Quite a few updates coming from the Microsoft and Asobo teams as we head into the middle of summer in the northern hemisphere. A new developer video has revealed all kinds of new details about World Update 14, a new Local Legend, plus updates to the Latécoère 631, Ford 4-AT Trimotor, and a pulled update for the ATR. Let’s have a look at everything we’ve learned!

Watch the developer video

There’s no traditional Q&A session this month, however, Jorg Neumann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Senior Community Manager Jayne Ivana were part of a pre-recorded session to talk past, present and future.

The past month has been a busy one with the team going to FSEXpo 2023 in Houston, there was the release of City Update 2, Local Legend 9: Latécoère 631, the ATR 42-600/72-600 HighLine update, A&AU02 avionics update for the 747 and 787, release of the Ford 4-AT Trimotor, City Update 3, and Local Legend 10: Boeing Stratoliner. Phew, that’s quite a bit!

The upcoming World Update, Local Legend, and the free Dune movie tie-in were all mentioned as coming up. The first two they went into detail on and they form my next segment.

The new World Update and Local Legend

World Update 14 has been teased before but now we have Jorg confirming exactly what they are doing. This is ‘Central Eastern Europe’ and it includes six countries including Czech Republic (or Czechia), Slovakia, Hungary, Bosnia-Hertzgeovenia, Slovania, and Croatia. New DEM, new satellite imagery, and 10 cities done with photogrammetry. Those cities are Brno, Plzeň, Prague, Budapest, Banja Luka and Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Maribor, Split and Dubrovnik.

There are also 103 new points of interest and six airports. The video includes a tease of trailer for the World Update.

There’s also a Local Legend coming. This is developed by Aeroplane Heaven and its the Aero Vodochody AE-45 and AE-145. I’d never heard of it but have already kind of fallen in love with this little twin engine utility airplane. The early AE-45 variant was built in the aftermath of WWII and makes ample use of available German instrumentation and controls including magneto controls from the He111.

The later version, the AE-145, has some more sophisticated electrical systems and on the MSFS version it appears to feature a Garmin GPS system too.

The World Update and new Local Legend are both slated to release on the week of July 24 so very soon indeed!

Latécoère Model 631, Famous Flyer VI: Ford AT-4 Trimotor updates and ATR update pulled

Two recently released Microsoft associated aircraft have received various updates. The Latécoère Model 631 and Ford AT-4 Triomotor have both seen updates with minor fixes across numerous different systems. Here are the change logs as published here.

Latécoère 631 (Version 1.0.6)

• When starting at a parking spot, there was an issue with the electrical connection between the battery and the generators. This has been fixed.
• A Patin compass has been added to the panel replacing the (incorrect) instrument that was previously there.
• The aircraft’s floats will no longer extend in the hangar.
• An issue with the HUD’s HSI was fixed.
• An art issue on the fuselage was fixed.

Ford 4-AT Trimotor (Version 0.1.17)

• The nose and cockpit of the aircraft has been redone to better reflect the time period of the model.
• The floats have been remodeled / repositioned to better reflect the time period of the model.
• Smoke / exhaust effects from the engines have been repositioned to eject rearward.
• The aircraft is no longer an option for towing gliders.
• Depending on where you are in the world, the VFR squawk code will default to 1200 or 7000.
• The color arcs on the HUD’s airspeed indicator have been revised to better match the v-speeds.
• Issues with the icing effects have been fixed.

Microsoft also provided an update yesterday on an accidental release of version 1.0.24 for the ATR 42-600 and ATR 72-600. This was not meant to go out and the suggestion is that if you did get the update to uninstall the current aircraft and re-download the published version. It sounds like whatever update went live that it needs some more work before going to public release status.