Development Update 04/23/2025
Cockpit texture post-production is roughly 75% finished and the XJet avionics core matures.
We're pushing forward with exciting developments on multiple fronts for the AFL 737 MAX! Our team is deep in the refinement stages, bringing both the visual fidelity of the cockpit and the core avionics systems closer to completion.
Airfoillabs Team
Cockpit Texture Post-Production - Roughly 75% Finished
Hand-tuned textures: More than 200 individual textures have been repainted, balanced, or rebuilt to remove projection glitches, normal-map artifacts, and mismatched PBR channels. The difference is night and day when the sun splashes across the glareshield at dawn.
Geometry polish: Countless micro-adjustments - rounded screw heads, beveled panel edges, corrected chamfers on MCP knobs - add up to a cockpit that now feels machined rather than modeled.
See for yourself: We've attached completely raw X-Plane 12 screenshots - no color grading, no post-processing - so you can inspect every rivet, scratch, and fingerprint. We're proud of how far the visuals have come.
Avionics, Navigation & XJet Core
Our systems guru has been knee-deep in code, coaxing zeros and ones into something that looks suspiciously like a modern 737 flight deck.
Primary Flight Display (PFD)
Flight-info block: Speed tape, altitude tape, baro settings, and VSI all drawn from live simulator data and layered with our own anti-aliasing shader for razor-sharp readability.
Compass card & HSI revamp: Heading information now blends seamlessly with lateral-nav symbology; course deviation guidance is pixel-perfect down to a tenth of a degree.
Multi-Function Display (MFD)
Turn-radius predictor: The familiar magenta arc now appears on the navigation page, letting you judge whether the next restriction is within reach before a single degree of bank is applied.
Core Avionics (XJet Framework)
Stability fixes: Eliminated several race-condition gremlins that occasionally blanked displays after a scenery reload.
Dynamic brightness callbacks: Panels now obey ambient-light sensors and your dimmer knobs in real time. Pull into a dusk approach and watch the back-lighting gracefully take over.
Navigation Backend
Bug fixes in airway parsing, improved discontinuity handling, and duplicate-waypoint logic built on coordinate discrimination give us route continuity you can trust.
Autopilot Foundations
The math engines that locate the nearest point on course and calculate optimal intercept angles for LNAV are complete - crucial groundwork before the autopilot itself begins flying the magenta.
Looking Down the Runway
Manipulators & Cockpit Animations: Every switch, guard, and lever wired and animated - complete with detents and sound cues.
LNAV to the Sky: With path-tracking math finished, we'll integrate it into the flight-director and servo logic.
Exterior Modeling Kickoff: Once the cockpit is locked, art resources shift outside to fuselage and wing detailing.
Your feedback over the past months has shaped everything from knob textures to waypoint-edit logic. Keep it coming - every screenshot critique and systems nitpick nudges us closer to the airliner you deserve.
Thank you for flying along with us on this journey. If replies lag, rest assured we're simply buried in code and polygons. We read every post.
Clear skies,
Juraj, Airfoillabs
AFL 737 MAX is an independently developed add-on for X-Plane, not affiliated with or endorsed by any aircraft manufacturer. Full disclaimer
