Microsoft has delivered their latest development update with regards to Flight Simulator, which details the patch notes of Alpha 5, closed Beta testing, and other information.

First and foremost, Alpha 5 is now available to those who are a part of the Alpha programme. The update, according to the blog post, puts a strong focus on community feedback, bug fixes, and a large polish of the simulator overall.

"All planes have received another round of polish and tuning. We continue triage bugs and reset priorities when needed. You should also find an updated round of polish (on-going) to the world, airports, scenery, and the weather.  

"We are hard at work focused on community feedback, polish, polish, and more polish. Please keep the feedback coming as we genuinely value the community’s help improving the overall flight-experience!"

A new batch of Alpha invitations was sent out with Alpha 5, along with an ETA on the Closed Beta of the 30th July. All Alpha testers get automatic access to the Closed Beta when it begins, which was also said to be in the final stages of testing.

As the patch notes are rather long, we'll summarise key points here, though they are all available to read here.

The flight model has received various improvements, ranging from the Airbus A320's Fly By Wire, to "ongoing improvement to the ground effect formula to improve the overall 'realism'."

Significant fixes were addressed at KMLB, EDDN, and GMMX, whilst procedurally generated airports have been worked on to add missing towers.

In aircraft-related changes, the A320 underwent a series of vertical speed improvements. These include changing pitch to thrust to more accurately achieve the target speed, AP1 engaging AP2, and relaxing the aggressiveness of the autopilot.

Fans of the B747-8i will be pleased to know this airliner also underwent vertical speed improvements, though the changes were quite a bit different. For example, the aircraft no longer climbs and/or descends erratically, the overspeed warning no longer triggers when in cruise speed, and adjusting trim had no effect whatsoever.

The DA40's glass cockpit waypoints "now show correctly in the map and on the toolbar," and the Low Volt displaying after completing a checklist has been corrected.

In the Bonanza G36, audio levels on startup are now synced to engine startup, it is now possible to follow the checklist and read the RPM on the MFD which was off, and the alternators are off when starting from cold and dark.

And rounding off aircraft is the TBM 930, which now sees the ability to adjust NAV radios using the touch screen, fixed checklist issues, and an issue with the engine not able to turn off if the throttle was not in the cut off position.

Furthermore, all aircraft autopilots have been fine-tuned to prevent the plane from "rocking" back and forth and a landing gear alert was spamming at 16,000 MLS.

Based on community feedback, five airports received treatment; these included KLAX with a "wrong departure runway at KLAX [Los Angeles International]", road traffic moving over LXGB (Gibraltar), and a large green texture at ZBAA (Beijing).

Live Air Traffic now represents more aircraft during Free Flight, and there are now pilots in the live aircraft.

Onto the camera system, and the 3rd person camera no longer shakes when making a 45-degree turn. "Multiple Instrument Camera Controls were lacking functionality" was addressed in addition to "the user would get stuck while looking at instruments combined with the Right Click + Drag free look in Cockpit view."

Multiplayer-specific issues included the fixing of issues that stopped pilots from seeing others in flight and existing friends would display as disconnected when the game is launched.

There are a number of known issues across some aircraft, multiplayer, weather, and peripherals. As an example, the latter still has many keyboard controls missing, whereas weather is experiencing an issue with snow not lasting long enough on the ground.

Last week's update included a new Feedback Snapshot and details on the partnership between Microsoft and FlightAware.

Microsoft's somewhat revamped website is available to check out here.