Microsoft’s Flight Simulator team have delivered an update that provides a pleasing pack of new content alongside performance and stability fixes, and UI enhancements. As per out headline, the game has been bolstered by four new handcrafted airports, as well as roughly 50 new high-fidelity points of interest. All the new content is US-based, and that is indicated by the full name of the package: 1.11.6.0 World Update II: U.S.
The four new handcrafted airports in the US which will now feature in MFS are; KATL – Atlanta International, KFHR – Friday Harbor, KDFW – Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) ,and KSWF – New York Stewart International Airport. These enhanced representations are provided alongside a number of minor enhancements to four dozen international airports featured in the sim.
Moving along, the list of points of interest that have been added is quite extensive and will surely be welcome among sim pilots. Iconic landmarks like the White House, Mount Rushmore, and Yosemite El Capitan. The full list is tabulated below:
| 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 |
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I mentioned performance and stability wrinkles had been ironed out in the intro. Specifically Microsoft has fixed up issues that were the cause of several crashes, optimised photogrammetry loading, and improved performance by properly removing offline aircraft at long distance. For the full list of tweaks and fixes, if you are a MSFS player, it is worth checking out the referenced blog post.