Earlier today, Microsoft released the latest update for Flight Simulator bringing the sim up to the latest version – Update IV. This new update has some pretty significant under the hood changes over the whole sim. Let’s have a look at the highlights!

From aircraft to flight modeling to the size of the sim

One of the key patch notes and a big takeaway for me was that the team at Asobo have managed to shrink the size of the installation. I’m accustomed to having big installs on my system as DCS World, X-Plane, IL-2, and Microsoft Flight Simulator all suck up considerable amounts of storage. Now, thanks to this update, we’re coming down from 170 GB+ for a base install to just 83 GB.

This update also significantly overhauls the flight model and the engine modeling of some engine types including the turboprop engines. From rudders to beta mode and from drag coefficients to ITT readouts, this patch seems to have significantly improved on all of these areas. I really look forward to trying it out.

Radar now displays precipitation instead of cloud cover, some sound issues have been fixed, and there are plenty of fixes to the G1000 and G3000 avionics too.

New navigational information has been added including an updated ARIAC information, new FAA data, and new ATC phraseology have been implemented. The density of live traffic has been increased too which should be interesting to see at some of the busier hub airports especially!

Those are just the highlights. There’s even more listed on the patch update over on the official website so you may want to read through that while you patch your sim. My patch is just a little under 7 GB so it may take a bit to process!