Racing Information

Flightplan can be used to join online races or create your own. When racing in Microsoft Flight Simulator, simply join a race in Cockpit Map by clicking the checkered flag button. Descriptions of the various features are below:

Courses

Any flight plan uploaded to the downloads section can be used as a race course. When you create a race for a flight plan it gets designated as a Race Course and shows up as a course card in the race course carousel on the racing page.

Aircraft Classes

Aircraft are split into classes typically grouped by similar performance characteristics. The race classes from the MSFS Reno Air Races are standard, as are several classes for aircraft that don’t meet the criteria of any of the official racing classes, such as commercial jets.

Distance Mode

There are 4 different modes available, these control the how close you need to be to each waypoint for your sector time to be recorded. The mode is selected on the Aircraft Settings form in Flightplan, but it will be automatically reset when you join a race.

Race Distance and Laps

Distance is calculated from your 2nd waypoint along the flight path to each subsequent waypoint ending with your penultimate (2nd-to-last) waypoint. This is the race distance for 1 lap and is multiplied by the number of laps on the race to determine the actual race distance.

*Note: The lap timer and racing module was from retired from Simflightplan™ in January 2026. You can download V1 of Flightplan to use the racing portal and lap timer. Support is provided, but no further updates will be made to V1.