Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024‘s National Championship Air Races expansion will launch on October 13, 2026, bringing the air-racing add-on to all platforms after attendees at the upcoming event in Roswell, New Mexico, get an early hands-on look.
The Microsoft Flight Simulator Team detailed the launch and its other weekly updates in its September 10, 2026 weekly briefing. The five-day National Championship Air Races will give visitors a chance to try a pre-release build at the team’s booth before the expansion reaches players in October.
Roswell event will offer an early look
Air-racing fans attending the National Championship Air Races will be able to test the upcoming content ahead of launch. The simulator setups will use force feedback flight controls from MOZA, adding a hardware component to the preview.
The expansion’s official trailer sets the scene for the new racing-focused content.
A separate server-side update also went live earlier this week to address two Career Mode bugs. The briefing did not describe those fixes in detail.
FlightFX joins the anniversary flight
FlightFX’s Hawker 800XP business jet launched exclusively through the in-sim Marketplace this week. Members of the FlightFX development team will also join the next Community Fly-In Friday as Microsoft Flight Simulator’s sixth-anniversary circumnavigation continues.
The group flight will pick up in Fukuoka, Japan, before continuing to Elizovo Airport, also known as UHPP, on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Touch-and-go landings are planned at Tokyo’s RJTT and Sapporo’s RJCC along the route.
The next Developer Livestream is still being prepared, and its date and time have not been finalized. Players can submit questions for the panel featuring Jorg, Seb, and Martial through the team’s question submission form. The next weekly briefing is scheduled for September 18, 2026.
Will you try the National Championship Air Races expansion at launch, or would an early preview in Roswell be enough to make the October release stand out? Share your pick in the comments, then follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
