I noticed that Beta 6 for version 10.30 was just released. It claims significant performance improvements, and a new GPS navigator is built into the C172, King Air, and Baron. Plus, hundreds of new airports were added. So, I decided to upgrade and give it a try.

By the way, the official blog mentions that the updater has a bug and requires manually copying the executable file, but I didn’t encounter any issues myself.

First, I took the Baron for a spin. The GPS is indeed built in. Although it’s quite small, clicking the screen with the mouse brings up a large display. This mode is excellent; it’s clear and displays the control areas. Really convenient.

I flew around the Chicago area. There are quite a few skyscrapers, but the framerate didn’t improve much. It wasn’t as good as advertised, hovering around 12 fps on my machine.

Then I switched to the C172, but unfortunately, X-Plane crashed immediately. This version is still quite unstable. I switched to the Carenado C152, and X-Plane quit abnormally again before I’d been flying for 10 minutes. Hmm, slightly disappointed. It looks like everyone should probably hold off on upgrading to Beta 6 for now.