Rumors of Fenix’s death are a bit exaggerated

Fenix Simulations, well-known for its striking Airbus A320 simulation for MSFS, has recently been rather silent. The last update to the A320 came in November of last year, leaving many to wonder since then if the Fenix had died for some reason or simply abandoned their A320 development project. Today, however, Aamir Thacker made an appearance on the company’s Discord server to announce that the Fenix is still very much alive and still actively working on improvements for the A320.

The lack of communication from Fenix Simulations over the past few months had caused some users to worry about the future of the project. The company’s communication channels have been dormant, and there have been no updates or announcements regarding the project’s progress. However, today’s word from Aamir should put any fears to rest:

“Seeing as we’ve been a bit quiet lately and that has resulted in a lot of people assuming we’re dead rather than just busy working, I figured a small update was in order to stave off the life insurance phonecalls for a bit longer.”

For the most part there’s nothing new to announce/show, except that we’re much further along on all fronts mentioned in the last update, and so far keeping right on our revised schedule per our current internal development roadmap. The V2 update is an expectedly huge undertaking, rivalling the amount of work required for the original development. The external engine model is in the final phases before pushing into testing, dealing with edge-cases (e.g. what happens to the oil pressure, temperature or vibration when you start an engine in -30C and then immediately firewall the throttles), and startup/shutdown transient states, thermal transients, etc. Flight model & fly-by-wire refinements have continued with a focus on crosswind take-off and landing performance; there are some rather nasty ‘sim-isms’ that cannot be worked around here, but it’s a heck of a lot better than before. System tweaks and improvements have also been made over the last few months. Performance benchmarks of the new display system show a significant uplift in performance, and the visual rework, from displays to the 3D model, is looking very nice with a few “never seen before in MSFS” goodies, all whilst consuming less resources. As before, nothing we’re quite ready to show as there’s a lot to be brought together into one cohesive package, but I’m personally extremely happy with the progress being made on all fronts.”

“We’ll be back with more when we have something to show – sorry there wasn’t much of substance here but as before, there’s not a whole lot to say other than we’re still alive and working hard. Thanks for being patient with us, it’ll be worth it and some.”

Aamir Thacker, Fenix Simulations

So, with no major news to announce, it’s comprehensible that the team saw no need to communicate all that much. The assurance that progress has been made on all fronts is good news, at least. The Fenix may not be flying high, but it’s still alive and kicking. Stay tuned for more… once there’s something.