Vector Shares VECTOR 787-9 Development Update, “Three Months” to Release

Vector has published a comprehensive development update on the upcoming Boeing 787-9 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, spanning 27 pages of information, as the project moves through internal beta testing.

The aircraft is scheduled for release in 2026.

The aircraft, first revealed on Feb. 26 2026, is now “less than three months” from its planned release, and Vector says it is on “final approach”. The 787-9 will be the first variant to release, followed later by the 787-10 and 787-8.

Vector expects the 787-9 to become content complete by next week, which means all planned aircraft functionality should then be present, leaving the remainder of development focused largely on bug fixes, systems validation, and flight dynamics, optimisation, documentation, testing and artwork refinement.

External beta testing is to begin shortly.

Systems functionality

Much of Vector’s previous communication has heavily centred on what it calls “schematic-level” system simulation. This work philosophy has guided the team, with the ambition that every system functions according to real-life schematics or documentation, interacting with and influencing one another.

Vector notes that when a switch is pulled, the expected indication or function should result from interdependent systems, rather than from a purely scripted action in which A is commanded to occur when B is triggered.

An electrical-source change, for instance, is intended to affect the buses and equipment that depend on that source, with the consequences then reflected through other systems, load shedding, etc; hydraulic states may affect the aircraft configuration; and fuel-system logic can change throughout different phases of flight.

These states propagate through the aircraft’s displays, synoptic pages, EICAS messages, and maintenance environment. Vector has also reproduced some of the 787’s real-life quirks and behaviour qualities, such as page-loading times, display redraws, response delays, fonts, and symbology.

Currently, the core systems undergoing validation include the electrical, hydraulic, and fuel systems, as well as the Airport Moving Map, weather radar, terrain display, TCAS, electronic checklists, maintenance pages, and the system synoptic pages.

The Airport Moving Map will use Boeing-style symbology and work with both default and third-party airports out of the box, providing a tool similar to Thales’ OANS on Airbus aircraft.

Vector also says the weather radar has been integrated to…