Author: Thomas

After many months of development we are now proud to present Bookmark Simulations Saab 35 Draken 5.0 for Prepar3D v4. This version is built exclusively for Prepar3D v4 and a major leap forward from the previous versions for Microsoft Flight Simulator. It includes a load of new features and improvements:

Completely reworked exterior and interior models and textures

All the exterior and interior texture sheets have been upgraded to higher resolution. The texture mapping of fuselage and wings has also been improved to make repainting easier. An updated repaint kit will be released later in 2019.

The exterior model has been reworked with much more attention to detail and better animations. The landing gear and the exterior version of the cockpit are the most visible improvements in this major facelift.

The virtual cockpit is now also much more detailed and accurate, and immensly more flyable. Several instruments are now modeled instead of being “flat” 2D gauges. This also means that the old 2D minipanel has finally been retired.

Dimmable lighting

The interior lighting fx are now fully dimmable with separate dimmer knobs for the main instrument lights, radarscope grid, flight director crossbars, radar intensity, and panel backlighting. Cockpit lights have also been added in their correct locations.

Dynamic landing and taxi lights

The landing and taxi lights now illuminate the ground realistically when dynamic lighting is enabled in Prepar3D.

Real rear view mirrors

The rear view mirrors now show the live environment behind the aircraft. This effect can be disabled to improve performance. Please note that this has nothing to do with the new dynamic reflections option in Prepar3D.

New soundpack

The RM6 engine sounds have been improved and fine-tuned in the new soundpack. The interior sounds are now much more authentic-sounding, and the startup and shutdown sequences are completely fluid without gaps and stutters.

PN-594 simulated with TACAN

The simulated PN-594 navigation system now uses TACAN instead of VOR to simulate ANITA to avoid conflicts with existing VOR stations.

How to purchase

Draken 5.0 for Prepar3D is not freeware, but dirt cheap. The price is  9.00 €  including free updates for the 5.x series.

You can purchase the aircraft in our webshop.

How to get help

An online Flight Manual is available on the Support page, where you will also find a support forum. Please note that the Flight Manual is still in development and all sections have not yet been updated for version 5.0.

 

During the final tests I discovered some problems with the com radios that were difficult to solve. The radios contain some of the oldest code in this sim, I wrote most of it ten years ago and a lot of it was actually ported over from the old FS9 version, which means that troubleshooting is a nightmare. So I decided to redo the whole com radio system at the last minute.

This means that we had to postpone the release for another week. Sorry about that, but at least you will get radios that actually work. ;)

Oh, and I threw in UHF  support for good measure.

Cheers /Thomas

The model, textures and functions in Draken 5.0 have all been completed, and we are now working on the Flight Manual and on getting all the installer scripts and graphics in place. The new support forum will also open when the model is released, which is probably at the end of next week.

Thank you for being patient, I know that it has been a long wait.   /Thomas

The release of Draken 5.0 has been moved to early October as I have not been able to work on the model for some time. The exterior and interior models are more or less finished, some work on gauges and animations remain + some tidying up of obsolete files, fine-tuning texture maps etc.

Draken 5.0 will be payware, although the price will be very modest and will include free updates for as long as I continue with the 5.x series. Details on how to purchase will be posted here when the model is released.

Stay tuned /Thomas

Development of Draken 5.0 is almost finished and the plan to release the model in August seems to hold. In the meantime I have updated the gallery with some new screenshots.

As you may have noticed, the old support forum for the FSX model is available again but is in read-only mode. A new support forum for the P3D models will be launched when version 5.0 is relased.

The beta version of Draken 5.0 for Prepar3D 4.x has been delayed for a few weeks, and I am actually considering skipping the public beta and releasing the official version earlier than planned since the model is now very close to final status. The systems/gauges programming, exterior model and texturing work are almost completed, and what remains is some remodeling and animation of the virtual cockpit.

The screenshots in the gallery are from an early stage of development and not representative of the current quality of the model. I will add some newer screenshots as soon as possible.

Adding details to the landing gear. The devil is in the details.

Added a few screenshots of the new exterior model (work in progress) on the Screenshots page.

After a year-long delay, the new 64-bit Draken for Prepar3D v4 is finally approaching the beta stage. The first beta version will be released sometime next month (June 2019) and the final release is planned for the third quarter of 2019. 

Draken 5.0 includes the following improvements and new features:

• • Full compatibility with Prepar3D v4 (64-bit)
  • Much improved exterior model
  • High resolution (2048 x 2048) exterior textures with improved mapping for easier repainting
  • Improved interior textures
  • More and better modeled details in the virtual cockpit
  • Indvidually dimmable instrument and panel lighting
  • Realistic interior lights
  • Dynamic landing and taxi lights
  • New soundpack with improved interior engine sounds and startup/shutdown sequences
  • New sound module for interior sounds
  • New configuration module 
  • …and more

What it is and what it’s not

Draken 5 is designed for Prepar3D v4.x. It will not work with earlier versions of P3D or with any edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator. 

Draken for P3D will have a small pricetag, it will not be freeware like the FSX versions. The beta versions can be downloaded for free but will be “watermarked” and have a limited flight time. 

Draken is a flight simulation and not a war game. The weapons in this version are modeled but not functional. There are third party solutions that can add fully functional weapons delivery systems to the model.

The 3D model is 15 years old by now and still built in Gmax, so visually it cannot stand up to newer models that are built in 3dsMax using all features in the P3Dv4 SDK. As with all previous versions of Draken, the focus lies on realistic flight characteristics and systems simulation. Remodeling Draken from scratch in 3dsMax is not an option at the moment.

The first beta version will be released within a few weeks. Stay tuned! 

/Thomas

A menu link to a webshop page where you could purchase Draken 5.0 has been present for some time for logged in users. This was only a test page that was supposed to be hidden for ordinary users, but was inadvertently made visible by a badly configured plugin. There is no payware version of Draken and version 5.0 has not been released yet. Sorry for any confusion.