Development Update 05/10/2025
Hello AFL 737 MAX Community!
We're back with another exciting update on the development of our 737 MAX for X-Plane! While our avionics and systems teams continue to breathe life into the flight deck and advance our FMS capabilities, our 3D artists have been diving deep into the intricate mechanics of the landing gear and wing interiors. We're making fantastic progress in bringing these complex areas to life!
Major Strides in External and Internal Structures
We’re thrilled to announce that the comprehensive 3D modeling work for the fuselage, wings, and landing gear is now approximately 90% complete! This is a huge step forward, laying the groundwork for the visual fidelity you expect from an Airfoillabs project.
Our current primary focus in the art department is the meticulous texturing of the interior mechanical parts of the wings and landing gear. This includes all those crucial, detailed components that make these systems work, such as the spoiler actuators, flap and slat mechanisms, and the intricate assemblies within the landing gear bays that are not visible when the gear is retracted. We're very close to finalizing this intensive texturing phase for these hidden, yet essential, details.
Here’s a sneak peek at what we've been working on:
Looking Ahead: A Continuously Evolving Simulation
With the core 3D modeling for these major external and internal mechanical structures nearly finished and their detailed texturing well advanced, our next steps will involve integrating these elements fully, refining animations, and continuing our push on systems development.
More importantly, we want to share our philosophy for the AFL 737 MAX post-launch. Our plan is for this project to evolve significantly even after its initial release. We see version 1.0 as a fantastic beginning, but it’s just that – a beginning. Drawing from our "Continuous Development" approach mentioned in our very first announcement, we are committed to delivering regular updates, introducing enhanced functionality, refining systems based on ongoing research and your valuable feedback, and incorporating advanced features as we move forward. This aircraft is a passion project for us, and we intend for it to grow and improve for a long time to come, becoming an ever-more comprehensive simulation.
Your support and enthusiasm are what fuel our dedication. Every comment and piece of feedback is invaluable as we work to create the most authentic 737 MAX experience for X-Plane.
Stay tuned for more updates as we bring these mechanical marvels to life!
Clear skies,
Juraj Rovensky
A note about communication:
We're a small, dedicated team with our hands deep in development. While we're committed to these monthly updates and treasure every piece of community feedback, we may not be able to respond to every post as quickly as we'd like.
Our primary focus needs to stay on development to deliver the quality you expect. We're actively looking for passionate X-Plane community members who might be interested in helping us manage these communications and build more robust community engagement.
Until then, please know that we have read everything and that your input directly influences our development decisions. We believe this balanced approach - focused development time combined with weekly comprehensive updates - will ultimately produce a better product for everyone.