VIVAERO

FSReborn’s Piper M600 is out now as Expert Series 02

When Raul Morales said back in April that he would go through some sleepless nights to get the Piper M600 ready for FSExpo, it sounded like he was keen to deliver on that promise. Today, as the show opens its doors in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Expert Series 02 is live on the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Marketplace at $24.99 USD. Promise kept, deadline met, and the timing could not be more symbolic for a developer who only joined the first-party roster two months ago.

It also caps off a remarkable stretch for FSReborn. The studio released the Phenom 300E on May 18th, arguably its most ambitious project to date, and less than a month later it is shipping a second aircraft, this one carrying Microsoft’s Expert Series badge. Two flagship releases in under four weeks is not a pace we see often in this hobby, and it says something about where Raul’s studio is right now.

If you missed our coverage of the April developer stream, here’s the short version: the M600 was revealed as Expert Series 02, the follow-up to the ATR 42/72-600, with FSReborn confirmed as the developer. It was a natural pairing. The M600 is the direct successor to the M500, an aircraft FSReborn already knows inside out through its FSR500, and Raul described the project as something he had privately wanted to build for years.

As we noted in our announcement article, being part of Microsoft’s official lineup puts FSReborn’s work in front of a much broader audience than a standalone third-party release ever could, including simmers on Xbox and PlayStation 5 who may be meeting the developer’s consequence-based philosophy for the first time.

The aircraft...For those new to the type, the M600 is Piper’s top-of-the-line single-engine turboprop, a six-seat, pressurized machine introduced in 2015 as an evolution of the M500 with a stronger engine, a redesigned wing, and updated avionics. Microsoft’s announcement runs through the lineage in detail, tracing it all the way back to the PA-46 Malibu’s first flight in November 1979, through the Malibu Meridian in 2000, and on to the M500 and M600 in 2015.

The real aircraft is powered by a 600-horsepower Pratt & Whitney PT6A-42A driving a five-blade composite propeller, and Microsoft quotes a maximum range of 1,908 miles (around 1,658 nautical miles), a 30,000-foot service ceiling, and a cruising speed of 315 miles per hour. In practical terms, that’s New York to Dallas or London to Madrid without a fuel stop, which is the kind of mission profile that makes turboprop singles so appealing in the sim.

The avionics are where Microsoft’s announcement spends most of its time. The M600 carries a customized Garmin G3000 suite, developed in collaboration with Working Title, with two touchscreen controllers, dual primary flight displays, and a multifunction display. The package includes Piper’s HALO Safety System, which on the real aircraft comprises Garmin Autoland, capable of landing the aircraft at the nearest suitable airport if the pilot becomes incapacitated, along with Electronic Stability & Protection, Automatic Level Mode, a hypoxia recognition system with automatic descent, Synthetic Vision, SafeTaxi, SurfaceWatch, and Auto Throttle.

Microsoft’s release notes focus on the real aircraft, but the April stream gave us a good picture of what FSReborn’s treatment involves. According to what Raul presented, every circuit breaker on the panel is mapped to the real aircraft and functional, the PT6A’s engine logic and startup procedures are modelled in depth, and the aircraft includes consequence-based operations with a wear and maintenance system. Treat the turbine badly during start and you’ll pay for it.

Three interior configurations are included, and, importantly for the Expert Series audience, the consequence systems are adjustable. Realism options let you dial the unforgiving behaviour down if you’d rather just enjoy the flying, which feels like the right call for an aircraft that will land in front of console players and study-level simmers alike.