Acclaimed third-party developer Fenix Simulations has been teasing the “Big Fenix Update” to its Airbus A320, A321, and A319 for a while, and it’s finally coming next week.
Specifically, the developer plans to release it for all customers on Tuesday, July 29, or Wednesday, July 30, 2025.
The list of headline features is suitably big, starting with an overhaul of the landing characteristics based on data gathered from 800,000 real-world flights.
The Fly By Wire controls have been retuned, and a simulation of the control input damping dynamics has been added. The ground handling model has also been reworked.
The A319 with Sharklets got its own engine model to simulate the version operated by American Airlines, configured for performance with the 5B7 variant of the CFM56 engine. This brings the total of engine variants simulated across Fenix aircraft to 7.
Of course, the A319 with sharklets also had the option with IAE V2524s and has a bespoke flight model besides the engines to simulate the subtle differences the sharklets bring to the airframe.
Weather radar has been implemented with gain control. Tilt can’t yet be used as it requires changes to the core simulation, but the system is in place if these changes are provided by Microsoft in the future.
Stop margins have been added to the takeoff performance calculation on the EFB, alongside a custom PDF viewer and even a way to adjust the volume of other programs on your computer using the ACP knobs in the flight deck.
The audio has been remade with improved engine recordings and plenty more. The sounds will actually change dynamically as you move within the flight deck and cabin.
The colors of the displays have been tuned thanks to a recent reference trip where the developer used calibrated color sampling technology for maximum precision, and “a few hundred” bug fixes and miscellaneous changes have been implemented.
For Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, the aircraft’s model has been completely remade using the native modular system, adding all the appropriate LOD levels to optimize performance, which also left room to increase the actual portrayed detail.
“A ton” of work has been done to the flight deck to rebuild it to suit MSFS 2024’s lighting and materials simulation, including physically emulated displays that behave just like in the real world when hit by light.
Over 750 liveries have been converted to the new model, plus about 50 new ones, including custom cabins for several of them.
The EFB on MSFS 2024 had the LIDO charts added and can be accessed directly within the sim’s native EFB app.
A lot of work went into the walkaround mode, and Fenix actually managed to implement the ability to walk from the ground to the flight deck and around the cabin, which isn’t present in other airliners (and is really pretty cool).
Doors and cargo doors open and close in a realistic way, so you may need to read the instruction labels to know exactly how to operate the latches.
Small Easter Eggs have been added, like the operable switch that controls the maintenance bus on the ceiling of the forward galley.
The refueling panel on the fuselage is fully simulated and operational for those who want to refuel their aircraft manually (of course, the option to do so automatically remains).
The absolute maniacs at Fenix actually went as far as modeling and simulating the hydraulic access panels used to open and close the landing gear doors from the ground.
Of course, under the nose of the aircraft, now you can access the fully functional external power panel… because, of course, you can.
If you think that’s crazy, wait for the coup de grâce: you can interact with the engine’s fan blades manually, spinning them to inspect them or slowing the rotation down by interacting with the cone.
Incidentally, there is more to come. There are interactions and visual elements that Fenix believes would make the walkaround process even more enjoyable. The tech groundwork for adding these has been done, and they will be added in future updates.
Of course, my written summary doesn’t even come close to doing justice to just how crazy this update is (and I don’t say this lightly), so you should definitely watch the 30-minute video showing everything below. There’s even a quick (literally) look at the full and massive changelog at the end.
We also have a few screenshots provided by Fenix for your perusal.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is available for PC and Xbox Series X|S. Yet, it’s worth mentioning that Fenix’s A320 line is only for PC as its systems simulation runs in an external software, which is not compatible with Xbox.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is also available for the same platforms. If you want to see the massive visual difference against Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, you can enjoy our video and screenshot comparison.
If you’d like to read more flight simulation news, you can find plenty in our latest roundup article from yesterday.
If you want to go further back, we have a handy overview video of the major flight simulation news in the past week. You can watch it below. As usual, leaving a like and a comment and subscribing to our growing YouTube channel is extremely helpful.
