Microsoft Flight Simulator has been updated to implement Sim Update 4, signifying it is a major update with many changes throughout.

Versioned 1.16.2.0, one particularly important highlight is that the team worked to optimise the files and cut the total size of the simulator by over half. Whereas before the simulator would use more than 170 GB of storage space, 83 GB is all that is now required.

Additionally, they warned some packages in community folders may not have been updated and may impact performance such as stability and loading times.

Anybody who experiences this is advised to move their community packages to another folder prior to launching the simulator.

The full changelog is very lengthy and does not contain much that stand out as major changes, though of course, it all helps to make the simulator and the experience better.

Navigation

• New AIRAC cycle 2105 has been implemented
• FAA data has been implemented to our navdata solution
• Departure gates are now saved in flight plan (.PLN) files
• Fixed a crash and other issues when selecting a parking space as arrival and no set departure
• Fixed some Live Air Traffic aircraft using the wrong model
• Fixed an issue where some Live Air Traffic aircraft had broken callsigns
• Increased the density of Live Air Traffic
• Aircraft that are not on the ground but that have an altitude of zero will now appear at a default altitude of 5000m
• Live traffic stability has been improved
• ATC phraseology improvements to FAA standards (wording only)

Weather

• Reduced weather data bandwidth
• Improved precision of live snow coverage
• “Visual Effect Only” in assistance now does properly deactivate other weather effects
• “Visual Icing” has been renamed “Icing” in the devmode because it impacts the whole icing system
• “Icing” in DevMode only changes visual effects if “Visual Effect Only” is activated
• Ice constant decay is no longer ignored outside of frost conditions
• Accelerated pitot icing model while making it slower to defrost
• Fixed pitot icing not scaling with the number of instruments
• Fixed overspeed controller vibrations not affected by pitot icing
• Decrease structural icing rate by a factor of 15 for severe icing (6 for moderate)

Planes

All planes:

• Added altitude interception for PITCH HOLD mode
• Increased native induced drag amount and improved induced drag precision
• Autopilot no longer flies toward a Waypoint removed from the FlightPlan
• SimConnect injected traffic (VATSIM, IVAO) should now be displayed in HTML/JS instruments that have traffic displays as well as on the VFR Map
• Fixed simvar acceleration not taking impacts into account and returning wrong values on ground
• Writing back corrected acceleration values after impact resolutions so that they are exact when pulled as a simvar
• Flaps, stall, wing and fuselage updates of flight model
• More cleanup of the flaps system. Support multi systems with different number of levels and max angles
• Increased threshold to avoid trim fight against elevator to 50% (corresponds to disconnect threshold)
• Changed elevator AP with trim to avoid fighting against user input when user input is >50% on elevator
• Allow setting the empty CG position out of limits
• Fixed more audio not playing on large aircraft
• Fixed Autothrottle sometimes disabled by AI

Turboprop:

• Improved tools to tune prop drag on constant speed & turbo propellers
• Removed fake and completely wrong ITT simulation when prop is feathered or reverse
• Fixed reverse thrust problem with propeller (no support of negative beta & induced wind)
• Added prop lever debug on engines debug page
• Fixed torque increasing with altitude because of N1 / Corrected N1 confusion in FSX turboprop code
• Fixed crash bug when scrolling Daher TBM 9300 Flight Plan pag
• Torque fine adjustment per POH for the Daher TBM 930
• Updated stability and inertia for the Daher TBM 930
• Adjusted sea level max torque on the Daher TBM 930
• Turbine fine tuning: ITT, Torque, Performance, and Fuel Flow on the Daher TBM 930
• Flight model update for handling on the Daher TBM 930
• Ground level max torque and torque limiter setting updated. 100% max with inertial separator; 112% max, limited to 109% without inertial separator on the Daher TBM 930
• Reduced effect of inertial separator from 25% TQ to 12% TQ for the Daher TBM 930
• Tuned stability and inertia on the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Tweaked Idle RPM from 1030 to 1060RPM for the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Adjusted max sea level torque on the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Tuned Beechcraft King Air 350i turboprop engine: ITT, Torque, Fuel Flow and other minor changes
• Added ITT debug to engine debug and added density on fuel flow table for turboprop engines on the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Fine tuned fuel consumption per the POH at IDLE, 12000ft cruise and 18000ft cruise on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Fixed ITT, Throttle to Torque Ratio, and Garmin color bands for ITT and TRQ on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Pass on stability and inertia on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Fine tuned Fuel Flow per altitude and ajusted sea level max torque on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Turbine Torque fine tuned per POH on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Control surfaces & handling improvements on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Prop lever of the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX can now be set in feathering range

Others:

• Weather radar now displays precipitation instead of cloud coverage
• Fixed contrail behavior on player’s aircraft during windy conditions
• Contrails are now displayed for applicable AI traffic planes
• Reduced rudder authority based on the Cessna 152
• Stability and inertia pass on Cessna 172 Skyhawk and Cessna 152
• Flight model handling update for the Cessna 152
• Fixed Cessna 152’s rear wheels not touching ground
• Pass on engine power & propeller drag. Fine tuned max speed, cruise speed, climb speeds, glide speeds and other minor tweaks on the Cessna 172 Skyhawk
• Flight model tuning of Cessna 172 Skyhawk (handling, induced yaw, roll and stall)
• Fixed water on windows and tail color on LOD5 for the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
• EICAS now displays “CLB” instead of “CL” when the thrust levers are set to CL in the A320
• Fixed an issue which prevented copilot from autocompleting the Securing Aircraft page on the Diamond DA40 TDI
• Improved propeller drag and engine drag tuning for the Diamond DA62
• Flight model handling update on the Diamond DA62. Made engine effect more important by adjusting rudder surfaces
• Increased rudder stability slightly and fixed engine stall in air at low speeds on the EXTRA 330LT
• Added a notch more dihedral to increase induced roll a little on the EXTRA 330LT
• Fuel Pressure gauges now display correct levels of pressure on the EXTRA 330LT
• Fine tune on the 103Solo Engine and implementation of engine clutch below 2100 RPM
• Fixed FS Livery on Cessna Citation Longitude disappearing too early on LOD6
• Corrected Pipistrel Virus SW121 flaps animation which would not properly play for negative flaps values
• G3000 : Map zoom level is now kept constant between Regular and Weather map
• G1000 : Airspaces are redrawn uppon change in map orientation
• G3000 : Fix PFD display error when a DirectTo is requested
• Fixed aircraft spawning with glasscockpits turned off randomly
• Fixed FlightPlan displaying passed waypoints when canceling a DirectTo
• Fixed FlightPlan guidance not re-engaging properly when DirectTo is canceled or reached
• Fixed G3000 and G3X MFD TopBar displaying True Bearing instead of Magnetic
• Fixed overspeed strip being too low on airspeed tape
• Fixed bug where the flightplan was not displayed properly if the flight was started directly on approach
• Fixed VFRMap not updating approach according to FlightPlan
• Tactile glasscockpits scrollbars are bigger and can be interacted with more easily
• Fixed FlightPlan guidance not re-engaging properly when DirectTo is canceled or reached

Input:

• Fixed resetting position peripheral input position when user exits the pause menu
• Fixed the unresponsive specific axis on Honeycomb Bravo Throttle
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Eclipse Yoke
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Fighter Stick
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Flight Sim Yoke
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Fighter Stick Pro
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Pro Pedals
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Pro Throttle
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Throttle Quadrant

UI:

• Community Folder Addons will now show up as Installed in the Content manager

Known issue:

• You may crash when exiting VR mode. This issue is being investigated but we suspect OpenXR preview runtime (v106) may be involved. So if you experience this problem, we recommend you revert to the official public runtime (v105).

A large chunk of the update consisted of the SDK and dev mode, available to view in the source post.