UPDATE – Roadmap of the updates landing in 2023 added below. The official Aircraft & Avionics Beta is available with a new update. The next World Update 12: New Zealand will land in February, followed by Sim Update 12 in March.
Weekly, an updated feedback snapshots of Microsoft Flight Simulator top bugs and wishes for its upcoming Sim Update and World Update are published. Sim Update, aka SU, introduces new features, bug fixes and enhances the overall experience every few months. World Update, aka WU, is a regional upgrade of satellite imagery, a couple of airports and elevation data for a country or a few at a time. The head of MSFS and the developers at Asobo Studio goes through the development roadmap during the Developer Streams a few times a year. There are dozens of bugs and wishes listed below, reported through Zendesk and official Forums by the community. In 2023, Microsoft plans releasing few Sim Updates, as well as four World Updates, with some surprise updates included through the year, for free. Read the latest Sim Update 11 release notes, Xbox Series X|SFAQ, and the official troubleshooting.
Leg 5: Tel Aviv to Dubai
The sixth leg brings me across Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf to the glitzy capital of the United Arab Emirates. Its majestic skyscrapers and beautiful marinas are as stunning as expected.
This flight across Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan was perhaps one of the most surprising. The untamed mountains of the regions poking among the heavy clouds make for some of the most gorgeous sights.
Method : Fly the sim in fast-forward mode
Fast-travel might be new to this iteration of the sim, but there’s also a feature that has existed since past releases: manipulating the sim rate. The sim rate controls how fast and slow things move inside the sim itself, allowing you to play at a regular, faster, or even slower speed. It’s like how YouTube videos allow you to manipulate the playback rate.
The default keys to control this are “F11” to increase the sim rate and “F10” to decrease it. “F12” is supposed to bring up a menu to show you the current rate of playback, however, it did nothing for me. Thus, you’ll have to visually discern the differences. Thankfully, it’s quite obvious which speeds are slow, regular, and fast. Increasing the sim rate to make the flight go faster will not shrink the gameplay time as much as the fast travel option does, and you can still control every aspect of the flight as you normally would. I haven’t tested it to see how it affects flight hours, however.