Today Microsoft and Asobo Studio released the third World Update for their popular Microsoft Flight Simulator, which improves the UK and Ireland following Japan and the United States over the past few months.

The update brings new airports (Manchester Barton (EGCB), Liverpool John Lennon (EGGP), Land’s End (EGHC), Barra (EGPR), and Out Skerries (EG78)), point of interest, photogrammetry-enhanced cities (London, Birmingham Oxford, Cambridge, and Bristol), and a much more detailed digital elevation map.

To get the full thing, you need to download an update from the Windows Store or Steam (1.04 GB on the Windows Store), then launch the simulator and download the content (23.73 GB), and then grab the specific UK update for free in the official marketplace within the sim. Yes. It’s a lot of downloading for a lot of content.

You can have a taste of what’s in store in the trailer below and read the full patch notes at the bottom of the post.

A few of days ago, we published our massive interview with head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, who provided a lot of new info about the present and future of the sim.

Incidentally, if you’d like to read more about Microsoft Flight Simulator add-ons, you can enjoy our recent reviews of Milano Linate Airport, the Singapore City Pack, Tokyo Narita Airport, Yao Airport, the F-15 Eagle, the Paris City Pack, Greater Moncton Airport, Tweed New Haven Airport, Santorini Airport, Sydney Airport, Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, Reggio Calabria Airport, Bastia Poretta Airport, Munich Airport, Paris Orly Airport, Newcastle International Airport, Sankt Johann Airfield, Dublin International Airport, and  Seoul City Wow. We also have a beta preview of Singapore Changi airport.

If you want to learn more about the game itself, you can read our review that will tell you everything you need to know about Asobo Studio’s game.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is already available for Windows 10 and Steam and will release in summer 2021 for Xbox Series X ad Series S.

Update notes (1.13.16.0):

PERFORMANCE AND STABILITY

• Fixed various crashes across the title
• Fixed a specific crash while using Little Navmap in Bush trip activities

WORLD

• Several terrain spikes have been fixed, including incorrect cases of water elevation issues
• Water masks have been updated across various locations in the world
• Reduced the frequency of water artifacts appearing on cliffs
• Noise issue affecting clouds has been fixed

VR

• The ‘Activate/Deactivate VR’ button is now always displayed in the main menu (bottom left corner of the screen) when a VR headset is plugged in. If no controls are displayed on this button, then it means that no controls are bound to this action.
• When the toolbar is opened, it does not block interactions anymore with other menus displayed in front of it.
• The cursor doesn’t jump anymore when moving across the Options menu in the cockpit.
• Gray boxes don’t appear anymore when using the ‘Travel to’ feature in VR.
• After leaving VR mode, the sim window is no longer forced on top and the player can drag and drop any other window over it.

PLANES

• Fixed induced speed calculation bug with bi propeller engines
• Fixed the plane crash detection when landing on iced water with crash detection ‘ON’
• Fixed swapped screens in DA62 TestPilot version
• Fixed VS Knob Turn not working on the Airbus A320Neo
• Improved flaps system of aircraft: Aircraft creators can now move the wing surface’s position and camber with each flap system at each flap level
• Improved ground effect wing to ground interaction system to avoid pitch dip at rotation on some aircraft

NAVIGATION

• Latest AIRAC cycle has been integrated and is now available

INPUT

• CH ECLIPSE YOKE default preset have been added
• Fixed Thrustmaster TCA Quadrant ENG 1+2 don’t start engines

SDK/Devmode

Dev mode:

• New version of the console is now available
• Fixed an issue related to UTF8 encoding in the BGL compiler

Scenery Editor:

• New feature to group, rename, re-order, hide and lock items in the scene list
• Fixed freeze during saving
• New airport light system
• Add a button in airport properties to generate taxiway signs
• Improve heightmap edition
• Don’t lock runway profile extremity
• Fix taxiway sign size (wasn’t correctly serialized in BGL)

Aircraft Editor:

• Fixed an issue with the saving of “static_thrust”
• Added a new button in the Camera section of the aircraft editor to teleport the current developer camera to the position, rotation and zoom of the selected one.
• Creation of a new tool to edit only a camera file (cameras.cfg) : it matches with the camera section of the aircraft editor

WASM:

• Security vulnerabilities in the WASI layer have been reported and fixed
• Fixed StringFormat conversion to NanoVG alignment in GDI+ layer
• Reworked MouseAircraft left gauge to provide clearer information

Simconnect:

• Fixed flight load/save (SimConnect_FlightLoad / SimConnect_FlightSave)

POINTS OF INTEREST

• One Blackfriars
• BT Tower
• Newfoundland
• St George Wharf Tower
• Southbank Tower
• 20 Fenchurch Street/ Sky Garden
• The Leadenhall Building / 122 Leadenhall Street
• HSBC / 8 Canada Square
• Tower 42
• 25 Canada Square / City Bank
• 22 Bishopsgate
• Landmark Pinnacle
• Heron Tower
• One Park Drive
• The Scalpel
• The Madison
• 100 Bishopsgate
• Aykon London One
• 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin)
• Strata
• Palace of Holyroodhouse
• Blenheim Palace
• St. James’s Palace
• Palace of Westminster
• Glamis Castle
• Buckingham Palace
• Archbishop’s Palace, Maidstone
• Wolvesey Castle
• Floors Castle
• Balmoral Castle
• Hillsborough Castle
• Dublin Castle
• Mount Stuart House
• Blair Castle
• Hampton Court Palace
• Rock of Cashel
• Stirling Castle
• Warwick Castle
• Windsor Castle
• Blarney Castle
• Eilean Donan Castle
• Edinburgh Castle
• Caernarfon Castle
• Canterbury Cathedral
• Durham Cathedral
• Fountains Abbey
• Lincoln Cathedral
• Salisbury Cathedral
• St. Paul’s Cathedral
• Westminster Abbey
• York Minster
• Angel of the North
• Blackpool Tower
• British Airways i360 (Brighton)
• Glenfinnan Viaduct
• Humber Bridge
• Jodrell Bank Observatory
• Kelpies, The
• Maritime Greenwich
• Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
• Royal Botanical Gardens
• Royal Liver Building
• Samson & Goliath (Cranes)
• Spinnaker Tower
• Stonehenge
• Titanic Belfast
• Tower of London
• Wales Millenium Centre
• Wallace Monument
• All England Club
• Anfield
• Emirates Stadium
• Goodison Park
• Millennium Stadium
• Old Trafford
• St. James’ Park
• Stamford Bridge
• Twickenham Stadium
• Villa Park
• Wembley Stadium
• Eden Project
• London Eye
• Southend Pier
• Millennium Bridge London
• Blackfriars Railway Bridge
• Southwark Bridge
• Cannon Street Railway Bridge
• Blackfriars Bridge
• Vauxhall Bridge
• Grosvenor Bridge
• One Canada Sqaure
• Waterloo Bridge
• Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges
• Lambeth Bridge
• Chelsea Bridge
• Albert Bridge London
• Battersea Bridge
• Battersea Railway Bridge
• Wandsworth Bridge
• Clifton Suspension Bridge
• Forth Rail Bridge
• Forth Road Bridge
• Queensferry Crossing
• Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge
• Tees Transporter Bridge
• Tower Bridge
• Tyne Bridge
• Westminster Bridge
• …and more!