In a little under 1 hour and 30 minutes, the Microsoft Flight Simulator team represented by Jorg Neumann, Sebastian Wloch, Martial Bossard and Jayne Reynolds gave us a fantastic overview of what is coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator next with lots of content planned for 2020 and a lot of fixes too.

Updated: Sept 28 at 7:40 am EDT by adding a section on the A320neo

Sim Update 13 and beyond

Jorg was quick off from the start to bring out his 2023 road map noting a few changes and modifications to the plan. The November surprise was the Dune movie tie-in which has been delayed to match the launch of the movie. Dune: Part Two, originally planned for November 3, 2023 is now set to launch on March 15, 2024.

There was mention of 2024 several times during the Q&A although no major reveals were made. Jorg says that they are busy working on the updated sim but no release date has been revealed and it wont be until spring that we see some major reveals.

In the meantime, MSFS 2020 is getting a ton of work done on it and a lot of bug fixes are being implemented.

Active development

Active development on MSFS 2020 is ongoing and quite a bit was discussed. Some that stood out includes a fix that reduces of the visual appearance of a horizon line that sometimes appears as visible through mountains and objects. This is reduced in sim update 13 which is great news! The full fix for it requires a complete rewrite of the atmospheric code which apparently is underway for MSFS 2024 but in the meantime a reduction is better than nothing.

Stability and memory improvements are on the way too. Some coming in Sim Update 13 and some in Sim Update 14. Several memory leaks have been solved and glass cockpit displays going blank are likely to become minimized as a result. It sounds like a lot of effort in this sim update has been aimed at those issues specifically.

Fixes are coming in for other items. Gaya and Orbx have contributed to fixing a wide variety of World Update POI and airport fixes. They have apparently solved the majority of open bug issues from World Update 3 through 12. The same goes for 40th Anniversary Aircraft fixes with iniBuilds, BlueMesh, and Aeroplane Heaven having fixed the majority of open items.

Changes are also coming to the atmospheric parameters for colour blending. A mod that came out a few weeks ago appears to have been an inspiration to make changes to the base sim. Additional improvements are coming in 2024 but in the meantime we’re seeing improvements within the current model.

The Scenery Gateway is nearly done and is currently being assessed by Microsoft’s security team prior to release. It sounds like this will be a web-based hub that people will be able to contribute through.

There was several minutes of discussion about snow and ice. Some regions such as New Zealand and Alaska have snow and ice showing in places even during the summer months. The team are tweaking this functionality particularly with “leaks” of data showing snow from the peaks of mountains in the valleys. They are working with the data provider to get more accurate information.

Famous Flyer 7: Mitsubishi MU-2

The next famous flyer is going to be the Mitsubishi MU-2. This turboprop utility, light cargo and executive airplane was Mitusbishi’s first post-war design and 704 were built between 1963 and 1986. iniBuilds are making this together with Microsoft and the aircraft will sport both a 1960-70 era executive configuration as well as a cargo option. There will be a GNS530 avionics suite or traditional radio navigation is available too. Great short field performance combined with a high top speed and a 800 nm range should make it fun to fly around.

Jorg reports that they can’t commit to a date yet as the license is not yet secured but he says that they are in regular contact with Mitsubishi and that they are excited about the airplane.

Local Legend: Saab B 17

Saab’s reconnaissance dive-bomber aircraft was a true local legend being well known in Sweden but relatively unknown elsewhere. Roughly equivalent to the other famous dive-bombers of the era, the B 17 didn’t see combat owing to Sweden’s neutrality during the war.

The next Q&A will feature more in-depth display of this project which is currently being created by iniBuilds.

World Update 15: Northern Europe and Greenland

A new World Update has been announced! World Update 15 will focus on Northern Europe and Greenland. New digital elevation meshes with with anywhere between 40 cm to 5 meter resolution are coming. There’s also new aerial imagery, 8-10 photogrammetry cities, 90 points of interest, 5 bespoke airports, 3 landing challenges, 3 bush trips, and 3 discovery flights.

Jorg says that the last time they did an update in the area, the data was not available to do this kind of update, however, there is new information and much higher resolution data so they are returning to the area to do more with it.

Working Title updates: Boeings, engines and a new SR22T

Working Title have been busy working on a bunch of updates. For the Boeing projects, namely the 747 and 787, there is now SimBrief integration, payload and fuel management in CDU, computer and programmed step climbs, closed loop (automatic) checklist items, EFB takeoff performance calculations and auto fuel system management options for the 747.

Piston engines are also seeing several updates with improvements that avoid turbo leaning issue, fixes for fuel ratio, mixture to fuel efficiency ratios, fuel flow based on engine air volume, and volumetric efficiency at a given RPM. All of these are options for third parties to implement and will apparently not cause any problems to existing aircraft.

There’s also news that the Cirrus SR22T is getting a complete overhaul. This came about as a request from Cirrus themselves with a desire to offer the very latest G6 model in the sim.

We’ll be getting an all new model and art updating the aircraft to the SR22T G6 model. New stabilized approach monitoring and annunciations, full screen engine instruments page, weight and balance page with visual CG, trip planning page with endurance, ETE, ETA, TKS and anti-icing simulation with accurate flow rates, control pad and alphanumeric key support for the G1000Nxi, and an overhauled flight model and engine model with new piston engine parameters mentioned earlier. In short, Working Title are overhauling the SR22T from the ground up!

Brazil and other world updates

One of the most requested world updates is Brazil. Jorg spent several minutes describing a multi-year effort to try and make this happen. At one point he had even gone as far as considering creating a company to hire pilots to do aerial photography to get the necessary information to improve the visuals in the area. Fortunately he says that their data provider is going to manage that and the effort is under way although it is waiting for better weather.

Other world updates have been suggested and Jorg seems open to all of them pending available data which seems to be the chief sticking point for any of these updates.

A320neo

Jorg also dropped a surprise announcement that the sim would be seeing the release of a new A320neo. This version would exist alongside the old A320neo and is being built by iniBuilds. We don’t have any images yet but this should be interesting as the A320 space has become a bit crowded with Fenix covering the A320ceo line (including 321 and 319) and FlyByWire have made a fantastic effort of making the “old” default A320neo into an impressive project in and of itself with their own plans to further develop the model and build additional variants. There’s also the LatinVFR A320 which continues to develop too.

This should be an interesting space to watch. If you love A320 models your choices are going to continue to expand.

Watch it yourself and final comments

This was a pretty big Q&A and there are surely some points that I glossed over, missed or otherwise blanked on. So definitely go over to the MSFS Twitch stream and have a listen for yourself if you’d like to get the full experience.

My impression of this latest Q&A is that the team are busy working not only on MSFS 2024 but stil giving a huge amount of effort towards both content and fixes for the current sim. Its surely a huculean effort as we can see that its not only Asobo and Microsoft but also a variety of third parties all working on aircraft, scenery, and other items that need to be fixed.

Although there will always be bugs, the effort and continued support that I see presented here impressed me. Although after 3 years of Q&As I shouldn’t be surprised that they continue to offer great updates.