The second World Update to Microsoft Flight Simulator is now available for download, the simulator developers have revealed via the platform's official forum today.

Four airports have been brought up to premium standard in the update, with a mix of small and large fields featured - these are: Atlanta-Hartsfield Jackson, Friday Harbor, Dallas-Fort Worth and New York Stewart International.

Additionally, a large number of points of interest have been added to the simulator dotted across the country, these being:

• Chimney Rock
• Crazy Horse Memorial
• Pilgrim Monument, Provincetown MA
• Fort Jefferson
• Washington Monument, Washington DC
• Capitol, Washington DC
• White House, Washington DC
• Wright Brothers National Memorial
• Mount Rushmore
• Biltmore Estate
• Devils Tower
• New River Gorge Bridge
• United States National Arboretum
• Bixby Creek Bridge
• Chesapeake Bay Bridge
• Sunshine Skyway Bridge
• Mackinac Bridge
• Navajo Bridge
• Astoria-Megler Bridge
• U.S. Grant Bridge
• Lowry Avenue Bridge
• Lewis and Clark Bridge
• The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge
• Fort Knox
• Monument Rocks National Natural
• Coronado Heights Castle
• Ellis County Courthouse
• Monument Valley
• Yosemite El Capitan
• Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde, Colorado
• Shiprock, New Mexico
• Haystack Rock at Canon, Oregon
• Half Dome, Yosemite
• Dworshak Dam
• Hoover Dam
• Oroville Dam
• Alcatraz (water tower and lighthouse only)
• Fort McHenry, Baltimore
• Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls
• Glen Canyon Dam
• Las Vegas Strip (Night)
• Confederation Bridge
• Johnson Space Center Houston (visitor’s center)
• Kennedy Space Center Florida (visitors center)
• Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (memorial site)
• Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
• National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• Gulf of Mexico, Oil Rigs
• Airport Graveyard, Tucson

Aside from the updates to the American continent, a number of non-world update releated changes have also been made to Microsoft Flight Simulator, including a 'general review of all planes', which improves handling, flight dynamics and autopilot functionality across the board.

Specifically, fuel consumption issues with the A320neo and B747-8i have been rectified, as well as a yaw oscillation issue with the former.

For general aviation craft, there's quite the list:

• Pipistrel Virus SW121: Fixed – Cruise speed adjusted (previously too low) in the aircraft selection menu
• Cessna 152: 5% more elevator authority
• Cirrus SR22: Fixed - The mixture control is no longer set to Automixture
• Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX: Fixed – invisible spoiler removed
• EXTRA 330LT : Engine reactivity increased
• EXTRA 330LT : Fixed full castoring tail wheel animation and allowed up to 90° rotation
• Robin Cap10 : Allowed 90° range of motion for full castering rear wheel

G1000 equipped aircraft have also had changes to the way flight director and autopilot disconnect are shown on screen.

General performance and stability concerns have also been addressed, as 'several crashes' have been fixed alongside better optimisation for photogrammetry and lastly despawning of offline traffic has been improved as to not adversely affect sim performance over time.

The Honeycomb Bravo Throttle Quadrant now has a preset for the simulator, in addition to the three of CH Products' hardware selection; the throttle quadrant, Flightstick Pro and Combatstick.

Lastly, some smaller changes were also listed:

• The data consumption value calculation has been fixed
• Fix input feedback on some devices
• The livery name should now be correctly displayed in the menus
• The weather image in the flight plan should now be correct in all cases
• Some accuracy for the live time have been fixed
• Fixed an issue that prevented the checklist eye button to be selected
• The bushtrip menu should no longer freeze
• Switching from online to offline in the menu should no longer freeze the title
• Fixed some behaviors that resulted in having the World map search not responding
• The logbook should now properly log unfinished flights (either via return to main menu or via landing and shutting down the engine and Master)
• The landing challenge target should now be properly displayed after restarting the activity
• Streetlights of smaller streets and roads should now be displayed more randomly
• Workers on an airport should no longer randomly freeze and stop being animated

The update is available for free and can be installed by simply running your copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The developer recommends removing packages from your community addons folder as they may not be updated for the new version of the sim - as such, they warn that stability issues or long loading times could be had.