It’s actually good now! That’s the short version of what I’m about to write about here in this article. The CRJ has gone from a highly problematic airliner for Microsoft Flight Simulator to one that now is relatively solid and it now flies great to boot. Let’s talk about this!

What happened?

Aerosoft released the CRJ months ahead of any other medium to high fidelity airliner. That should have given them the edge with what seemed like an exciting aircraft release that had time to get its legs before the likes of Fenix, PMDG, Just Flight or iniBuilds managed to launch any of their products.

And the CRJ project had a lot going for it too. It had strong visuals, relatively good system depth, it represented a highly used modern airliner that is seeing service all around the world, and the sounds weren’t too bad. On the other side of the coin, the CRJ had bugs and flight model quirks that made it a bit weird to fly at the best of times and annoying to fly at its worst.

The aircraft’s ground handling and the transition between ground and flight was… weird. It felt like a top that would suddenly fall off to one side or the other while taxiing – very un-CRJ like. On takeoff roll it would snake to either side in a subtle way, controllable but a little uncomfortable, and getting into flight was always a bit off-putting too as it felt like the ground effect was reversed.

In the air the autopilot felt clunky and unreliable. Entry into and out of autopilot was jerky and artificial. It also sometimes just didn’t seem to work very well at all.

Oh and the CRJ crashed quite a bit. Usually not the whole sim but certain actions would cause the aircraft to just stop functioning. It happened to me two or three times before I caught on what the cause was.

And none of these problems were fixed. For years! When I wrote my review about it a couple of years ago, I expressed hope that there would be attention paid. And there as been finally!

How about now?

The rejuvenation or rehabilitation of the Aerosoft CRJ has come in two parts. The first part came earlier this year with the release of the V2 version. Visual updates to the cabin and system and bug fixes across the board helped turn this into a much more functional aircraft.

There were still quirks, and as I documented in my piece on it, I ran into problems straight away. It got better as I worked to avoid some of those issues but there were still issues. It was a tremendous leap forward but not quite what it needed to be just yet.

Enter the latest version, V2.1.1, which released late last week. This brought in a rebuild of the flight model and of the engine model together with dozens of additional fixes and tweaks.

I wondered really how much better it could be. Then I was tuned into the start of CptCanada’s CRJ live stream on the latest update. He was gushing about how good it was! And that wasn’t the only source as I saw comments across the community more or less saying the same thing. I was encouraged and ended up flying a few flights myself.

The biggest differences are exactly what the patch notes say. The flight model has been reworked and the aircraft feels quite a bit more natural in how it handles. Now it takes off and lands in a way that feels more satisfying. Better, the transition into and out of autopilot is no longer accompanied by any sort of artificial jerk to the aircraft’s attitude. Instead it smoothly transitions into and out of different modes much the way most other airliners do in the sim.

And most of the quirks that I was running into before seem to be gone too. It runs smoothly, predictably, and now it handles and feels generally good. It’s still a CRJ which, as a real world aircraft, has a few quirks of its own but it doesn’t feel like you’re fighting it quite as much.

Final thoughts

I’ve now come around on the Aerosoft CRJ. There was a lot of potential with this airliner before but the full execution of the project just wasn’t there. It’s taken four or more years to get us to this point but I’m glad it has finally arrived. What it is now is what it probably should have been at launch or in the immediate aftermath.

In the CRJ’s corner now, it has a reasonably good flight model that feels good, it looks great, it has great frame rates and works well at high detail airports, the whole concept of regional jet flying can be quite fun and exciting because flight times can be relatively short meaning a 1-hour mission can be done and you can get on with whatever else is going on in your day or evening.

It still has a few quirks. Hardware controls still aren’t mapped to their MSFS defaults which is a bit annoying. The sounds are also still adequate but not ideal. Boris Audio Works CRJ is available for purchase and is reportedly far superior to the default experience. There are still the odd times where the autopilot maybe didn’t do the thing that I expected it to do. Stay on top of this airplane and you’ll generally have a fun experience without the crashes and problems from before.

Aerosoft sells the CRJ through the MSFS Marketplace and through the Aerosoft webstore for $50.99 USD.