Downtown Manhattan Heliport (KJRB)
The Downtown Manhattan Heliport is a public heliport serving Wall Street and the Financial District (FiDi). After opening in the 1960s, it has hosted scheduled passenger services to JFK and plenty of time-sensitive commuters.
X-Plane Identity – Optional Early Access
This is a really huge milestone towards our own store in X-Plane and the team was working hard on this feature. X-Plane Identity allows you to create a user account with us and link your product key to. After this OPTIONAL migration, you will never need the product key again – just login with your X-Plane Identity whenever you need to access the sim. In future, all X-Plane Store purchases will be linked to your X-Plane Identity for easy add-on installation, licensing and updates.
If you would like to help us test this system, you will see a button on the Main Menu titled Login. Click that, register for X-Plane Identity and link your exisiting product key – that’s it! You still can use your product key like always, if you prefer. We have NO plans to force migration to X-Plane Identity. Please note that your old product key is replaced by your new X-Plane Identity, it will not unlock the sim in the future – that is what your new Identity login is for!
Fixes and Enhancements
Aircraft
We took the opportunity to improve some of our existing fleet in 12.1.3, too! This release comes with some important autopilot improvements for the Airbus A330-300 and we fixed some bugs in other aircraft, as well.
Airbus A330-300
- Improved the calculation of the descent gradient, especially during approach and for the first segment at high altitude
- Improved the autopilot to avoid overshooting turns
- Added additional commands to allow for better binding of hardware controllers
- The VHF/HF CALL lights and the ATC COMM lights will no longer respond to incoming ATC transmissions. CALL lights now require interaction with custom SELCAL datarefs and ATC COMM lights require interaction with custom CPDLC datarefs
Cirrus SR22
- Fixed the fuel tank capacity and G1000 display
Cessna Citation X
- Using full reverse thrust will no longer trigger a take-off warning
- Improved performance calculation in the FMS
Flight Configuration
During flight configuration, X-Plane now gives you additional information about the different gates and ramps available at your chosen airport. We also added a new option to show only parking and runways suitable for your aircraft.
Map
The map in X-Plane received some very nice and useful enhancements. Lets have a closer look at them in detail.
Highlight active runways
When you zoom into an airport, the active runways will be highlighted according to the current weather.
Taxi Routes
We now display the taxi routes for airports on the map. An option on the right hand side of the map view allows you to toggle the taxi lines on and off.
Ground Vehicles
- Improved the ground vehicle route calculation. Previously, ground trucks that wanted to both enter and leave the same road segment would first drive all the way to the end of the segment and return in the other direction before considering leaving it.
- Service trucks will now try to reach any service port which is not blocked by another service truck. Previously ports were serviced in strict type order.
Closing Words…
We’re super happy to share all of this with you now. X-Plane 12.1.3 is in public beta NOW and you can install it using the X-Plane Installer or by choosing the public beta option in Steam. Just make sure to tick the checkbox Check for new betas as well as updates before running the update process in the X-Plane Installer..
For additional details and a more comprehensive list of changes, have a look at the full release notes, please.
