The latest update on Microsoft Flight Simulator was published yesterday, and with it came a new Partnership Series video, a new Development Roadmap, and a fair bit more.

Patch 1.8.3.0 was made available two days ago which addressed a large range of issues and made significant improvements in all areas of the simulator.

More information about that patch is available to read in this article.

Starting with the top voted issues from forum feedback, wind data appears to be the largest complaint amongst users with weather also erroneous enough to warrant the top five issues on their list.

Autopilot issues, engine bugs, and “dreadful performance” were other issues on the list, which is given below.

• 225/03 Wind Thread – “Thread for people having the 225/03 wind issue in North America and other places around the world.  The winds aloft are always about 225 degrees at 3kts
• Wind Testing – “In an effort to give this issue more visibility, and greater importance for addressing. Did a test of (6) different airports to show that the wind depiction issues go well beyond the 223/3 knots winds aloft bug we all know about.”
• Live Weather and Wind Readings are Not accurate – “Hello, I’m wondering if you all are having the well know weather issue with the wind still at 2 kts when you fly anywhere in the world because I did a test flight from KSFO to Eureka, CA and flew over the ocean where winds this morning where around 30 kts but my Grand Caravan aircraft only had winds 225 degrees at 2 kts”
•  Live Weather Not Working: In general, Live Weather not accurate. “Having to restart to get live weather working again, then sometimes midflight it just changes to clear conditions.”
• Live Weather Error – “After I quit the flight and go back to World Map the live weather does not work anymore. Weather appears to be clear in whatever airport I start again.”
• Garmin G1000/G3000 & Autopilot Related Issues – Variety of AP and issues with the Garmin Avionics. Read list in thread.
• Turboprop Engine Logic Issues – “Basic turboprop engine issues to include ITT on start, ITT with altitude, torque versus altitude, and N1 versus altitude issues.”
• ATC Incorrect Phraseology – Airline pilot highlights it in thread.
• After patch A320 left engine starts, then dies, won’t start again
• A32 engines starts and dies – “After patch A320 left engine starts, then dies, won’t start again”
• Night lighting – Terrain emits light? – Terrain emits light, see thread for further examples and screenshots.
• Dreadful Performance – General performance issues (stutters, jumpy, etc.) with good computer set up.
• Reflections look grainy, even if reflections are on ultra
• Lack of Real Time Traffic
• Cessna Citation Longitude Performance issues – “Engine, fuel, and flight dynamics issues with the Longitude”
• A320 swaying left and right – When on Autopilot, the A320 sways left and right

Microsoft opted to showcase video three in their Around the World video series which centres on the continent of Africa, showing numerous views of one of the world’s largest landmasses.

Continuing with videos, a new Partnership Series video made its debut in the development update.

It focuses on Textron Aviation and features key staff members that talk about the simulator and how Textron Aviation played a part in introducing their products to MSFS.

A quick update on the SDK followed, with the following changes made:

• Scenery Editor: Projected mesh normal rotation issues have been addressed and it is now possible to replace single models for scenery objects.
• Aircraft Editor: Several stability fixes and improvements have been made thanks to the input from the community.
• Particle Effects System: A new node-based particles effects system is in development and features more tunable parameters. The node graph editor got some usability improvements and support for generating ribbons has been added.
• WebAssembly: Addressed some usability issues (e.g. allowing single file recompilation) and are mostly concentrating on reducing developer iteration time and improving the debugging experience. Also enhanced the way file I/O requests from WASM modules work, improved WASM modules caching and fixed issues upon WASM module shutdown.

And on the topic of third party developers, Microsoft issued a message about how quickly they have worked their products into the simulator.

“It’s only been one short month since we launched the new Microsoft Flight Simulator and we have already received over 900 applications to our Marketplace Partner Program.

“That’s amazing and we are so excited to see the third party creator community embracing the new platform with such enthusiasm.

“Last week alone, we launched 10 all-new products and updates to 8 existing ones.

“Our team has been quite impressed by the quality of the work from the airport teams at Aerosoft, Big Tire, Carenado, FLYT, Fly Tampa, FS Dream Team, Gaya, Latin VR and ORBX and it’s awesome to see new aircraft, airports and other add-ons being announced almost daily.

“We always knew that the energy and creativity from third parties is critical for a vibrant ecosystem, but the degree of adoption and sheer speed and volume of releases has far exceeded our expectations.”

The latest version of the Development Roadmap was the final item in this update.

It reveals the next update to the simulator is expected in late October, with more updates on Partnership Series, Feature Discovery Series, and SDK updates to be available throughout.

To stay updated and connected with Microsoft Flight Simulator, follow the team on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Discord.