Fresh off FSExpo 2026, Synaptic Simulations has shared a major development update on the A220, and it's clear they're in the home stretch.
What's new:
- Systems — Avionics now pull from the correct underlying system components, including dynamic hydraulic, fuel, and battery temperature modeling. Control surfaces also react realistically to gravity and wind when hydraulics are depressurized.
- FMS Rewrite — The flight management system was rebuilt entirely from scratch (21,000+ lines of code), bringing full lateral/vertical navigation, graphical flight planning, performance planning with FLEX takeoffs and noise abatement profiles, SimBrief wind uplink, and accurate FMS quirks like the 200-leg limit and FPLN FULL messaging.
- Flight Guidance — Supports ILS, LOC, LDA, RNAV RNP, RNAV RNP AR, LPV, VOR, and VOR/DME approaches. Full autoland capability is implemented, including accurate mode transitions (RETARD, ALIGN, FLARE, ROLLOUT) and Emergency Descent Mode.
- Sounds — The iconic A220 "engine howl" is procedurally simulated based on live engine parameters, developed in collaboration with Echo 19. A dedicated sound showcase update is coming soon.
Where things stand: Most of the remaining work is bug hunting. Across all three days at FSExpo, only five new issues were found — two fixed on the spot — with zero crashes. A release trailer also dropped last week.
No release date announced yet, but it's clearly very close. Full update: iniBuilds Forum