Weekly Recap

The MSFS team is back after spending a fantastic weekend at FSExpo 2026! It’s always a huge pleasure for the team to meet so many passionate simmers and discuss our shared love of aviation with you!

In case you missed it, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann delivered a keynote presentation from the stage in the Grand Ballroom on Friday. You can watch the entire presentation on YouTube here:

Included among Jorg’s many announcements from the stage were the release of City Update 15: Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and Expert Series 02: Piper M600! Both are available now from the in-sim Marketplace. City Update 15 is FREE, and the Piper M600 sells for USD $24.99.

We would once again like to thank all the wonderful hardware makers who furnished equipment for our booth on the convention floor. Event attendees had a great time trying products from the following vendors at the Microsoft Flight Simulator booth:

High-end gaming PCs courtesy of MSI
Flight control peripherals courtesy of Honeycomb Aeronautical, MOZA, Thrustmaster, Turtle Beach, and WINCTRL
Sim cockpits courtesy of NextLevelRacing
PCVR headsets courtesy of Pimax
Head/eye trackers courtesy of Tobii

Also at FSExpo, we hosted our first Microsoft Flight Simulator esports competition on the FSElite Stage. Using the Red Bull Air Race mode, we pitted four popular content creators from Twitch and YouTube (Blu Games, Moosestaffa, NickFlightX, and Twotonemurphy) against the top two FSExpo attendees who recorded the fastest qualifying times at the MSFS booth on the convention floor. The VOD of the full tournament is also available on YouTube here:

Finally, public testing for Sim Update 5.1 continues. Since our last Weekly Briefing, two new test builds have been made available to those enrolled in the beta. You can find the release notes for these two builds here:

Check out this week’s NEW and UPDATED releases for both the MSFS (2020) and MSFS 2024 in-sim Marketplaces.

Explore Products

Community Fly-In Friday

FSExpo 2026 has come and gone, and the MSFS team was positively thrilled to spend the weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota celebrating our shared passion for flight simming with the community! For our Community Fly-In Friday group flight this week, we’ll be recapping all the cool things we saw at the Expo with several content creators who attended.

For the best experience, be sure to download the recently-released City Update 15 for FREE from the in-sim Marketplace!

See Event Details

Weekly Flight Inspiration

The world is a big place! If you’re looking for ideas about where to fly this week, check out our Community Managers’ recommendation here!

Last week saw the release of City Update 15: Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. This is also the theme for this week’s Screenshot Challenge! Why not go and explore this brand new free release to see the updated scenery, and grab a few pictures to enter into our weekly competition along the way?!

upcoming Community Events

Regular Community Fly-Ins: If you’re looking to join in with group flights, or even host your own, the best place to begin is via our dedicated Forum category. With a whole host of groups organising regular events, there’s something for everyone! Find more details here.

Community Video

Last week saw the release of Expert Series 2: Piper M600. If you’ve not picked up this brand new aircraft just yet and want to get a peak at what it’s capable of, AvAngel gives a comprehensive first look review in this week’s video: