June 11th, 2020 Development Update - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Screenshot by casebug92496684

“What happens when someone is playing the sim on a laptop aboard a plane flying in the same spot in the sim as in real life? Pretty sure it will tear a hole in the space time continuum.”

Reddit user r/microsoftflightsim

“Make him stay, Murph!

Don’t let me leave, Murph!

Don’t, don’t let me leave Murph!”

– MSFS TEAM

ALPHA 4 IS HERE!

We are excited to announce the release of Alpha 4 (build #1.4.2.0)!

Alpha 4 Patch Notes

Welcome the Microsoft Flight Simulator Alpha 4 (build 1.4.2.0)!

In this update you’ll find new content, bug fixes, and an updated list of known issues.

A note from the development team:

There are several fixes to our simulation of the B747 in this update. Most notably, the glass cockpit displays should be more accurate now and the overall autopilot functionality has been improved. Further visual improvements were made to the cockpits, airframe exterior, and to the visual effects. The overall experience has also undergone a polish pass.

Transversal fixes to improve both commercial planes, B747 and A320, have been implemented. Updates include V-Speed improvements, which should noticeably improve the flight performance, controls, and overall predictability during flight. Improvements were added to better represent your flight plan with more accurate calculations and visual representation in the displays.

The TBM 930 received a complete pass based on user feedback and improvements from our backlog.

Finally, the team has fixed lots and lots of bugs and added further polish across the entire experience. We still have room to improve, we look forward to your feedback.

New Content

FLIGHT MODEL – UNIVERSAL IMPROVEMENTS are ready to test!

With this update, we are happy to inform you that flight model updates have been applied to all our planes. We have made overall changes to the aerodynamics for the vertical and horizontal tail to make them behave more like wing surfaces and no longer like flat surfaces. This is a big change in that it completely changes the model behavior and required overall readjustment to all our planes. The expected result is that we now get more realistic elevator and rudder authority curves.

We also improved the weight and balance settings of all planes using better %MAC (percent mean aerodynamic chord) data.

General Summary of improvements:

Improved elevator and rudder authority for all planes
Improved pitch and yaw stability for all planes
Improved weight and balance for all planes
Improved stall behavior of all aircraft

CAMERA

A few improvements have been made to the cameras, let us know what you think:

Added inputs to allow you to control the cockpit camera’s backward and forward translations
- Left/ right arrows: move left/ right
- Up/ down arrows: move forward/ backward
- ALT + up/ down arrows: move up/ down
Right Click + Drag now allows you to control freelook

OTHER

All users will have displayed only the build notes that relate to his latest version of the sim – previously all users would only see the build notes for the latest version release, even if that was not the build version installed.

Community Feedback and Fixes

THANK YOU FOR YOUR FEEDBACK!

Controls and Inputs: Some users were reporting issues with losing their control assignments, which would revert to default settings.

TBM 930: The speed and altitude trend line have been corrected from white from magenta

TBM 930: Yoke vibration issues reported when using the copilot

Peripherals: Corrected issues reported when using the Honeycomb yoke

Airport Issues Reported and Fixed:

AGY – planes started off center on runway 33 – now fixed
YALF – testers were not able to find YALF in the sim – YALF no longer exists and has been replaced by YMUN
YALM – was listed incorrectly and is now attributed to Allambie
YALM – planes started off to the side of the runway – now fixed
YALP – was listed incorrectly and is not attributed to Alpurrurlam
YALR – coordinates now correctly correspond to Pine Hill Airport
YALT – buildings were reported in the runway – now fixed
YALZ – was listed incorrectly and is now attributes to Balma Airport

Plane Specific Changes/Improvements

ALL

Overall focus in all areas to improve autopilot user experience and its effect on all the planes
All airliners had transitions that were not loading in the MCDU when creating a flight plan from world map

A320neo

Tuning of the trim – should be more realistic to the real-world experience and more balanced
Auto Thrust/Auto Pitch issue fixed that was affecting the user’s ability to maintain speed in strong head winds – this usually resulted in a stall
A320 engines will now start when following the checklist “starting engines” procedure

B747-8i

It was previously possible to have APU GEN and EXT POWER connected. Now they are exclusive.
Engine #1 and Engine #2 were reversed – they are now set correctly
User was unable to continue beyond page 2 of the route pages on the CDU
Changing the selected altitude while in Vertical Speed mode was not updating the target altitude

Bonanza G36

Activating the landing gear and/or flaps on approach no longer turns OFF the battery

C152

Corrections to the altimeter

TBM 930

Aircraft would rock when following a flight plane with the Auto Pilot ON
FLC button now activates the FLC mode instead of the ALT mode
The flight plan now better matches what the user sets on the world map screen
The TBM930 engine no longer shuts down after a teleport

Airport Specific Changes

AIRPORTS

An additional improvement and completion passes have been made on the global airports to include missing content based on Bing Aerial imagery:

Taxiway logic and visual markers added
Surface types on airport runways, taxiways, and aprons updated
Parking areas for aircraft updated
Additional and improved ground markings on taxiways and aprons
Other general visual improvements

We have also run an additional pass on the ground texture colors of more than 12,000 airports to improve the integration with Bing data.

Bug Fixes and QoL Improvements

Stability

Overall stability and framerate improvements

Airports

Llanbedr EGOD tower size corrected
Continue fixing issues with jetway placement – this is ongoing

Audio

Voices now switch correctly in tutorials when changing in mid-flight

Cameras

Overall camera improvements to improve FPS when moving around the inside of planes

Controls

Objective would fail to show inputs when cleared, now fixed

Performance

FPS improvements when loading sequences complete and during cutscenes

UI/UX

UI stability improved overall – menu logic corrected, profile losses
General attention to accessibility and user information – our ongoing objective here is to better inform your options when navigating the UI so your choices are more intuitive
TTS voice mismatch corrected during Take Off Flight Training
Autopilot had become inoperable when switching between Vertical Speed and Altitude in All Aircraft – this issue is now fixed

Weather

The effect that live weather wind would have on the planes was too strong and now better matches real world behavior
Unrealistic wind gusts were sometimes created when customizing settings – should be less frequent

World

World tiles – black stripes on world tile edges fixed

Known issues

AIRCRAFT

- Users may experience issues with adjusting flight plans through the use of glass cockpits

AIRLINERS

The weather radar doesn’t currently draw in the Map Center

A320neo

Flight Director not working correctly when used without autopilot enabled
Airspeed at high altitude changes to KIAS target but should change to Mach target
Transitions to Mach speeds are not yet correct

B747-8i

When taking off from large airports, and using autopilot, may cause the plane to crash

DR400

Wheels disappear when on the ground

Grand Caravan

When completing the checklist, the engine does not start

TBM 930

When completing the checklist, the engine does not start

Airports

AYPY is currently missing building, tower, parking indicators
EDDF has jetways disconnect from the terminals
BIKF has some building issues reported by the community – we are working to fix these for the next update
KPAE has some building issues reported by the community – we are working to fix these for the next update
Continue fixing issues with jetway placement – this is ongoing

Undocked panels not appearing correctly.

Lesson 3 Training

User is not currently informed that they have control of the plane at the start of the training session

You can discuss these release notes in the Forums here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/alpha-4-patch-notes/90510

You can leave feedback on the various topics here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/c/alpha-4-1-4-x-0-discussion/94

ALPHA INVITATIONS

New invitations are being sent out today!

PARTNERSHIP SERIES UPDATE – INTRODUCING METEOBLUE!

SDK UPDATE

We continue to make good progress and plan to release an update to the SDK next week. We worked on improving the documentation as well. In addition, we are working on video tutorials to help illustrate usage of the SDK.

We added several new SDK samples showcasing:

Various Flight Simulator-specific glTF extensions/materials
Aerial images overriding on the terrain
Projected meshes on the ground
Vegetation biomes overriding

Progress is being made on the WebAssembly front as well. Several WebAssembly extensions are being implemented, which should result in better performance. Static WebAssembly libraries can now be authored, and we are making progress on helper libraries designed to ease the transition of legacy C++ code to the new Flight Simulator architecture. SimConnect is getting more attention and we are fixing some bugs in it and started developing a test coverage framework to help identify regressions and make it more robust. HTML-based UI and aircraft instruments are now authored as separate packages, making it possible for third party developers to author their own HTML-based instruments. As real-world examples of SDK usage, we plan to share the source assets for both an official aircraft and a high quality airport as SDK samples.