Microsoft Flight Simulator Update 5 is out and it’s a big one. This is easily one of the biggest changes to the sim platform since it launched last year and that has involved many visible changes but also under the hood changes which have directly affected developers – especially those building aircraft. I thought I’d check in and see what a few are saying.

PMDG’s DC-6 has been updated

Lets start with a big one. PMDG’s DC-6 has been out for several weeks now and has been widely acclaimed by most reviewers and seems well liked by the community at large. PMDG reports that their aircraft has been updated and the update is available through their PMDG Operations Centre software.

This update was driven *primarily* by the need to update the product in order to ensure compatibility with MSFS after the platform’s significant update that was released on 27JUL21 by Asobo/Microsoft. The platform changes driven by it’s continued development caused many breaking changes that required modifications to the PMDG DC-6 in order to ensure compatibility and smooth operation of the airplane within the sim environment.

PMDG on Facebook

Fortunately, it seems that PMDG were able to get responsive feedback from the Asobo team.

Amazingly in spite of our late addition to their test process, Asobo took our reports and was able to work in fixes for the issues we reported back to them on Friday morning. The spirit of cooperation from Asobo to act on these reports so very late in their development cycle is worth calling out with an ovation. We tend not to communicate with them often, but it speaks volumes of them that they are universally responsive and helpful- so I want to thank them for that publicly.

PMDG on Facebook

This is all generally good news for fans of the DC-6 and PMDG’s work. This is also a good sign that PMDG were able to effect fixes quickly and get them out, essentially same-day, to fans of the their released product.

IndiaFoxtEcho updates

There’s more good news from fans of IndiaFoxtEcho’s aircraft. After several worrying posts that some of their aircraft using custom XML programming weren’t going to work properly after the update, the situation seems to have been resolved and there are far fewer problems than anticipated.

Credit where credit is due, and contrary to the communication from Microsoft we have received on Thursday, we have received a further update on the developer test version of Sim Update V. After a quick test, it seems to solve all the problems with legacy XML code of the previous test versions – early test indicate that all of our aicrafts work as intended.While it is not clear at the moment if the version that will ship on 27/07 will include these fixes or not… but in the latter case it seems reasonable to think that a fix will be released soon.

IndiaFoxtEcho on Facebook

They report that their Long-EZ product seems to be working fine with the latest Sim Update and that they have a new 1.1.9 version in the can. That is already available in some places while the Marketplace update will take a bit longer.

The MB-339 has had some night lighting fixes put in place and IndiaFoxtEcho reports that they will have an update on this jet coming soon.

Finally, the T-45 Goshawk’s custom XML based HUD has been restored and is working correctly although it still suffers from problems with anti-aliasing settings. The team is re-writing the HUD code to use an HTML based system which should get around those problems.

Carenado reports some aircraft don’t yet work

A statement from Carenado briefly outlines that some of their aircraft currently don’t work as they should. That would include types like the M20, Pa-44 Seminole and others. Here’s what they had to say.

This new version of the simulator makes certain parts of our planes not work as they should. At this time the C170B and the WYMF5 are already adapted to this new version and should work and be compatible with the Xbox version. Both are already available at Microsoft marketplace.We are working on our other aircraft to make them available to customers as soon as possible. These updates will make them compatible with the Xbox version.

Carenado on Facebook

Although a bit unclear as to what the problems are (maybe some of you have run into them already), it is good that at least two of their releases are fine and are working correctly and good news too that the others will be fixed soon. Even more exciting, these aircraft will eventually be available for Xbox too!

Aerosoft prepared to update if needed

Aerosoft has released a lot of scenery and their CRJ project for Flight Simulator. So far they have made just a small statement saying that they are monitoring the situation to see if bugs crop up with the CRJ and if they need to make changes. This is what Mathijs Kok from Aerosoft wrote on their forums.

Friends, as SimUpdate 5 is about to drop we want to ask you for some patience should things not work. There are some big changes in the sim (all for the best) that might need some work from us. Part of that is done, part is being done. But just relax when things do not work our and check the forums.

Mathijs Kok

Update challenges

Sim Update 5 is a big one and it’s brought a lot of changes under the hood to things like control schemes and clearly that has had an effect on many of the released aircraft. I haven’t seen posts yet from some of the other bigger developers or even some of the smaller ones but I’m sure everyone is working on bug fixes as necessary.

It took me a good chunk of yesterday to do the sim update and then update all of my packages for the sim which involved long download times and slow file transfer rates. I suspect Microsoft’s servers are being hammered and there are more new pilots online than ever before. A couple of patches to the sim maybe forthcoming to solve some bugs as well.

At the end of the day, it is good to see that a wide variety of developers are acting responsively and are updating the aircraft quickly. These updates are a bit of a painful process but developers seem to be managing!

Update PSA

If you are having update problems or issues after the update is complete that involve the sim locking up or otherwise behaving poorly, check your Community folder. I’ve seen a lot of issues solved by removing extra content and then feeding things back in until one or two items in there are found to be the cause of some problems.