We haven’t heard much from the Microsoft Flight Simulator team for quite some time. While their community managers are busy answering questions on the forum, we haven’t heard from Jorg Neumann in quite some time. Thanks to FSElite‘s video recording from FSWeekend, we do have some new information and its generally encouraging news. Let’s have a look!

Hearing from the team

It was great to hear from Jorg Neumann at all. Jorg explained that his mother is dealing with a ‘severe health emergency’ as he put it and that he is home in Germany to help out his family. Before going into any other items, I just want to say how important family is and how I’m sending over good vibes to Jorg and his family.

That may be one of the reasons why we haven’t had a Q&A, roadmap update, or other items in quite some time. I had become concerned that the recent shakeup at Microsoft in some of the C-Suite areas including the installation of a new head of Microsoft Gaming, may have had an impact on the sim and its development.

While there may be underlying concerns there, for the moment it seems like a lot of things are still happening behind the scenes and that’s good for the series on the whole.

Sim Update 5, ATR, a new AAU, and more!

A lot of good things are happening. Sim Update 5 betas continue to roll out to community testers and it sounds like they are going to be wrapping up development soon – projected release is set for April!

The ATR update I’m very excited about. The aircraft works in compatibility mode but there are some issues with the fuel tanks not filling and various other systems are just not working the way they ideally should. Good news then as fixes are on the way from Hans Hartmann and team. Those include a 2024 native version, new CFD flight model, Air Tahiti Highline variant, new Logan Air and IndiGo, flight plan importation, Lido charts integrated, display updates, autopilot update, TCAS update, cabin camera. It will also have career support. Great!

There are other aircraft getting an update too. The Antonov An-2 currently doesn’t work correctly in 2024 so its getting a native version update! Massive changes are the words that Jorg uses. Career support including passenger, cargo, crop dusting, firefighting, and sky diving. Fuel and electrical systems are totally reworked, new liveries, new windshield wiper system support, EFB added, exterior check items, new lighting, and different types of gear including wheels, skis, floats authentic and GPS panel, as well as GPS updates.

Other aircraft seeing across the board updates include the Fokker 7 (originally by Orbx and now being updated by iniBuilds) with new modular systems for cabins and features as well as updated flight model, Latécoère 631 (BlueMesh) is seeing 40 bugs fixed, new visual effects on water, and visible passengers. Finally, the Savoia-Marchetti S.55 is seeing some updates too! Great.

All of these will come with Sim Update 5. Jorg says that they intend to make all 2020 payware aircraft into 2024 standard. It will take a while to do and will roll out as part of AAU 5 and AAU 6 and beyond. All of the upgrades will be free too! Nice to confirm that.

Next up, Working Title gave a presentation on the Avidyne 540 and 550 GPS systems. They are considered a “sim attachment” so they can be dropped into developers aircraft.

Finally, Jorg also mentioned in his keynote the latest City Update and the new Local Legend which I covered over the weekend.

The next Dev Q&A

Jorg finished the keynote by saying that they are intending to do a Q&A in early April around the time of Sim Update 5 release and that the Q&A will also include a roadmap of all of the cool things that they are planning for the rest of the year.

My fears that something had happened have dropped dramatically, though, of course, my thoughts are with Jorg and his family.

Until then, we’ll be watching and waiting for the next big update.