Microsoft Flight Simulator’s 40th anniversary update adds helicopters and gliders

Microsoft Flight Simulator’s 40th anniversary update is out today, bringing helicopters, gliders and other new aircraft to the game.

The free update, which is included with Xbox Game Pass, adds several historical aircraft, including the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of Saint Lewis and the Hughes H-4 Hercules ‘Spruce Goose’.

It also includes a number of classic airports and planes that were featured in previous games, including 2006’s Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight. Missions from classic games will also be added as part of the update.

VGC recently had the chance to check out the update as part of an event celebrating 40 years of virtual flight, and speak to the leadership team of Microsoft Flight Simulator studio Asobo in interviews that will be published next week.

Asobo claimed that the audience for Microsoft Flight Simulator doubled when it arrived on Xbox Game Pass, and then further doubled when the game was added to Xbox Cloud Gaming.

The full list of planes included in the 40th anniversary update is as follows:

Historical Aircraft

• Wright Flyer
• Ryan NYP (Spirit of St Louis)
• Douglas DC-3
• De Havailland Canada DHC-2-Beaver
• Curtiss JN-4 “Canuck”
• Grumman G-21 Goose
• Hughes H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose”

Helicopters

• Bell-407
• Guimbal Cabri G2

Gliders

• DG Flugzeugbau LG8-18
• DG Flugzeugbau DG1001E neo

True-to-life Airliner

• Airbus A310

When the game was first released for PC in 2020, it attracted over one million players in its first two of weeks, making it the biggest launch in the series’ history, according to Microsoft.

A Flight Simulator Top Gun expansion launched in May to tie in with the release of Top Gun: Maverick.