Flight Simulation developers shared news today, including an update about PMDG’s plans for both Microsoft Flight simulator 2024 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
You can check out all the news below.
Project Crosskart Showcased in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 With New Video
Got Friends revealed a new video of its upcoming buggy Project Crosskart, showing off a drive in the lush mountains of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
The project, which will be available in both MSFS 2024 and MSFS 2020, aims to provide another ground vehicle to explore the digital twin Microsoft has created, and it certainly looks quite promising.
At the moment, a release date has not been shared.
Cessna Citation Sovereign+ for Microsoft Flight Simulator and MSFS 2024 Gets New Screenshots
Skyward Simulations is continuing to share fetching screenshots of its upcoming Cessna Citation 680 Sovereign+ on its Discord Server.
This time around we get to see the exterior in different liveries and lighting conditions and another look at the flight deck.
PMDG Provides Update on MSFS 2024 Releases, 747-100, 777-200ER, and More
Today PMDG CEO Robert Randazzo provided an extensive update about what the popular developer is cooking, and there’s quite a lot on the menu.
Starting with the developer’s much-awaited releases on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the developer has been using the simulator’s SDK to buildits Boeing 77W, 777F and 200ER with a “a high degree of success.”
That being said, there remain “a few intermittent, non-repeatable issues that caused the entire cockpit to cease updating” so the developer isn’t entirely confident that all platform-side issues have been completely resolved.
Yet, Randazzo describes his confidence about the state of the simulator as “strong-and-growing” albeit concerns remain that some last-minute update to Sim Update 1 could break things, which is why no release date is being announced for now.
The conversion of the DC-6 to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is proving to be challenging, with “numerous problems with animations being laggy, choppy or simply not working.” For the moment, the developer has been unable to find the root cause of these problems. There’s no ETA for a solution, for now.
PMDG is using the 777 as a learning tool. After it’s released, the developer will direct its attention to its 737 family. It’ll receive “a number of new features as part of a normal midlife update for that product line” but a timeline can’t be shared until the 777 is out.
At the moment, the developer isn’t announcing whether the upgrades to MSFS 2024 will be free or not. They would like to release them for free, but they need to make sure that the marketplace supports the option, and for now, they have not been given the full picture. They will communicate the plan as soon as they are confident.
The 777-200ER that will be released initially for Microsoft Flight Simulator has entered beta testing, including all three engine variants (GE, RR, and PW). The developer isn’t ready to share a timeline, but Randazzo mentioned that he should feel better about its state in the next 7-10 days.
Work on the 747 family has been accelerating with images of the 747-400 to come at a later date. The aircraft isn’t ready to be shown yet. On the other hand, we get to see two images of the flight deck of the 747-100. Here’s how Randazzo himself describes the progress made on it:
“Most of the work over the past few weeks has been on the Classic Whale side of the hangar, with detailing of the flight deck panels beginning to move rapidly with labeling, back lighting and the beginning of the lengthy process of adding photo-realistic detailing and wear on the various panel surfaces. You can see in the two images below that we have added all of the labeling, including the backlit details, and while the texturing is pretty basic at this juncture, some small pieces of the panel are beginning to get increased detail which will grow throughout the entire flight deck as development progresses.
One other note on the images below: none of the cockpit “surround” (the areas not on the panel face itself) have been textured yet. they have a base texture color on them just to give them some basic color-but for the most part what you are seeing is extremely low resolution texture that will remain in place until the 3D geometry is completed and ready for high detail texturing.
Coding on the back-side of the panels is progressing, we are taking advantage of some of the slow periods on other projects to move developers on and off the 747 line to keep it moving forward at the best rate possible even with the other workload items on our agenda.”
Lastly, we hear about an upcoming PMDG Operations Center 3.0, which is now in beta testing. It will include a modern interface and the ability to “manage all of your product installations from within the application, management of updates, change lists, rollbacks (should it be needed) as well as multiple channels of distribution for stable, experimental, beta builds and streamer previews.”
The new version will manage activation and authorization of licensed products and install rights, on top of giving PMDG itself the ability to help troubleshoot problems users may have.
It will eliminate the need for external installers and it’ll roll out “soon.”
FlightSimExpo Opens Voting on Location and Dates for 2026 Edition
While FlightSimExpo 2025 is locked and will happen between June 27 and June 29, 2025, at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island, the options for the 2026 edition are still open.
To that end, the organizers at the Flight Simulation Association are asking the community for input on preferred locations and dates for next year.
You can vote here and the available locations are as follows:
- Minneapolis-Saint Paul
- Downtown Providence
- Raleigh Convention Center
- Rio Las Vegas
- Salt Lake City
- St. Louis: St. Charles Convention Center
The possible dates are June 12-14, 2026, and June 26-28, 2026.
If you’d like to get into flight simulation but you’re perhaps a bit intimidated by its apparent complexity, you can read our introductory guide, alongside the second episode focusing on installing add-ons, and another showcasing the basic instruments.
You can also read more flight simulation news in the previous roundup article.
