Output is buffered.
stdout is line-buffered by default, which means that '\n' is supposed to flush the buffer. Why is it not happening in your case? I don't know. I need more info about your application/environment.
However, you can control buffering with setvbuf():
setvbuf(stdout, NULL, _IOLBF, 0);
This will force stdout to be line-buffered.
setvbuf(stdout, NULL, _IONBF, 0);
This will force stdout to be unbuffered, so you won't need to use fflush(). Note that it will severely affect application performance if you have lots of prints.