Page 66 - World Airnews September 2020 Edition

NEWS DIGITAL

MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR

By Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator

Sharing on behalf of the entire crew at free mods, to career modes, to incredibly
Microsoft and Asobo Studio, it has been an complex “study level” aircraft, it was
From today pilots, aviation enthusiasts, amazing and humbling experience to add clear that we needed to support the
simmers, and explorers can take to the to the legacy of Microsoft’s longest running community’s passion for creating, building
skies in Microsoft Flight Simulator, now product franchise with Microsoft Flight and modding.
Simulator. Almost everyone on the team
available on Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta), has a personal story or connection to flight From the very beginning, we treated
Windows 10 PC, and Steam. simulation, but hearing from numerous the new Microsoft Flight Simulator as a
platform, and not just as a product. We
In celebration of the return of the pilots, engineers and simulation fans about worked directly with hundreds of third
beloved franchise, all players will be able to the impact the Microsoft Flight Simulator party developers to ensure the SDK, which
claim a free "Aviators Club" livery set as a franchise made in their lives has been is available to everyone for free at launch,
special thank you for being one of the first incredibly inspiring. has the features and tools needed to
to take flight from now through September It was immediately apparent that while continue to deliver amazing add ons, and
30, 2020. we all share the same love for aviation and we will continue this partnership well into
The livery set will be available from aircraft, the vast wealth of knowledge and the future.
August 19 for a limited time in the in-sim experience from the community was going In addition to all of the insightful feed-
marketplace and includes Microsoft Flight to be critical to success. We made it our back we received, we also wanted to add
Simulator-inspired liveries for all aircraft mission from day one to gather feedback our own mark on the franchise. We wanted
available in the standard, delux, and from the various aviation and simulation to make a fundamental leap forward in the
premium deluxe Editions. communities, and to do our best to learn genre and redefine what it means to be
It’s an exciting day for everyone at from the past. We read thousands of Flight Simulator. We had access to amazing
Asobo Studio and Microsoft. What began threads on the various message boards, technology and vast data in Azure and
as a demo of Machu Picchu in augmented worked directly with pilots and engineers Bing Maps, and it showed us that for the
reality for the Microsoft HoloLens is now from different aircraft manufacturers, and first time, the entire world could be flyable
re-launching after 38 years. created an alpha program to get direct in VFR (visual flight rules) in a simulator.
The dream to make another Microsoft input from fans. Having the entire world in 3D was only the
Flight Simulator has always been alive, What impressed us the most was how first step, and so a fully redesigned weather
but what we really needed was the right this community continued to grow and and lighting system was needed to truly
combination of elements - a convergence thrive in the absence of updated software. simulate the world. With all of this terrain
of our collaboration with Azure AI’s cloud The community rallied together to and weather data, we can accurately
technology and Bing Maps to stream continue development and support for simulate the forces that would impact an
more than 2PB of data and - to be able to Microsoft Flight Simulator, and created a aircraft in flight, so we created an all new,
reach a new level of realism, accuracy and robust ecosystem for additional aircraft, fully redesigned aerodynamics model for
authenticity (as mentioned in Protocol). airports, sceneries, and features. From our aircraft to take advantage of that data.

World Airnews | September Extra 2020
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