It’s another big day of releases and news for Microsoft Flight Simulator as the latest World Update arrives with World Update XIII: Oceania as well as the release of the long awaited ATR turboprop airliner. There’s also a limited time sale. To the details!

Oceania world update

This latest World Update upgrades a huge region that includes a lot of water but also the islands of Hawaii, Easter Island, Fiji, New Caledonia, the Solomon Inslands and even down to the Antarctic Peninsula. There’s 13 countries and 28 territories in all with updated visuals and elevation.

There’s also 150 points of interest created by Orbx. There’s also five airports and several dirt strips in New Guinea that have been given a custom treatment.

There’s also five discovery flights, three landing challenges, and three bush trips.

Although world updates have recently not been where major fixes are implemented (sim updates are the place for those), there are some updates including tweaks at various airports, a fixed water tool in the SDK, dev mode and scenery updates, fixes to WASM for Xbox, and the AIRAC cycle update has been moved up to 2304.

The full list of updates, points of interest and more are published here.

ATR is here!

The first in a new series of aircraft, the Expert Series, has arrived for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This package contains both the ATR 42-600 and the ATR 72-600. This is a modern turboprop created by the predecessors of Airbus and Leonardo (Aérospatiale and Aeritalia) which see’s service world wide.

The simulated version has been created by Hans Hartmann who was also responsible for Aerosoft’s CRJ. Aerosoft is not involved in the project (so far as I know) but the author did closely collaborate with both Asobo and with ATR to get all of the correct details on the aircraft.

The shorter 42-600 comes with three liveries:

• ATR House Livery F-WWLY
• Air Saint Pierre F-ORLB
• Silver Airways N405SV

The longer 62-600 comes with a few more liveries:

• ATR House Livery F-WWEY
• Silver Airways N703SV
• Air Tahiti “RA’IREVA” F-ORVV
• Air Tahiti “TAPUATA” F-ORVR
• Air Tahiti “TE ANUANUA” F-ORVT

It’s not an exhaustive list but I fully expect community livery makers will have a full compliment of options within a week or two.

The aircraft has an interesting list of features including detailed exterior and interior including passenger cabin. The cockpit is highly detailed with glass panel displays, EFB, custom flight computer, and uniquely has pop out options for the glass displays too.

Then there’s the price. Although many of us did expect it to come in at a higher price, Asobo is charging just $19.99 USD for this. Premium Deluxe owners can pick it up for $12.99 USD.

I have heard from some of the folks who have been live streaming the aircraft through the day that there are some bugs with the flight computer causing it to lock up for some. In other instances it works but doesn’t like airway entries which seems to cause waypoints to be added in triplicate. There’s also, reportedly, no manual or tutorial series yet available which did come up in the last live stream Q&A. Hopefully something will be made available soon.

In my quest to get into airliners more in 2023, I will be checking this one out closely so stay tuned for more sometime down the line.

Oceania inspired content on sale

Starting today and lasting until the 30th, the MSFS Marketplace is having an Oceania inspired sale. Some of the sale items are up to 60% off so not too bad on the whole!

A bunch of scenery updates, airports, and more are all on sale in the marketplace. See the note about the sale here to check out what’s available.