A picture is worth a thousand words or something, right? I won't leave you on a cliffhanger, don't worry. I wrote a thousand words too.

Hello everyone, welcome to our 2025 roadmap. It starts with a BFU (Big Fenix Update) - but I think you wanna hear about the new thing first. So, straight to the point - we built some NEOs, and now that we've started flight testing them internally - we felt it a good time to start talking about them. There's still a bit of work to do, but for now I have enough to start outlining some of the juicy details at least.

To begin with - instead of attempting to turn our CEO into a NEO with a bit of brain surgery and ECAM fiddling, we've opted to replace the entire ECAM from the ground up at a "NEO" standard, this is wholly and solely Fenix - no longer shared with ProSim (some ammo for internet arguments). As a result, we've been able to dive down ECAM messages and functions not present even within the prior implementation - unlocking a whole host of possibilities for features we're not quite pulling the covers off yet. We've always maintained we didn't plan on building the NEOs - which is true, we refused to commit to it until we were certain we could bring an entirely new ECAM without spending 5+ years doing it, as the viability of the project hinged on it. It is only in these last few weeks we have finally been happy to give it the greenlight. This is a 2025 roadmap, but some things aren't quite ready to leave skunkworks. Regardless, this brain replacement meant we had to start from the beginning once again. We rewired the entire airplane. All of it. Every single sensor, valve, generator, pump, switch, button, what have you - she had to learn how to see, breathe and feel again. This time, she learned to do it like a NEO - not an old one, nor an early one. A modern, standard, representative airplane. While this may initially seem a bit over the top, in line with what we'd like to achieve with this aircraft, we view it as entirely necessary - given this process also allowed us to pull apart anything that simply did not belong on a modern A320 and toss it. We've been going through the lot, oxygen, fuel, pressurisation, electrical, bleeds - the correct model bleed monitoring computer has been installed, for example - with requisite changes to its logic. Details, big and small, across the entire network of systems. Heck, we’re even replacing the batteries. They're a higher capacity NiCad with reduced maintenance requirements (so the MTBF data is adjusted too...). I guess the point is, this isn’t the CEO in a face mask. We’re really going all out.

In that light, we’ve also built DRAIMS, and of course, functionally complete right down to the left/right context sharing, the various input validation functions, and very importantly the nifty animation too! The new DRAIMS panel is wired completely differently to the ACP of old in the back end, being a fully digital system, and the Fenix NEO represents this faithfully to the wire. We’re not going to show you the unit just yet, the final touches are yet to go on.

I'll save most of this for later, I think you get the gist for now. We have more work to do before I can wax-lyrical about this again. We spent an awfully long time telling you all we weren’t building NEOs. And, frankly, we absolutely did not want to build this airplane in a compromised fashion. So we waited until we were sure we could deliver this experience in a way we felt did the job justice, which involved a lot of learning, R&D, and failure - adventures which are best kept out of the spotlight for everyone’s sanity. For now and moving forward, some quick fire important details. We're looking at launching later this year. We're building the A320neo, and the A321neo. The LEAPs and the GTFs will both be fully represented in XEM. And, finally, we are putting all this in one package. This is a standalone product. No prior ownership necessary. But, read on CEO owners.

So the NEO was not the only one to have a bit of brain-out work. We didn't build one ECAM. We built 2 side-by-side. Our NEO, in the latest shiny standard and our CEO in the standard you know and have today. We couldn't leave the CEO behind, this is the hammer with which we built the house. While for CEO customers this may not present initially as a massive immediate difference, we think this was incredibly important in supporting the product going forward - and it was an extraordinary amount of work to achieve. We rebuilt and rewired the airplane in exactly the same way, just with slightly less tossing out. We extended its capabilities in the same way, and we made sure she'll be good to go for whatever nonsensical invention comes down the pipe from us in the future. We expect to push this improvement to you after our NEOs land, whenever in the year that may be. And yes. This will be free for existing customers.

Lastly, for customers that do opt to own both our CEO and NEO product, as a cherry on top, you will then have a surprise third airplane: a modernised CEO - based upon the significant work put into building up our NEO, it’ll be running the latest version ECAM, displays, what-have-you, on your CEO, for all you autobrake OFF enthusiasts (I get asked about this 8 times a day minimum). This is a small thank you to those who continue to support the work we do, and gives you a tonne of choice with what you would like to fly and which era of A320 you'd like to fly. We don’t expect the modernised CEO to be available alongside the NEO at launch, to set your expectations, as we'd like to focus on the NEO rollout in isolation before circling back to this. But, it's a roadmap after all.

Upcoming Big Fenix Update: What's Included?

Now, let's look a little closer. In the next couple of weeks, we will finally push a BFU (Big Fenix Update) - not every update is a BFU, but this one certainly is. In this update, we bring you the promised child, Baby Shark (the A319 Sharkies) - not just as a flight model, but of course we've had a bit of fun with this one and equipped the CFM variant as American Airlines have equipped theirs - with a bespoke B7 hotrod motor, bringing big power to you via XEM. This one is quite a handful and will quite comfortably get ahead of you. Of course, the IAEs are present too, configured as a V2524. This brings us to a total of 7 bespoke XEM engine models across the A32X CEO range so far.

Next, we did the thing we didn't want to do. We spent months rebuilding portions of our display infrastructure (again) to support WXR. This was painful, but necessary - we don't see much movement on the horizon and we'd like you all to have the best experience possible even if that means a bit of compromise on our side. WXR will roll out with the next update!

Then - FLARE and ground effect. We decided to pursue another principal in building this out as it is evident the current experience leaves something to be desired. We opted to rebuild the entire landing profile around data - but it's hard to quantify such things, in theory. Hence why it was not built this way in the first place. Fortunately with a bit of time and effort, we were able to analyse a few hundred thousand real A320 flights from the DFDR (digital flight data recorder) outputs, observe an aggregate sidestick deflection profile, and chart it against radio altimeter to build a generalised look at what it truly means to land an A320 from your touchpoint, the sidestick. Then we repeated it for the A319 and then, once again for the A321. After nearly 2 months of tuning both stick response and ground effect, we're able to say we have achieved a result we're happy charting out to you.

You see above a chart showing the upper and lower boundaries of stick input from the aggregate dataset of "normal landings". You can also observe, as a solid line, my stick inputs for the flare maneuver in the video below. Ground effect should now no longer bounce you back into space should a flare be attempted - in short. We then validated with the internal team of pilots who gave us a few nips and tucks, and hey presto, it's a completely new set of landing dynamics. I would say, please take a moment and do a couple of circuits. The thing behaves differently, so expect this and go in with an open mind - but overall more natural.

In line with the above, we also observed with similar data some ways to improve the fly-by-wire tuning, response curves and damping - all have been adjusted, and in a departure from the norm, we will (with BFU) recommend a completely linear sensitivity on both pitch and roll, as is on the real aircraft. If your stick is lighter and/or you prefer the feel of more weight in a certain axis, feel free to go from there and tweak the setting - the fly-by-wire will handle it, but please give our recommendation a go as a starting point. Once you're all tuned up, do take a moment and let the fly-by-wire really work for you by handflying the airplane up to cruise. It's really cool to see the various inputs adapt to keep response feeling reasonably neutral the higher and faster you go.

Around the EFB, Lido charts will now be supported. We have also rewritten the backend of the V-Speed computations, unlocking the ability to display stop margins - we've shoehorned them into the current UI, but we're looking to refresh it in due course. Elsewhere we've refactored a bunch of Simulator to EFB communication protocols in search of further optimisation - and added a viewer for custom PDFs in the pilot briefing app. All of this among a bunch of other QoL fixes and improvements.

MSFS 2024 customers - this update brings us the first official compatibility patch. We have now rebuilt the project for 2024, harnessing the new Modular SimObject system and converting our library of over 700 liveries, too. Further, we've included full walk-around mode support, including new external panels you'll want to see and play with. All fully functional and hooked up to the systems. If you'd like to swing the gear doors open, feel free to walk over - unlatch the panel, and yoink the lever. Or if you want to open the cargo doors, you can do that yourself in walkaround mode now too.

A bit deeper, but the refuelling panel is now also functional and present. Pay attention to the various limitations of what you're messing with though, as is the way with these things and Fenix airplanes, things that seem like bugs may not be. A good example, do make sure the 320 is on level ground - a bit of uneven ground where you're parked may make refuelling slightly problematic. And uhh, if you put the chocks in, please make sure you chock in the right direction. Nothing more embarrassing than a chocked airplane rolling away from you because of an incline on the wrong side of the tyre.

Across both MSFS 2020 and 2024 there are a host of sound improvements and updates too, including an entirely new 3D AEVC soundscape in the flightdeck, and a completely rebuilt IAE V2500 soundset - at first I didn’t think it needed new sounds, but then I heard the new set and very quickly changed my mind. There’s also a new dynamic touchdown system which individually accounts for each wheel’s touchdown rate, and generates unique touchdown sounds accordingly. There’s a ton more small changes and improvements across the board, which we’ll discuss closer to BFU.

I appreciate this is a very information dense post and it's a lot to take in. I've done my best with the brevity, I've skipped on talking about a huge amount of BFU work to let all this information settle, there'll be a changelog to read eventually, and I have NEOs to get back to testing, but I hope I've managed to put across an ounce of the effort and dedication the people who work at Fenix have lavished on our current and our future products. Thanks for hanging in there with us. We're going to have a very fun year together!