The past few weeks have been busy in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. In a short span, Asobo Studio and Microsoft have shipped a major Sim Update, two follow-up patches, a free World Update covering a region the community has requested for years, and a new Local Legend aircraft. If you’ve been away from the sim, or simply lost track of which version fixes what, here is a full rundown of everything that has landed since late October, starting with the newest release.
Sim Update 7.2: Back to the Pre-SU7 Drag Model
Sim Update 7.2, version 1.9.24.0, began rolling out on November 5 across all platforms. It’s a compact patch, but its main change matters for almost everyone who flies third-party aircraft: the drag simulation calculations have been restored to the state they were in before Sim Update 7. According to the official release notes, the goal is to preserve backwards compatibility with certain third-party add-on aircraft.
To understand why this change was needed, it helps to look back at the last three weeks. Sim Update 7 launched on October 13, with the National Championship Air Races as its headline feature. Shortly after release, many of you noticed that aircraft were flying faster than expected and were hard to slow down. Asobo responded quickly with a beta of Sim Update 7.1 on October 16, followed by a public release on October 23 that corrected the reduced drag.
That fix, however, caused problems of its own. Within days, IndiaFoxtEcho reported new drag-related issues with its fast-jet lineup. The studio said the impact was minimal on the F-14 Tomcat and F-35 Lightning II, small but measurable on the Tornado, and severe enough to make the Eurofighter Typhoon unusable. Threads on the official forums also described third-party fighters accelerating too slowly. Rather than fine-tune the new model further, Asobo chose a full rollback, which first appeared in the 7.2 beta build 1.9.23.0 on October 28 and has now reached the public channel. The release notes don’t list which aircraft were affected, but in principle your aircraft should once again handle as they did before October 13. Any developer who adjusted flight models during the SU7 period may need to release a corresponding update.
Beyond the aerodynamics, Sim Update 7.2 also addresses a few other issues. Aircraft using bleed air starters, with the Boeing 737 and F/A-18 given as examples, could sometimes fail to start their engines when the outside air temperature was set very low; this has been fixed. Helicopter pilots who fly with the Turbulence assistance set to Realistic should no longer see excessive rotor RPM and unexpected lift, a fix first tested in the initial 7.2 beta. The in-flight Camera menu now correctly reads and saves custom values.
The rest of the changelog focuses on PlayStation 5 and developers. On PS5, BMP files used by XML gauges now load correctly, and a WASM networking function that returned an improperly formatted value on the console has been corrected, both of which can affect how add-ons behave on Sony’s platform. For creators, a crash caused by custom SimConnect events with numerical IDs used in combination with F:KeyEvent has been fixed, and the SimObject Profiler in DevMode no longer uses the wrong camera angles for exterior profiling.
As always after a sim update, if you’re on PC and experience stability problems or long loading times, try temporarily moving your Community folder packages elsewhere and relaunching. Outdated add-ons are still the most common reason for unexpected behavior after a new build. Microsoft has not announced a date for Sim Update 8 yet.
World Update 23: Poland and the Baltics
If you skipped the sim in late October, the bigger news is World Update 23, released for free on October 26, a day before its planned date. When the Central Eastern Europe World Update launched in 2023, Poland and the Baltic states were left out, and the region has remained near the top of the community’s wishlist ever since. This update covers Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia all at once, and is available for both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024.
The core of the package is twelve areas of interest featuring updated photogrammetry, TIN surface texturing, and new elevation data, developed together with the Bing team and Gaya Simulations. In Poland, the named cities are Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Poznan, Lodz, and Katowice. Lithuania includes Vilnius and Kaunas, while Riga and Tallinn represent Latvia and Estonia, respectively. Alongside the cities, there are 77 points of interest with a strong focus on history and coastline. Malbork Castle and the Sopot Pier stand out in Poland, Trakai Island Castle and Rundāle Palace in Lithuania and Latvia, and Riga’s Radio and TV Tower is also included. Estonia adds the Kõpu and Keri lighthouses as well as the Angla windmills, so a low-and-slow coastal VFR flight from Gdansk to the Gulf of Finland is definitely worth trying.
Gaya Simulations built five handcrafted airports for the update. Kärdla (EEKA) serves the Estonian island of Hiiumaa, while Jūrmala (EVJA) in Latvia is a 1930s-era field with a Cold War past that is now home to the Baltic Bees aerobatic team. Palanga (EYPA) acts as Lithuania’s gateway to the coast, and Poland gets two: Warsaw-Babice (EPBC), a general aviation field within the city limits, and Opole-Kamień Śląski (EPKN), a former military airfield that now hosts a racetrack. Notably, the major hubs like Warsaw Chopin, Riga, and Vilnius aren’t part of the handcrafted selection, so you’ll still need to rely on third-party developers for those, which is good news for scenery creators here on Flightsim.to.
The activities lineup is particularly strong in MSFS 2024. You get discovery flights over Warsaw, Sigulda, and Tallinn, along with four precision landings ranging from a Citation CJ4 into Kärdla to an A310-300 into Jūrmala. The highlight is the Sopot Pier landing challenge, which recreates Łukasz Czepiela’s 2019 stunt of landing a CubCrafters Carbon Cub on the roughly 150-meter wooden pier, complete with a global leaderboard. A guided tour of Tatra National Park, following the format introduced with World Update 22, and a rally race complete the 2024 content. MSFS 2020 users receive the same discovery flights and precision landings, but the Sopot challenge, guided tour, and rally are exclusive to MSFS 2024.
Local Legend 26: Antonov An-28
Launching alongside the World Update, Local Legend 26 adds the Antonov An-28, developed by AT Simulations, the team behind the Local Legend An-2. Since a suitable Polish-designed aircraft wasn’t available, Microsoft chose a type that, despite its Ukrainian design origins, was largely built in Poland. The An-28 is a rugged STOL utility twin that can carry up to 17 passengers or around 4,000 lb of cargo. It comes with multiple cabin configurations and more than ten liveries. Based on published figures, it is better suited to longer gravel and grass strips than the very short runways typical for a Cub or Beaver. Unlike the World Update, the An-28 is a payware product, available for $14.99 in the in-sim Marketplace.
Getting Up to Date
To get everything running, update your sim to version 1.9.24.0 first, then download World Update 23 for free from the in-sim Marketplace on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, or via Xbox Cloud Gaming. If you’d like to fly the new region in the An-28, you can find Local Legend 26 in the Marketplace as well. And once you’ve explored Poland and the Baltics with the default scenery, be sure to check out Flightsim.to for community-made airports, liveries, and landmarks that fill in the gaps, many of them free.