FSElite - Latest News, Reviews and Content FSElite

It will not be long until you will be able to get the long-haul Airbus jet from LatinVFR in Microsoft Flight Simulator for PC and Xbox. On their social media page, they said that the four-engine jet is on "final approach".
Initial development has "officially ended" on the product, with testing soon to begin on Xbox for a final release into the in-sim Marketplace. The team is hoping for a release this month, but couldn't contain their excitement and shared a new range of screenshots and a brand-new trailer.
The A340-300 is one of the smaller versions of the aircraft and was designed in tandem of the A330 as a way to enable airlines to operate in extended operations in areas that didn't have suitable airfields. This was before ETOPS become as widespread and as reliable as it is today. The A340 saw plenty of operators fly the aircraft to various locations around the world.
It was planned to launch last month, but appears the team wanted to make some final bits of polish before they did release it. If you want to see it streamed live, check out XP72 who did a detailed stream of the plane.
As usual, we will be sure to keep you posted with future updates, especially when we learn of an actual release date.

Scenery developer VerticalSim has released its St. Petersburgh-Clearwater International Aiport (KPIE) scenery for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Located in Pinellas County on Florida's Gulf Coast, the airport was originally called the Pinellas International Airport, or PIE, and is a public-use airport serving the roughly 3.2 million Clearwater/Tampa Bay-area residents.
KPIE offers domestic flights to various destinations as a hub for low-cost carrier Allegiant Airlines, making it a convenient option for budget-friendly travel to the many scenic beaches of the region. In 2023, the airport saw nearly 2.5 million passenger movements.
VerticalSim's KPIE includes the 2024 airport layout using high-grade aerial imagery, full PBR texturing of airport buildings, and custom static models. KPIE joins VerticalSim's Tampa International Airport, Sarasota International Airport, and VCities Tampa freeware to round out the developer's Tampa Bay area offerings.
KPIE is home to Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, the largest and busiest Air Station in the United States Coast Guard. In addition to the local area, CGAS Clearwater's Area of Operations includes the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean basin, and the Bahamas. KPIE also hosts a U.S. Air National Guard Blackhawk Squadron, two busy General Aviation FBOs, flight schools, and maintenance facilities.
Features:
Terminal with simple interior for maximum performance
Fully modeled accurate USCG, and FBOs
LOD's for optimization
Custom high-grade aerial imagery
2024 airport layout
Custom static models: Coast Guard C130s & Jayhawks
Custom taxiway signage, obstruction lights, guard lights, etc.
High-resolution accurate texturing of airport buildings with the full PBR suite
Custom Bayside Bridge model (Download VCities Tampa for free for a custom Tropicana Field)
Official GSX Profile (made by US Profiles)
All spawn types (airliner, helipad, GA, business jet)
St. Petersburg-Clearwater is available via VerticalSim's website for $16.99 (plus any applicable taxes).

PMDG's Robert Randazzo has shared a new development update alongside some previews of the upcoming Boeing 777 for MSFS. In the development update, Randazzo goes over the current testing and development status of the 777, some issues with the 737 on Xbox, as well as PMDG's (lack of) attendance at FSExpo 2024.
Starting with the 777 for MSFS, testing and development are well on their way. The team is busy putting the final touches to the 777-300ER and getting it ready for release. These final touches contain enabling the datalink capability, as well as moving to a new navigation database structure, allowing for full RNP/RNAV capabilities as requested by many. While this has been going on, the team is also slowly getting the 777F ready for testing, among other things.
Randazzo also addressed the anticipated release date for the 777 for MSFS. During a development stream in March, he mentioned an estimate of two months, which would put the release sometime during May. Unfortunately, this release window seems to have slipped a little, but Randazzo shares his confidence that a release should be coming closer. The two week notice before release still applies, so we'll know ahead when the 777 for MSFS will release rather than it being a surprise announcement.
737 for MSFS
The development update also details some issues going on with the 737 for the Xbox, particularly with a bug that prevents the aircraft from communicating with the EFB. This issue seems to be caused by Microsoft's intake tools to publish add-ons on the MSFS Marketplace. PMDG, Asobo and Microsoft are investigating this issue.
FSExpo 2024
Last but not least, Randazzo confirmed that the PMDG team will not be attending FSExpo 2024. This seems mostly due to a scheduling conflict, as well as the current focus on the 777 for MSFS, and the team did not want a poorly staffed booth at the exhibition.
With all that said, Randazzo did leave us with two teaser images for the upcoming 777. The first one is a shot taken in darkness, although you can see into the cockpit of the 777 a little bit. The second teaser was uploaded on PMDG's Facebook page, and appears to show the centre pedestal of the aircraft.

iniBuilds has surprised the flight simulation community by releasing a brand new airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator as a free gift to the community.
Mitchell International Airport (KMKE) serves the Milwaukee metropolitan area in Wisconsin, USA. It's the largest airport in Wisconsin and offers domestic and international flights, connecting passengers to various destinations around the world. You can complete real-world routes to places like Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Orlando from the hub.
iniBuilds has included a range of features including hand-made textures throughout, accurately modelled buildings (including interior modelling), along with designing bespoke taxi signage that matches up with real-world charts. Furthermore, there is an official GSX profile, use of LOD optimisation for optimal performance and plenty of clutter, landside objects, and more to complete the experience.
As mentioned in the title, Milwaukee is completely free of charge from the iniBuilds store right now.
Features
Hand-made ground textures with crisp, bespoke texture sets (Runways, aprons, paths, roads)
True-to-life airport landside recreation with custom ground decals, signposts, vegetation, parking barriers and more
Accurately modelled and positioned dynamic airport lighting
Highly detailed models of all airport buildings, objects and surroundings
Up to date airport layout reflecting the current, real-world location
Official GSX Profile included in scenery folder
Level of Detail (LOD) optimisation for every model to encourage the best performance possible
Use of the latest MSFS SDK features to allow for the best optimisation and performance possible
Custom static aircraft
Full iniManager compatibility to configure your scenery for the best possible performance for your system
Bespoke taxi signage as it is in the real world

Orbx has released its new Kola Map for DCS World. As per their product page, the map covers northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Russian Murmansk Oblast, and parts of the Karelia region. It also includes large areas of the Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea to the north and west.
Orbx has included complete base terrain for the whole map, detailed topography, summer ground textures and all the local shorelines, lakes and rivers. There are a significant number of POIs including bridges, monuments, dams, power stations, landmark buildings and plentiful towns and villages. Expect to also see main roads, railway networks, tunnels and bridges throughout the map.
The natural landmarks of the mountains, the Norwegian fjords, snowfields and thousands of lakes have also been recreated in this map. Orbx has also worked with Baltic Dragon and Reflected Simulations to create new campaigns for the map.
As the title indicates, this is an 'early access' release, meaning Orbx intends on adding new content and features in the near future. Such improvements include complete winter textures, additional military and civilian airfields, and additional cities and towns with new POIs.
You can buy the Early Access version of Kola now from Orbx for $55.99 USD (excluding taxes), but the price will increase to $69.99 USD once the full product is out.
Features
Complete base terrain for the entire map area, with highly detailed topography, summer ground textures summer, shorelines, and lakes and rivers.
An initial focus area spans the Finland/Russia border and encompasses central Finland and the western parts of the Murmansk and Karelia regions of Russia (see map).
Four high-detail areas, focusing on two airports in Finland (EFRO, EFKE) and five in Russia (XLMV, ULAK, RU-1110, RU-4464, ULMM), and their urban and rural surroundings and infrastructure.
Two road runways in Finland, near Rovaniemi and Sodankylä, respectively.
Two additional airports in Norway (ENBO, ENNA) and three in Sweden (ESNQ, ESNJ, ESUK) are functional but not fully detailed at early-access release.
Significant civilian POIs include bridges, vertical obstructions, monuments, hydro dams, power stations, port facilities, landmark buildings, open-pit mines, towns and small villages, and industrial sites.
Improved night lighting for cities and towns.
Main road and railroad network, with bridges and tunnels, which are connected across the map and allow long-distance AI routing.
Natural landmarks and geographic features, like Norwegian fjords, detailed coastlines, snowfields, forests and wetlands, tens of thousands of lakes, and large river systems.
Map features represent the current era but include allowances for the late-Cold War era - e.g., operational road runways and fully functioning Russian air bases - to enhance mission options.
The Orbx team is collaborating with experienced DCS campaign creators Baltic Dragon and Reflected Simulations to create engaging campaigns.

BeyondATC, the upcoming air traffic control simulation product being developed by a team of the same name, has released a new video detailing out the features at early access launch.
This video is planned to be the last communication from the developer prior to their early access release, and their objective was to detail out what the product can and can't do, so that users can have a clear picture on what they will be getting.
Early Access Functionality
Full IFR functionality
250+ Premium/Basic Voices
Voice Communications with ATC
Realistic FAA/ICAO phraseology
Dynamic Runway/SID/STAR selection
Pireps, direct-tos, altitude changes, etc
Simbrief integration
Approach selection based on weather
Custom user data for airport specific SOPs
Not Functional in Early Access
Traffic Injection
VFR Flights
Emergency Procedures
Oceanic Procedures
VR Interface
Additionally, they noted that some users may encounter some bugs while flying BeyondATC, due to data issues within Microsoft Flight Simulator. The program pulls data from the sim about the relevant airports to your filed flight plan, and may get incomplete/incorrect info from the sim.
This error has been found to occur primarily at default airports, but can happen at 3rd party scenery if the developer didn't set the scenery up properly - it should be noted that the vast majority of airports seem to be fine though. When there is a data error - the program will warn the user prior to launching the flight plan.
This issue could theoretically have been resolved through using Navigraph data, but a decision was made not to do this as it would require every user to have a Navigraph subscription. While in Early Access, BeyondATC is looking at resolving this problem
Is BeyondATC Artificially Intelligent?
The video also spent a few minutes on the topic of if BeyondATC is Artificially Intelligent. The answer is yes. BeyondATC uses AI to process the users voice, determine a command to give to the user, and then generate the ATC voice to respond back. This AI is somewhat on rails though, but this is rationalized as ATC being a procedure based system. With that in mind, BeyondATC will not respond well to open ended questions that go beyond the bounds of standard ATC procedures.
BeyondATC made a deliberate choice to not utilize a Large Language Model AI to power the program (like ChatGPT). They found that this choice would lead to a significant increase in product cost. Additionally, LLM AI systems do have the possibility to 'hallucinate' and make an error when giving an ATC command.
If you'd like to learn more, you can read the post on the BeyondATC Discord. For more information, visit BeyondATC's website at www.beyondatc.net