While Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 continues to grab most of the headlines with its rapid development cycle (Sim Update 2 just dropped, and Sim Update 3 is already in public beta), the legacy 2020 platform isn’t being left behind. In fact, Sim Update 16 for MSFS 2020 is now in beta!

Most simmers still flying in MSFS 2020 are generally satisfied with the platform’s current state and stability. And for those concerned that a new update might disrupt that balance, there’s some reassurance here: this beta isn’t about introducing new features or content. It focuses on maintenance, reliability, and refinement — a direction that many long-time users are likely to welcome as the sim enters what appears to be a long-term support phase.

The first standout in Sim Update 16 is improved memory management on Xbox Series S and X, which the team says should lead to better stability. If you’ve ever experienced crashes or stutters when loading into dense scenery on console, this backend work might make a noticeable difference.

General bug fixes include a revision to the timezone system, which should now behave more reliably across different regions. Separately, the sim’s geographic data has been improved, with more accurate representations of country coastlines, borders, and island shapes.

On a similar level, the way water body polygons are handled has been tweaked so that overlapping regions no longer cancel each other out. Good news if you fly floatplanes or pay attention to small environmental details.

Aircraft updates: 787, Longitude, TBM 930

This update delivers meaningful fixes and additions for a few key default aircraft:

• Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
  An issue where spoiler inputs could cause the aircraft to spin out of control has been corrected — something many users may have experienced during descent or rollout.
• Cessna Citation Longitude
  This jet gets a big update: the FMS now has a proper initialization flow, there’s a new pitch limit indicator, and autothrottle behavior has been refined with new aural alerts and realistic logic. Reverse thrust is now simulated with attention to hydraulic dependencies, and pressurization behavior — including the DUMP switch — has been fixed.
• Daher TBM 930
  The single-engine turboprop also receives some love: approach cues on the airspeed tape, FMS improvements, and ESP have been added. It’s not a full avionics overhaul, but it modernizes some of the system logic.

Avionics updates across the board

SU16 continues the trend of maturing the avionics stack in MSFS 2020. Each suite — from the Garmin G1000 NXi to the Primus Epic — receives bug fixes, UI improvements, and small but welcome refinements. Here are some of the highlights:

• Garmin G1000 NXi now includes virtual pathways on the PFD and better handling of transitions and flight plan connections.
• G3000/G5000 avionics gain new VNAV alerts and terrain system adjustments.
• The Garmin G3X Touch improves autopilot behavior and interface polish, including better wind display styling and OBS control.
• GNS 430/530 and the UNS-1Ew FMS also receive attention, with improved flight plan management and elevation handling.
• The Primus Epic 2.0 system — found in aircraft like the Longitude — is more stable and flexible, especially when dealing with STARs, SIDs, and approach transitions. It now remembers settings between flights and handles waypoint sequencing with fewer bugs.

Despite the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, a lot of simmers are still flying regularly in the 2020 version. Whether it’s for performance reasons, specific add-ons, or just personal preference, MSFS 2020 remains surprisingly active — and it’s good to see the development team sticking to their word and continuing to support it. Updates like Sim Update 16 show that even as focus shifts to the newer sim, 2020 isn’t being left behind!

RELEASE NOTES Sim Update 16 | MSFS 2020

Stability & Performance

• Improved memory management on Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X to improve stability

General Bug Fixes

• Fixed bugs on Timezone system. In addition, data is now more accurate (country coasts and borders, islands, etc)

World

• Changed the way water bodies polygons work so that overlapping polygons of the same type no longer cancel each other

Aircraft

Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner

• Fixed an issue with handling spoiler inputs that could cause the airplane to spin out of control.

Cessna Citation Longitude

• Added the approach cue to the airspeed indicator and angle of attack indicator.
• Added FMS initialization flow.
• Added the PFD pitch limit indicator.
• Fixed an issue where the THROTTLE_REVERSE_THRUST_TOGGLE key event would sometimes not work correctly even when the throttle lever position was at the full idle stop.
• Fixed the scrolling behavior of the PFD CAS display.
• Replaced certain PFD TAWS/GPWS annunciations with CAS messages.
• The TERRAIN FAIL CAS message no longer appears when TAWS is running a self-test.
• Thrust reverser deployment is now properly simulated, with deployment requiring hydraulic pressure.
• FADEC now commands more realistic N1 targets while reverse thrust is active.
• Disengaging the autothrottle using the autothrottle disconnect switch is now counted as a “normal” disengagement.
• Added the “autothrottle” aural alert when the autothrottle is disengaged.
• Added the “airspeed” aural alert when one of the autothrottle’s speed protection modes (MIN SPD or MAX SPD) is engaged.
• The CABIN ALTITUDE caution CAS message now appears when there are uncommanded increases in cabin altitude.
• Cabin altitude is now initialized to a sensible value when first spawning into a flight.
• The pressurization DUMP switch now functions properly.
• The ENGINE FAIL L/R CAS message now appears when FADEC detects an engine flameout.
• The engine RUN/STOP switch halo lights now function properly.
• Autothrottle now disengages when thrust reversers are in an unsafe condition.

Daher TBM 930

• Added the approach cue to the airspeed indicator.
• Added FMS initialization flow.
• Added electronic stability and protection (ESP).
• The flight director now commands a pitch of 10 degrees when the vertical GA mode is active.

Avionics

G1000 NXI

• Added the PFD virtual pathways feature.
• Fixed an issue where the runway leg of a departure or arrival procedure could be duplicated in the flight plan.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes approaches added to the flight plan could have improper connections between the approach transition and the final approach segment.

Garmin G3000 / G5000

• Added support for VNAV vertical track annunciations and aural alerts.
• Added the ability to inhibit terrain system alerts through the GTC Terrain Settings page.
• Added support for TAWS glideslope/glidepath deviation (GSD) alerts.
• Fixed an issue where the map wind vector arrow was not updating correctly in certain situations.
• Fixed an issue where scrolling a long list on a GTC could sometimes have an inappropriately large performance cost.
• Fixed an issue where FMS could calculate an incorrect airspeed reference in certain cases.
• Horizontal GTCs (GTC 580) will now allow the use of the upper dual concentric knob to change selected OBS course when the GTC is in the PFD control mode.
• The autopilot will now always allow arming of approach mode (LOC/GS) when the active navigation source is NAV1 or NAV2 and a valid localizer frequency is tuned.
• Fixed various cases where pressing the autopilot NAV or APR button while approach mode was active would not arm/disarm the correct flight director modes.
• Adjusted terrain system alert logic to reduce the chances of issuing spurious or very brief alerts.
• Fixed an issue where the runway leg of a departure or arrival procedure could be duplicated in the flight plan.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes approaches added to the flight plan could have improper connections between the approach transition and the final approach segment.
• Fixed an issue where very long flight plans were not displayed correctly in the GTC Flight Plan page.
• Fixed an issue where long procedure name text in the GTC Procedures page could sometimes wrap and overflow its containing button.

Garmin G3X Touch

• Added support for automatic slewing of the selected CDI course for NAV radios that have tuned localizers.
• Fixed the appearance of several icons in the Main Menu and Setup Menu.
• Pressing the MENU button while the MFD Info page or MFD Engine page is open will now open a popup menu.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Add Waypoint’ button on the MFD FPL page would sometimes not be hidden or displayed correctly after loading or removing an approach in the internal flight plan.
• The autopilot will now always allow arming of approach mode (LOC/GS) when the CDI source is VLOC and a valid localizer frequency is tuned.
• Fixed various cases where pressing the autopilot NAV or APR button while approach mode was active would not arm/disarm the correct flight director modes.
• Fixed an issue where the CDI Source button in the PFD Options menu was disabled when two external navigators were configured but only one navigator supported GPS and the external flight plan source was selected.
• Adjusted the styling of the PFD wind display to better match the real unit.
• The APPR button in the AFCS Controls menu is now enabled.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the PFD Active Flight Plan inset would not correctly display flight plans from external navigators.
• The VNAV button in the AFCS Controls menu now works properly when the G3X is configured with a VNAV-capable external navigator.
• Fixed an issue where the VNAV indication would not appear properly in the AFCS status box.
• Fixed an issue where the runway leg of a departure or arrival procedure could be duplicated in the flight plan.
• Fixed an issue where very long flight plans were sometimes not displayed correctly in the MFD Flight Plan page and PFD Active Flight Plan inset.
• Fixed the display of the EGT readout in the EIS to show the correct value.
• By default, the G3X will now use the fuel density reported by the “FUEL WEIGHT PER GALLON” SimVar when converting between fuel volume and fuel weight.
• The PFD Options menu will now display external GPS CDI sources as “GPS1” and “GPS2” when there is more than one external GPS source.

GNS 430/GNS 530

• Fixed exceptions when loading helipad data.
• Fixed handling of heliport elevation on airport page.
• Fixed an issue where the runway leg of a departure or arrival procedure could be duplicated in the flight plan.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes approaches added to the flight plan could have improper connections between the approach transition and the final approach segment.

Primus Epic 2.0 Integrated Avionics System

• Added MF controller event handling for for COM, NAV, XPDR buttons.
• Fixed a parameter error in the Autopilot.xml template.
• Intercept and manual sequencing legs can now be deleted and the route amended after these legs.
• Fixed FA legs from the runway being skipped in departures.
• Fixed duplicate runway legs inserted into the flight plan with some SIDs.
• Fixed VNAV target readout not displaying the target altitude for passing at-and-above constraints when descending in VPTH mode.
• The AP now rejects invalid flight director coupling flags (L:XMLVAR_AUTOPILOT_LR).
• Some settings will now persist between flights
• Selecting to amend the flight plan route now scrolls to the amend route list item
• When the active leg is being tracked by LNAV, it will now display as magenta, matching the map colours.
• Fixed a bug where SIDs with no runway transitions were not shown after a departure runway was selected.
• Fixed an issue where invalid airports were automatically entered on the flight plan page on power up.
• Fix METAR date handling for systems that have date displayed as [Month] [Day] instead of [Day] [Month]
• Fixed PFD displaying incorrect wind data
• Fixed errors in model behaviours due to incorrect tag names
• Fix nav preview text overlap
• Fixed various input fields not being editable via the TSC keyboard
• Fixed various input fields not losing focus when the enter key is pressed
• Fixed an issue where some facilities did not appear in the select object dialog, and improved the layout.
• Fixed an issue where duplicate waypoints with discontinuities appear in the flight plan when amending the route.
• Pressing the direct to button on the TSC now scrolls the flight plan to the direct to window.
• Fixed handling of the enter button on the direct to random window.
• Fixed incorrect procedure legs being removed when changing procedures.
• Fixed erroneous transitions being displayed for SIDs and STARs with no transitions.
• Fixed VECTORS approach transition selected by default and no de-selectable.
• Fixed STAR/APPR/transition combinations that are not compatible with existing selections being shown.
• Fixed the activate vectors button positioning and logic.
• Fixed flight paths at the connection between STAR and approach transition.
• Fixed merging of approach transition and final approach when the transition joins the FAF.
• 3 and 5 letter airport idents are now accepted as origin and destination.
• Fixed destination fuel remaining unit on the flight management window.
• Fixed an issue where the right-side TSC outer and inner knob functions were swapped when setting the transponder code.

UNS-1Ew SBAS-Flight Management System

• When on flight plan menu page, the flight plan page button would not work.
• Nav page would not show Estimated Time Enroute and Estimated Time of Arrival
• Nav page would not update the TO leg’s distance to go
• Nav data page would not show up to date nav data expiry
• After emptying the flight plan, the arrival/departure pages will now remove old procedure information
• Changing the arrival airport from the arrival page, will now remove any arrival procedure selected for that airport.
• When an airport is inserted as the last leg of the flight plan, if no approach is selected it will be made the arrival airport
• Fixed handling of heliport elevation in the waypoint ident page.
• Fixed FA legs from the runway being skipped in departures.
• Fixed duplicate runway legs inserted into the flight plan with some SIDs.
• Fix CDI scaling label always displaying as Terminal
• Fixed arrival page not updating data from the flight plan on it being loaded
• Fix departure page not updating runways after inputting a runway
• Fix not being able to select a departure if a departure with no transitions has already been selected
• Fix power/dim overlay not displaying properly on the LIST page