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Hi racers!
I’m just back from the Christmas holidays and it’s great to see how active and competitive things still are. The pace across the tracks keeps getting higher, which is always exciting to watch. I see @ITALynx11 has put down some really strong times on several tracks again - nicely done!
If we get a chance to see some of those runs on the Virtual Air Racing YouTube channel, that would be awesome. Those videos are always a great reference for the whole community, helping everyone study the lines and spot where a few more tenths might still be found.
Looking forward to getting back into the mix, see you on the track!
3 Likes
I’ve attached my latest run video here.
If anyone feels like sharing their own runs as well that would be awesome.
These videos are incredibly valuable for the whole community: they help study racing lines, energy management, and spot where those last few tenths can still be found.
The more perspectives and approaches we share, the stronger and more competitive this community becomes.
Looking forward to seeing more runs, smoke on!
Hi @ITALynx11,
Thank you for the video, that was really interesting to watch!
I see you’ve taken the lead again and are not giving me much room to breathe. 
Congratulations on another great record! 
I noticed that you’re now flying a much more vertical turn instead of a horizontal one. I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on that - why do you think this approach works better in this case?
I also had the impression that the angle through Gate #9 was so tight that it felt like the aircraft cleared the pylons only by being just a tiny bit higher. Though I might be mistaken, and it could simply be that the right wing dropped after passing the right pylon. Either way, with the current rules, this seems like a perfectly valid way to fly it - nicely done!
I can also upload one of my earlier Monument Valley runs that you’ve already beaten, if that would be of interest. I think it could be useful for other racers as well, as I don’t recall seeing any videos from that track yet - unless I missed one. I’ll try to post it later tonight.
Hopefully I’ll be back racing soon (yeah, post-holiday life always gets busy).
See you on the track! 
Hey folks,
I’d love to get your feedback as to what you think would be a good format, or important features for a Red Bull Air Races tournament?
We love how engaged you are with RBAR, and so it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
Cheers,
The MSFS Team
2 Likes
Hi @Chewwy94 / MSFS Team,
first of all, thank you for engaging with us — it’s great to see this level of interest in RBAR and in the community that’s forming around it.
Below is a structured overview of ideas, split into competition formats and key features, based on active flying, testing, and discussion within the RBAR community.
1. Competition Formats
These formats are not mutually exclusive and could coexist, serving different purposes and skill levels.
A. Live Competition Format (High Engagement)
This would be the most exciting and spectator-friendly format.
- Around 10 qualified pilots
- Live event, streamed
- Presence of a jury:
- validates correct gate passages
- monitors irregular maneuvers
- optionally provides live commentary / race direction
Suggested structure (inspired by classic RBAR):
- Round of 10: head-to-head, 5 pilots advance + 1 fastest loser (wild card)
- Round of 6: head-to-head, 3 pilots advance
- Final 3: single fastest lap determines the podium
This format works extremely well live and could also open the door to:
- in-game rewards (Marketplace content)
- hardware or partner sponsorships
- official community events
B. Online “Challenge League” (Qualification & Championship)
To select the 10 pilots for the live event — or as a standalone competition.
- Integrated into MSFS menu, alongside current RBAR Activities (which can remain unchanged)
- A weekly Challenge League track
- Limited attempts (e.g. 2 or 3 per pilot)
This creates a completely different mindset compared to unlimited attempts:
- more risk management
- more consistency
- less “trial and error”
Outcomes:
- Weekly leaderboard
- Top 10 qualify for the live event
or, if no live event is scheduled: - Points feed into a seasonal championship
- e.g. one circuit per month
- winner decided every semester
This structure is scalable and works across all difficulty levels, from Novice to True to Life.
2. Key Features & Rule Enforcement
For non-live competitions especially, stronger rule enforcement is essential.
A. Gate & Pylon Validation
Some improvements needed in the current logic:
- Passing too high or too low through gates is sometimes not penalized
- In certain (random) conditions it is possible to touch or pass through a pylon without a pylon hit
These issues are already addressed here and here directly affect fairness and realism.
B. Maneuver Restrictions at Pylon Height
To prevent unrealistic trajectories:
- Introduce a bank/roll limitation at low altitude
- forbid full rolls (tonneaux) at pylon height
- Disallow negative Gs between pylons
- these maneuvers were not permitted in real RBAR
- they encourage non-sensical, exploit-driven trajectories
In live events, a jury can monitor this — but for online formats it needs to be enforced by logic.
C. Track Limits / Safety Lines
This is fundamental.
- Add track limits / safety lines (yellow buoys or ground lines)
- Purpose:
- force Vertical Turning Maneuvers (VTM) where required
- prevent flat trajectories that would overfly spectators
- align tracks with real-world RBAR layouts
Without these constraints, pilots naturally choose flatter, faster lines that were not available in reality.
(pictures attached)
D. Aircraft Performance Balance
Currently:
- Edge 540 V2 is the fastest and most energy-efficient aircraft
Suggestion:
- Either:
- make V3 and MXS at least as performant as the V2
- Or:
- simply equalize flight models
The goal should be pilot-vs-pilot competition, not aircraft-vs-aircraft optimization.
3. Additional Circuits
Adding more iconic RBAR circuits would greatly enhance longevity, for example:
- Ascot (with pre-race takeoff)
- Porto
- Las Vegas
- Indianapolis
- San Diego
…and others
Closing
This is obviously a brainstorming contribution, but it comes from hands-on flying, competition, and community engagement.
We truly believe RBAR in MSFS has the potential to become a reference competitive experience, even without full esports infrastructure — provided the right structure and constraints are in place.
Happy to provide further details, reference material, or testing feedback if useful.
Cheers,
ITALynx11
P.S.
Having the ability to view and replay RBAR runs from external cameras (replay mode) would greatly increase the amount and quality of community content on YouTube and other platforms. External replays would allow better analysis, live commentary, highlights, and promotional material — ultimately helping MSFS RBAR reach a wider audience and grow even further.
3 Likes
Hi racers,
as promised, here is my best (so far) run at Monument Valley:
S!
4 Likes
My thoughts on the vertical vs flat line:
For very high speed turns, the flat line without exceeding G limits can create a too wide (longer) and non-ideal angle for the next gate. If you are in an high speed situation, that excessive energy cam be dissipated while going up, putting you at the ideal speed for the shortest radius turn while pulling as much G as you can. You will also have the bonus of retrieving some of that energy lost going vertical back.
And a question for you racers: do you use rudder at all while flying the track?
1 Like
Thanks so much for the incredibly detailed post! There’s a lot for us to go through, but we’ll certainly take into consideration your analysis and really appreciate you taking the time to formulate all of this. I’ll take a look at the two bugs you’ve reported and log those internally now.
Cheers
4 Likes
Good afternoon everyone!
@ITALynx11, it’s amazing everything you’ve been doing regarding the RBAR in MSFS 2024. I don’t know if you remember my nickname, but in the previous RBAR game we had a really fun and healthy battle for first place for a few weeks — that was about 10 years ago, lol.
Your idea of making this a competition is incredible, and I really hope Microsoft keeps moving forward with it. A competition like this is going to be awesome. I fully agree with everything you described in this reply and in the others as well. For us to have a fair and honest competition, these changes are absolutely necessary.
Good flights to everyone, and a hug from Brazil. 
3 Likes
Hi @lagfly !!
Sure, now that you mention it, I remember!
A long time ago, but clearly the attraction to RBAR is still the same!!
It’s great to see you here, and great to have you as part of this community!
Feel free to help the community grow and share any suggestions or ideas you have.
Smoke on!!
1 Like
I tested several different trajectories, and in this specific case the one you see turned out to be the fastest.
The main reason is that it’s not possible to create a sufficiently tight angle while staying flat without dissipating too much energy. Once you start forcing a flat turn beyond a certain point, the energy loss becomes higher than the benefit, and the advantage of a flat trajectory disappears.
In this section, the vertical turn allows for a cleaner line, better alignment for the next gate, and overall a more efficient energy trade-off compared to an overly tight horizontal turn.
That’s why, in this case, the vertical option ends up working better.
Waiting for your attempt (with video), Smoke on!!
2 Likes
Hi racers!
@becaspr, @ITALynx11 - yes, I agree with both of you regarding the vertical vs flat turn. I also think there’s a combination of several factors at play here. First, the number of “breaks” in the trajectory matters when aiming for a better exit angle (and, as a result, different energy losses depending on the cumulative amount of turning). Also, executing a single maneuver very quickly doesn’t necessarily mean the overall time will be minimal - that’s a well-known issue in optimal control problems. What really matters here is the balance between neighboring sections.
I haven’t had a chance to fly yet… In the meantime, have fun - I’ll catch up soon!
Hi racers! 
I got curious about how many of us are currently in the top 10 in True to Life mode, and how close we actually are to each other on the leaderboard.
Today I went through the results for all six tracks and put everything together into a table.
I also calculated the points, using the same scoring system as in the last RBAR Championship back in 2019, and here’s what I ended up with:
(NOTE: all results below are based on the standings as of January 17, 14:00Z, and may already be outdated)
Interestingly, among us there are only four pilots who made it into the top 10 on all six tracks, and just 11 pilots who reached the top 10 on two or more tracks.
And this is what the result density looks like across all six tracks - in the chart below you can see the gap of the top 10 pilots relative to the leader’s time:
A pretty interesting dataset to analyze, isn’t it?
S!
4 Likes
Wow @AnPetrovich777 !!
Really interesting analysis, thanks for putting this together.
One thing that clearly stands out from the data is that not everyone has flown all tracks. The ranking is therefore influenced not only by performance, but also by track coverage. This is perfectly fine in the current format, but it also highlights a potential area for improvement.
This is exactly why a single-track challenge format could work very well in MSFS. A weekly or monthly challenge focused on one specific track would naturally “push” pilots to fly that circuit, compare lines, and improve through direct comparison with others, instead of everyone grinding different tracks independently.
On top of that, introducing a proper World Championship–style format, where results across selected tracks contribute to an overall standing, would greatly increase the motivation to compete. Having a clear championship ladder would give pilots a real reason to fly every track, refine their technique, and fight for higher positions in the overall rankings.
A rotating challenge combined with a championship structure would:
- increase participation on all tracks
- create focused and meaningful competition
- encourage consistency, risk management, and progression
- make the leaderboard feel like a real season rather than isolated time trials
Your analysis strongly supports this direction and shows how close we already are to something truly competitive.
Thanks and Smoke on!
1 Like
Yes, I absolutely agree that the overall position depends a lot on engagement: the more tracks you cover, the more points you can earn overall, and that often works better than a strong result on just a couple of tracks. As for me, at the moment I don’t quite have the time to fly all the tracks, so I’ve picked the three that interest me the most.
The idea of a year-long championship definitely resonates with me, but I’m not entirely sure that this kind of format would really help increase overall participation. It feels like it might mainly appeal to a small group of leaders, while it could be quite hard for those further down the standings to stay motivated over several months once the chances for podium positions are gone. Personally, I think a format with shorter reset cycles (from weekly to monthly) could work better for attracting and keeping players engaged, since it creates more frequent chances to compete for a win (especially if someone tends to go on holiday more often - haha, just kidding! 
).
Today is a bit of an “engineering and analysis” day for me - a new analysis is comming, this time more on the technical side. But before that, I’d like to get some flying in as well - that will most likely happen tomorrow…
See you on the track!
1 Like
That’s a very fair point, and I agree with you on the engagement aspect.
This is exactly why I think a rotating single-track format (weekly or monthly) could be very effective. Using the same kind of reward logic already present in the existing Challenge League would naturally encourage pilots to try tracks they might otherwise skip, helping everyone become more familiar with the full RBAR calendar without requiring long-term commitment.
The championship idea is a separate layer. Personally, I don’t see it as something that should replace shorter challenges, but rather complement them. Ideally, there would be an in-game menu where different competition rules can be activated:
- difficulty level (Novice → True to Life)
- unlimited vs limited track attempts
- fixed aircraft or open choice
Some events could be fully automated by the game, while others could be organized by dedicated event organizers.
The key point, in my opinion, is finding a proper racing format, similar to what exists in sim motorsport but applied to aviation. MSFS is uniquely positioned to do this in a structured, native way, instead of relying on non-proprietary scripts like in other flight sims.
Short cycles for accessibility, deeper formats for those who want more depth, that combination could really unlock the potential of RBAR in MSFS.
Looking forward to your amazing technical analysis, and see you on the track soon.
Smoke on.
1 Like
This analysis shows that river city tracks generate closer competition, with lap times much tighter.
Adding Porto would be very interesting for this reason, it could further promote close, precision-based racing in an amazing location (provided proper track limits are implemented to enforce VTMs and avoid unrealistic trajectories).
4 Likes
Hi racers!
Today I’d like to share a technical analysis of one specific turn on the Budapest track.
This is the well-known turn after Gate 5 and 13 (formally Gate 4 on the second lap) that we recently discussed with @becaspr and @ITALynx11 - so which trajectory is actually more optimal here: a flat one or a more vertical one?
I actually did a similar analysis of this track back in December, where I compared two YouTube videos:
- my own run with a time of 50.173 s (YouTube)
- and @ITALynx11’s run with a time of 50.038 s (YouTube)
As you can clearly see in those videos, we flew the turns at Gates 5/13 differently: I used a vertical turn, while @ITALynx11 flew it flat, eventually beating my time by 0.135 s.
That made me curious - where else could there still be some margin to gain back a few tenths of a second? So I created a table for myself with the gate crossing times and speeds from both videos.
Since I fly in VR, unfortunately this information is not always clearly visible in my own footage - often the time board or airspeed indicator is simply out of view. Because of that, I had to estimate the gate crossing times visually: I took the frame where the pylon disappeared from view as the gate crossing moment and calculated the time based on the frame number in the video editor. 
The airsspeed often had to be “interpolated” from nearby moments where the airspeed indicator briefly appeared on screen. Clearly not an ideal method, but at the time I didn’t have a better one, and so, the comparison wasn’t very precise.
Still, what I saw and understood back then allowed me to regain the lead the very next day, after a few attempts, with a time of 49.750 s - that’s 0.288 s faster right away! Based on the numbers I had at the time, the data suggested that a few more tenths of a second might still be achievable.
Last weekend, @ITALynx11 took the lead again with a new record of 49.703 s - and, many thanks for that 
- uploaded a new YouTube video showing that the turns after Gate 5 and 13 are now flown almost vertically as well. Thanks to this video, we now have much better source material for analysis than my VR footage, since the time board and speed indicator are always visible.
So for today’s analysis, to improve accuracy and consistency, I will compare these two videos:
- 1st Run: @ITALynx11’s 50.038 s run, with flat turns at Gate 5 / Gate 13 (YouTube)
- 2nd Run: @ITALynx11’s 49.703 s run, with almost vertical turns at Gate 5 / Gate 13 (YouTube)
Here is how the gate crossing speeds and times look for all gates (with an accuracy of within one frame, i.e. 0.017 s for 60 fps video):
If we plot the time delta and speed delta across the track, I think the picture becomes quite clear:
As I mentioned before, in racing - just like in optimal control problems - sections of track are almost never considered in isolation. Sometimes losing time in one section allows you to gain an advantage in another, and ultimately that’s what brings the win.
When the turn after Gate 5 is flown vertically, the turn itself becomes about 0.6 s slower (which is a lot!), but it provides an exit speed advantage of roughly +20 kts. As a result, this approach starts paying off already by Gate 9, and the overall speed across the track becomes noticeably higher. In addition, avoiding the counter-turn before Gate 5 helps preserve roughly 8 kts of speed instead of wasting it.
On the other hand, flying the final turn at the same gates (Gate 13) vertically is no longer optimal: we see a loss of about 0.4 s, even though the entry speed was 4 kts higher! This suggests that for the final turn, a flat trajectory works better - here, turn time becomes more important than exit speed.
That is exactly how I built my own strategy: the first turn (Gate 5) was flown vertically, while the final turn at the same gates (Gate 13) was flown flat.
Today, I’ve also uploaded both of my runs using this approach:
- my ex-record of 49.750 s from December 22 (YouTube)
- and my new run from today, 49.651 s:
How much faster can this track still be flown?
Based on my estimates from the December analysis, I arrived at a figure of around 49.4 s. The new analysis strongly supports this hypothesis:
49.703 − 0.361 (loss at the final turn) = 49.342 s.
It’s quite possible that there are additional sections that could still be optimized. I’m sure @ITALynx11 won’t keep us waiting long with a new record. 
I hope you guys found this small research interesting.
For me, this case turned out to be very illustrative - both as an example of how a fairly effective technical analysis can be done using only “simple tools” (video analysis), and as a good demonstration of the trade-off between choosing a slower (vertical) turn to gain an advantage later through higher exit speed.
What’s next?
A technical analysis could be even more detailed and accurate if, instead of video analysis, we used in-game telemetry - for example via SimConnect. Maybe someone would like to explore that? 
As for the Budapest track, a similar analysis of the turn at Gate 9 seems like a natural next step. What if the same strategy works there as well? And this case also opens up interesting discussion opportunities for other tracks.
I’d be glad to hear your thoughts. 
Smoke on! 
3 Likes