I remember this. And I seem to recall you were supposed to rotate them back to “open” before letting the airplane sit out in the sun or else the polarized coating would bubble or something. I could be mis-remembering that. The last time I flew a King Air was probably about 3 or 4 years ago now.
Very un-King-Air-ish. That panel (at the time) was so futuristic looking.
I was sitting eating dinner the other night - had just sat down to eat actually and turned my “smart” TV on. And on the initial boot up hub there were video recommendations based on past views…so a bunch of girls in bikinis, boats trying to exit inlets, and then I saw this curiously titled video recommended. When I first turned it on…I was like…oh…what the F…an hour and 18 minute long video…ain’t nobody got the time to watch that. What ensued was me watching the entire video (over two days) of what appears to be a complete idiot who thought he was buying Buzz Aldrin’s old Learjet. I mean…I think I got the premise…that the guy just makes scads of money from YouTube so he can just throw money here and there…the money MAKES the content that allows him to do this. And I don’t know if the idiocy is part of an act or if he is genuinely an idiot. And the things they do…I just can’t figure out how he hasn’t killed himself…or how the FAA hasn’t looked into it…unless there are other things going on off-camera.
That is a lot of typing to basically say I got sucked into this stupid episode (I don’t know that I will watch any more of his content…)…but the horror I felt…but I couldn’t turn away. I just couldn’t… I wanted to forward it to our maintenance guys because it has to be some kind of doom porn to them…
And you really have to watch the whole first half where he is trying to figure out what is wrong with his 421 before he ever gets to the part about the Lear…
Fixed a crash occuring in the model behavior parser when cancelling a request (rapidly clicking tiles in the aircraft selector)
General Bug Fixes
Allowed the player to lock their input presets
Changed new plane flares on interior lights to be disabled by default.
Fixed potential crash when ATC attempts to look for appropriate STAR to assign for clearance
Backwards Compatibility Bug Fixes
Fixed UV length not being computed correctly when glTF geometry is reused (avoids blurry textures from models coming from 2020 packages)
Aircraft
Fixed crash in ObjectFollowGraphAI when a NavigationGraphNode is destroyed before ai or AI destroyed before the node
Modified WaitForPilotAndCopilot to create a “mandatory” procedural character
Air Tractor AT-802
Fixed an issue causing some circuit breakers to not properly affect the windshield wipers and their associated lights.
DG Aviation DG-1001E
Fixed an issue causing the landing gear keybinds of the DG1001 not to work when they were using up/down keys instead of toggle
Fixed an issue causing the DG1001’s tow cable to become unreleasable if it was already released by the tow plane
Diamond DA62
Fixed the thumbnails for all variations
Aircraft Core Systems
Fuel System
Fixed an issue that prevented gravity based fuel transfers in some cases.
Physics
Updated the “Debug Aircraft Weight” tool to perform the same validation checks on MOI as during aircraft mass properties loading.
Downgraded log level for MOI validation issues during aircraft loading from “errors” to “warnings”.
Aircraft Tech
Modular Aircraft
Fixed withExterior_showInterior_hideFirstLod hiding the entire interior of modular aircraft if interior model was an empty model. Instead this option will hide the first LOD of all interior models of the aircraft hierarchy, except for these empty models.
Career
General Bug Fixes
Fixed refuel to full capacity not working in freelancer mode
Missions
Aerial Construction (Rotorcraft)
Added condition to prevent pickup while landed
Search & Rescue - Hoist (Rotorcraft)
Fixed several visual issues on back on track during search and rescue hoist mission
Online Services
Weather
Fixed an issue where the clouds on the world map did not transition correctly after a data update
Improved thunderstorm prediction
Streaming
Fixed the game freezing when attempting to stream some packages, due to sound.xml being in a folder which name did not start with “sound.”
Virtual Reality
Fixed missing icons for some VR controllers inputs
Fixed the toolbar that sometimes disappeared when leaving the VR mode
DevMode
Scenery Editor
Fixed crash when undoing a “replace with SPC”
Visual Effects Editor
Fixed crash when using VFX spawner after cloning a VFX & improved cloning process
SDK
WASM API
Fixed deferred events not properly copying their arguments in a multithreaded context (fixes execute_calculator_code not correctly triggering multiple events specified through one single string)
Exporter Blender
Fixed enable new layer children and update parent layers
This package when installed is now detected and used by the latest version of AIG Traffic manager
Version 7.1 of GAIST works with both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 with preprogrammed traffic and with MSFS 2024 real time ship traffic data.
Adds new yachts and tugs
Increase leisure traffic in MSFS 2020 and in MSFS 2024 in offline mode adding more than 5000 additional ship movements
Corrects texture issues on 5 models
Suppresses in MSFS 2024 real time traffic mode the majority of appearances of very large ships erroneously placed by the simulator when it has no size data from AIS
Improves matching of ship models in MSFS 2024, but still only based on type and the match module in MSFS continues to be the same so do not expect a high match rate beyond size and overall type of ship
DLSS Swapper v1.1.7.1 released (seems to have some nice conveniance features!)
Downloads and full changelog including attributions can be found: here
Previous builds were released as both a .NET 8 and .NET 9 variant. With this release it is just a .NET 9 build. Hopefully the underlying issues have been resolved (see the change here)
This is also the first version of DLSS Swapper where the resultant binaries are built with GitHub Actions.
The new AIRAC Cycle 2506 is now available for Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020 & 2024), bringing updated navigation data like ILS, SID/STAR, and APPR information.
It’s effective as of June 12, 2025.
You can get the data through various sources, including SimPlaza and Navigraph.
SimBrief Gets a Fresh Update!
SimBrief rolled out a significant update in May 2025, offering enhanced flight planning capabilities, including:
Faster and Smarter Route Calculator: It can now calculate routes in seconds and handles complex scenarios like avoiding weather restrictions and ETOPS areas.
Dynamic Weather Avoidance: You can instruct SimBrief to avoid areas with SIGMETs by selecting “All SIGMETs” or typing specific identifiers.
ETOPS Routing: Avoid ETOPS airspace entirely if your aircraft isn’t certified for ETOPS.
SID/STAR Previews: Visualize departure and arrival procedures directly on the interactive map for easier selection.
Grouped Flight History: Flight plan revisions are grouped together for a cleaner history view.
Expanded Aircraft Options: Customize equipment codes, PBN capabilities, and more.
Easier Equipment Editing: Use pop-up widgets to edit equipment codes and ATC flight plan remarks without manual typing.
Summer Flight Challenges
Navigraph’s latest newsletter highlights “5 Scorching Airports” like Kuwait City and Phoenix, challenging pilots to handle the extreme heat and demanding runways.
The newsletter also features a “Flight of the Month” flying from Tampa to Rhode Island.
Microsoft Flight Simulator hosted a “Community Fly-In Friday” focused on unconventional aircraft types like hot air balloons and gliders.
Overall:
The latest AIRAC update and SimBrief enhancements offer more realistic and exciting flight simulation experiences. These improvements, coupled with summer-themed challenges, provide ample opportunities for sim pilots to test their skills and enjoy the virtual skies.
That panel (at the time) was so futuristic looking.
