This year’s Navigraph Survey showed that most sim pilots fly several short-to-medium length IFR sessions per week. In 2026, business aviation is quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments in Microsoft Flight Simulator. For developers, these aircraft occupy a unique space between airline operations and general aviation. They are fast enough to cross continents, flexible enough to access smaller airports, and complex enough to satisfy pilots looking for deep systems simulation.
We sat down with Lucas and John of Skyward Simulations ahead of the release of their Citation Sovereign+ to learn more about what it’s like to develop an airplane for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Why Business Jets Are Having a Moment
We asked Skyward what they believe is driving the growing interest in business aviation. According to Lucas Winter, Skyward’s CEO, “In the next two years, the corporate jet landscape in the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise is going to change drastically.” Even now, there’s a host of new small jets in the pipelines of a variety of developers including Contrail’s Falcon 50, Working Title’s Praetor, and FSReborn’s Phenom 300 alongside Skyward’s own Citation Sovereign+.
John, an avionics and systems developer, added, “When compared to a typical airliner flight, you spend less time on the ground and more time operating the plane.” For many pilots who prefer to emulate real-world operations as realistically as possible, Skyward believes executive jets provide pilots with a much less restrictive definition of what a realistic flight would look like.
“It opens doors to much smaller airports like Sedona and Aspen, a variety of different flight durations, and provides pilots with the opportunity to fly challenging approaches they wouldn’t be able to in something like a 737 or an A320.” Simply put, business jets open up a wider variety of airports and mission profiles while still retaining the speed and range many sim pilots are looking for.
Why the Sovereign+ Stood Out
According to Lucas, “The Sovereign started out as a passion project several years ago but was shelved. As time went on and Skyward brought more developers online, we brought it back up the development queue. I initially chose that plane because I was able to experience it as a passenger.” However, as time went on, the team realized the jet occupied an interesting spot in the market. “It’s a pretty large jet with the ability to go across continents but the runway requirements are much smaller than anything in its class.” Looking at the real-world spec sheets, the 3600 ft balanced field takeoff distance is comparable to lighter jets with half the range.
Ultimately, the team’s passion for the aircraft, its unusual real-world market positioning, and the relatively untapped business jet segment all contributed to Skyward’s decision to pursue the Sovereign+.
When Systems Start Talking to Each Other
Selecting the Sovereign+ was one challenge, but simulating it accurately proved far more complicated. In fact, many of the development decisions proved to be nearly as complex as the systems themselves.
One question we posed to the team was how they approached the balance between realism and usability.
According to Lucas, the philosophy for the Sovereign was to push themselves to go “all-in” on systems depth while providing newer pilots with options to make the jet easier to live with.
One key example is the parking brake system. It lacks an accumulator, meaning the airplane can start moving on engine start even if the parking brakes are “set.” There’s an option in the tablet to have the parking brake behave as if it always has pressure to make it easier for newer pilots to get used to.
When asked what aspects he thinks users care too much about, Lucas stated “I don’t really think users are in the wrong to care too much about a particular part of an airplane.”
The approach reflects a broader philosophy throughout the aircraft: realistic behavior by default, with optional assists designed to reduce friction for newer pilots rather than simplify the underlying simulation itself.
The trouble then becomes figuring out when to call an airplane like this “complete.”
According to Lucas, the definition of “complete” kept shifting throughout development. As the company grew, so too did the roadmap. “There are so many things that we want to include into a longer development cycle that just aren’t possible to include in the release candidate.”
Once the team gained access to real-world manuals and reference material, the scope of the project began to expand rapidly.
According to John, the most challenging part of the development process became the electrical system because of how deeply interconnected it was with the rest of the aircraft.
Over the course of development, the electrical system grew from roughly 180 modeled circuits to well over 600. The challenge now was making those interconnected systems behave correctly together.
According to John, “One example is the fire protection system. The PCB logic is simulated, so if it detects the smoke detector is failed, it won’t let the APU start. If the APU is running and the smoke detector enters a failed state, then the APU will be automatically shut down.”
Another example emerged in the pressurization system. During rapid thrust reductions in cruise, cabin altitude could briefly spike because thrust lever movement outpaced the rate at which the outflow valves could react. Simulating the behavior correctly required tuning across the electrical, pressurization, and engine systems simultaneously.
Even so, Skyward recognizes that many pilots may never consciously notice these details. “The Sovereign is fairly intuitive from a pilot’s perspective. It makes it easy to get in and fly with the option to go deeper. Pilots are not required to play around with the breakers and see what happens.”
Where the Simulator Ends
The deeper the team went into the aircraft’s systems simulation, the more they had to decide where custom development made sense, and where existing simulator infrastructure could be leveraged effectively.
Much to the delight of some pilots and the chagrin of others, Skyward opted to integrate the Working Title Garmin Suite into the Sovereign.
From a development standpoint, John and Lucas agreed that the “Working Title Garmins are one of the best things to happen to the sim. While the suite isn’t perfect, it’s a solid base that can be customized, and it allows us to spend more development hours on what makes the Sovereign unique.” Not everyone in the community views that approach favorably, however, with some simmers viewing the Working Title suite as a shortcut that makes aircraft feel less bespoke.
Despite this sentiment, John, the avionics developer, remains a strong proponent of the G3000/G5000, saying “It depends on how much work a developer does to customize it. In the Sovereign, we added aircraft specific synoptics pages, cabin management functions, and a custom summary page. Elias, who’s doing a Masters in Aerospace- Aeronautics, helped us build a full CPDLC system into the Garmins with support for D-ATIS, departure clearance, oceanic clearances, and multiple networks like Hoppie, BeyondATC, and SayIntentions.”
However, the development process was not without its challenges. When building out the electrical system prior to Sim Update 5, the amount of modelled circuits overwhelmed what the sim could handle at the time, resulting in a collaborative discussion with Asobo to expand the development tools’ capabilities in SU5.
In some cases, the team deliberately chose not to pursue quick fixes before release.
One example involves the APU exhaust gas temperature not responding correctly to different load states. Lucas and John acknowledged that this is a limitation of the Asobo APU model used in the Sovereign by saying, “While we could’ve corrected the behavior with a script, we’d rather model the underlying systems correctly so things don’t get out of hand, especially during failure scenarios and edge cases.”
Translating Feel Into Code
Aircraft developers need to translate subjective feedback on handling characteristics across a wide range of peripherals while also creating interfaces for users to interact with increasingly complex systems.
Skyward began refining the flight model very early in development. John stated “We started incorporating pilot feedback from the very beginning. As the project evolved and we got access to reference manuals, we started adjusting the systems behavior and the flight model in tandem to make sure values were in line with what the manufacturer provided.”
Flight model development became a constant balancing act between pilot feedback, manufacturer data, and the aircraft’s underlying systems logic. Adjusting one often affected the others.
In some cases, the data validated behaviors that initially seemed almost incorrect.
“The Sovereign is a brick when descending,” said John, “I had to ask pilots if it was realistic to see a high descent rate with 78% N1 and speed brakes out, and they sent pictures back from the real airplane confirming that it was behaving as expected.”
In other cases like landing behavior, Skyward had to significantly overhaul aerodynamics to keep things in line with book values. For control feel refinement, the team incorporated feedback from testers while using a variety of different peripherals themselves.
Translating realism into a usable interface presented its own challenge. In recent years, EFB design has become a hot button topic amongst simmers, with many forming strong opinions on how these tools should be used to interact with features like flight planning, charts, aircraft configuration, and maintenance.
Lucas and John from Skyward recognize this, saying, “We have all the functionality for failures built into the systems correctly, but the challenge is creating a usable interface for pilots, especially with over 600 circuits modelled in the jet.” An interface for failures is one of many things on Skyward’s post-release roadmap.
Closing Notes
When asked what part of aircraft development is the most rewarding for them personally, Lucas responded “Whenever we see a DA-50 or a 680 [Sovereign] flying on VATSIM or Volanta and get messages, it’s rewarding knowing people are enjoying an airplane we spent thousands of hours on. It’s satisfying going all-in from a systems perspective to try and expand the scope of simulation and push the boundaries.”
“Eventually we’d love to start modelling more thermodynamic relationships and tiny vibrations in different parts of a plane, like champagne glasses clinking,” said Lucas.
That mindset reflects a broader shift in how realism itself is being approached within modern flight simulation. It’s no longer defined purely by accurate procedures or systems producing the correct outputs, but by the subtle interactions, edge cases, and imperfections that make an aircraft feel alive.
Users might not consciously notice those details individually, but together they contribute to making the airplane feel believable as a whole.
For more information, click here to head over to the Skyward Simulations Website.
