SU7 Beta National Championship Air Races Feedback and Discussion Topic

[SmotheryVase665]

This topic is for general Feedback and Discussion about the new National Championship Air Races (NCAR) feature.

Please do not report NCAR bugs in this topic, but look in Sim Update 7 Beta | MSFS 2024 > User Interface & Activities and add your NCAR bug comments to an existing bug topic (if it exists), or create a new NCAR bug topic.

As per the v1.9.12.0 release notes:

National Championship Air Races (NCAR) pylon races are available to preview in 1.9.12.0, while STOL races will become available in an SU7 flighting update in the coming weeks. Please note NCAR is still a work-in-progress and will be unstable in certain scenarios.

Check the Known Issues section below for more information on what to expect. We will continue to make improvements to NCAR throughout SU7 flighting, but are eager to gather feedback on the current experience. Thank you for checking out NCAR and we look forward to your feedback!

To access the National Championship Air Races mode, on the title menu, select Activities > National Championship Air Races.

Added virtual keyboard for sliders on console when pressing validate on a line with a slider associated with a text input

Known Issues:

• With a brand-new account, joining a National Championship Air Races (NCAR) lobby before initiating and loading in to any other activity (ie. Free Flight, Career, World Photographer, etc.) will cause the sim to crash. This only reproduces on the first attempt.
• The sim may crash on the results screen after the qualification race.
• When the host leaves an NCAR race in-progress, all other aircraft abruptly pop onto the ground.
• Wear and tear animation feedback is not functional.
• The propwash effect is not triggered on other aircraft during the race.
• When in the lobby, changes made to difficulty settings by guests are not saved.
• When using a controller in spectator mode, the view can’t be switched.
• Weather settings reset when confirming race settings.
• VR—Users can see around loading screens and letterboxing at the start of NCAR races.
• VR—Other racers may not appear in NCAR when in VR (including PSVR2).
• PS5—Joining an NCAR game group from the PlayStation dashboard may cause the joining player to enter an empty lobby.
• Xbox—Accepting an invite to an NCAR lobby while currently in Free Flight results in an error message.

[skkruff]

Ah, it seems like a Multiplayer only feature then? Going to be a bit hard to test on the beta in that case. In the abscense of bots, I can forsee it being difficult to get a match outside of organised events after not too long (shades of Elite’s CQC mode). In some regions it might just be DOA.

I can understand that programming bot racers might be pretty challenging, but not impossible surely? At the very least, they need to give us the option to time attack the courses on our own.

[SmotheryVase665]

Yes, multiplayer only, with a minimum of two users signed up for a race before one can start.

I just tried this out. Some initial observation.

At this time, there are no additional available aircraft, so pressing “M” just brings up a blank screen in the Marketplace:

Note the search criteria is “fs-24-microsoft-reno”. I’m guessing that there will be other auto-generated search terms like “fs-24-microsoft-roswell” in future:

Only one lobby was available when I tried this:

Note that my multiplayer server in my MSFS online settings is EastUS. I tried going to the MSFS online settings page and changing to the European & Asian servers to see if there were other lobbies available, but on returning to the Race Lobby List, the same Jetzzz lobby was displayed. This suggests that you might have to change your MSFS online settings, exit MSFS & restart if one wishes to play on another multiplayer server, but I did not test this.

Creating my own Lobby:

Note the lobby name is truncated. There is a maximum of 19 characters to a lobby name:

so many users who have long names may have an invalid lobby name by default. One can easily truncate or delete the default name & create a new one. For this test I truncated it:

The Visual assistances page:

It appears that one needs at least one other player in the race in order to fly it, so one cannot do any solo practice sessions, which for me is the single biggest drawback to this feature & one that will probably stop me from using it.

Exiting out of my lobby & back to the Race Lobby List, Jetzzz now has two players:

but as the race has started, one cannot join it - even as an observer, which would have been a nice option to have.

As has been noted, with a limited number of folks participating in the beta, it’s going to be hard to test this unless one has pre-arranged with friends to race at a specific date & time. So I’d suggest that users who wish to try this out create some race events in Community Content Hangar > Community Events ahead of time so folks can plan ahead, rather than just hoping somebody will be online & wanting to race when you do.

[TheCowTown]

Love it! It’s a big step up from what the 2020 version was. Being able to have collisions, Engine Wear & Tear makes the races feel intense and actually full of strategy in a full lobby.

Some things I noticed were the positions weren’t tracked right in some races (was first but the race placed me in 3rd after the race with no penalties), it would DSQ players for no reason, and please get a countdown (60 Seconds or less) after half the field has finished! Ran into a situation were when back on track was on, the race didn’t finish until all players crossed the line which took a bit.

Jets are the least interesting class as you just sit at full power the whole race and… that’s it until the final lap, no strategy for that class. The other 3 classes were a blast!

Lastly, can we get the 8 lap maximum for all classes? More laps makes it more interesting because you spend more time managing the engine through the race!

Thanks again for letting us mess with this and looking forward to getting some more full lobby racing going!

[TheCowTown]

Laps are 1-6 for 3 Classes, and Unlimited are 1-8 Laps!

So people are finishing the race quicker even when I finish first a few seconds in front of 2nd? Not sure how I took 7 seconds longer to finish the race when everyone is in the exact same aircraft while I was leading most of it lol

So it’s basically a hot lap each lap and position makes no difference? If so, like you said it needs extra information on the screen for sure because it doesn’t tell you about that at all lol

Appreciate the information though!

[Delta2k5]

@Sonicviz

• Need solo practice mode. Setting up a private lobby with just single user doesn’t trigger any flight mode. How can you practice without a track preview mode?

In the previous Reno DLC you could have used time trial mode for that - which currently is not available.

However I agree that something like “free training” would be great as I’m pretty sure pilots also are allowed to train at the airfield a day or two before the real races start. They could also reflect this on the airfield by removing the audience on the ground. Just you, the coms and the track.

@Sonicviz

• Bots would be useful for training as well, just like simracing.

From MSFSs architecture proper bots will be hard to implement. Ai traffic for example is controlled exclusively by ATC using fixed navaids and altitudes which are (realistically) set far apart. The system would not be able to handle a track as small with aircraft flying at as high speeds required. Without refactoring basically everything you wouldn’t be able to have realistic bots.

More realistic would be a group of prerecorded “ghosts” to race who were initially recorded by an NCAR pilot using the default aircraft of each class. It wouldn’t be “Sim Racing” level but MSFS also isn’t specifically a racing title, even if the option is provided.

[TheCowTown]

Time Trials and STOL Drag Races are activated as of today on PS5:

STOL Drag Racing:

They’re really fun! Enjoying them when they work, unfortunately most of the events with almost full lobbies ended abruptly for no reason at all once we got to the first landing/turnaround point of the event. Just everyone was automatically DNF’d at the same time with no explanation.

Another STOL change that needs to be made is removing Mid-Air Collisions for the mode (Don’t see why it needs to be available for it.) With a full lobby once everyone takes off they immediately all collide with each other since it’s showing all players in the lobby.

Players having issues joining lobbies:

Was running into situations where a few people couldn’t join the lobbies I created, while others managed to get in just fine. It appears the US East server leads to more people not being able to join lobbies compared to West Europe, once the server switch was made those players that were unable to get in the lobby joined just fine.

Back To Lobby not working very well:

Back to Lobby after finishing an event at least on the PS5 side of things leads to the sim endlessly loading or if it does make it back to the menu, it makes it to where the lobby no longer exists for others to join. Even showing me the host as “still waiting to join the lobby”

[FlipperAlloy30]

It was good to see the NCAR activity was expanded. I started the sim, chose this activity, joined a lobby (with three pilots) and waited a few minutes as the cursor spun on the screen. I found no option to exit and was forced to kill MSFS and restart. After restarting I found three lobbies, two already in races, the other was the original lobby I had joined (now with only one pilot). At this point I opted to set up my own lobby. I could not find any option for Time Trials or STOL, so I decided to quit and try again later.

The process was very confusing, which should not be the case for someone with over 45 years in IT coding and analysis…

[TheCowTown]

Time Trials are directly on the main menu of the mode, and STOL is selected from the Plane Class Selector. (At least on the PS5 Beta, may not be available on the PC/XBOX at the moment)

Getting to Time Trials:

Selecting through Classes and getting to STOL Drag Races:

[Delta2k5]

@Sonicviz

I don’t think so, they’re completely different use cases. They’re fixed circuits with fixed a/c performance profiles with different skill level behaviors flying an optimal narrow tunnel or flight corridor around said track(s), nothing to do with ATC infra. Ghost track recordings are also a part of bot development anyway, whether that’s pathing in an FPS or simracing with ideal lines and ai behaviors layered on top of that for added “realism” depending how far you want to go with it.

Well, different use cases as you say, but without any foundation in place on a sim that’s not racing centric. Asobo would have to start to implement a secondary ai system just for a NCAR training mode, even if it’s “just dumb bots” - I won’t do the math now but my gut feeling is that from a business perspective this makes no sense if you cannot reuse it later on. Racing a pre recorded group (at best recorded during regular testing) of ghosts using existing technology seems more feasible to me in times Xbox cuts budgets across the board.

@Sonicviz

Otoh, if this new racing activity is just meant to be an arcade racing experience, then
I think it would be a missed opportunity to do just that, but so it goes.

Know your audience - the detail level of racing will never be iRacing, nor Asetto Corsa Competizione. It will still be Forza level and with that somewhat arcade. Expecting something different will only lead to disappointment as the largest portion of the customer base of the racing mode (which is added for free this time, Something to remember) will be casual players. For the real deal there must be so much more in place (like a detailed engine and system damage model for each aircraft, maintenance options, tuning options for different engine parameters and much more) that it would qualify this to be it’s own game.

Maybe I’m wrong here but in that case it would be a pleasant surprise

[Zadma]

Can confirm I have seen no such server-side update allowing either STOL or Time Trials, though I do see Roswell courses available now when creating a lobby and for lobbies created by others. That said, I have yet to successfully join a single race due to the exceptionally disappointing inability to join a lobby with a race in progress. I really hope this is not a repeat of the virtually unplayable Reno Air Races in 2020, though I guess if it is, at least it wasn’t a separate purchase.

[FlipperAlloy30]

NCAR has a huge marketing push and a specific due date. Therefore, it needs to be working 100% properly sooner than later.

[FlipperAlloy30]

I decided to uninstall and reinstall MSFS 2024 to ensure everything was legit. After then restarted my PC, loaded the sim, adjusted a few settings, then exited and restarted my PC.

I loaded the simulator and selected Activities, NCAR:

I could not click “M” with the mouse but found the keyboard brought up the marketplace. Time Trial is locked and “How to Play” is not visible unless the cursor is positioned appropriately.

I selected “Race Lobby List” and found two lobbies on my server. The first was already racing, so I selected the second one.

After joining the lobby the cursor just spun on the screen with no options to exit. I presume the process is waiting for the lobby creator to start or cancel the race.

I closed MSFS 2024 via the task bar and restarted the sim.

I started to create a lobby but stopped when I found no option for STOL.

MS Store, PC, specs in my profile.

[SN0WY33]

Can I please get some clarity on the purchasing aspect of this? As I understand it, NCAR is being brought to the sim for free. This will include the 4 basic class aircraft. The expanded fleet is available for purchase.

If you already purchased the expanded fleet in MSFS2020, you get those aircraft for free.

But what if, like me, you only purchased the base pack in MSFS2020. Now those aircraft are being brought to MSFS2024 for free. Do purchasers of the base back in MSFS2020 also get the expanded fleet for free? Or do you get nothing? Not upset about whatever the answer is - just curious.

[Zadma]

@SN0WY33

But what if, like me, you only purchased the base pack in MSFS2020. Now those aircraft are being brought to MSFS2024 for free. Do purchasers of the base back in MSFS2020 also get the expanded fleet for free? Or do you get nothing? Not upset about whatever the answer is - just curious.

I am 99% certain that if you only purchased the Reno base pack in MSFS 2020, nothing is transferring to 2024 as what you bought in 2020 is now default in 2024. The only people who will get the added variants “for free” are those that have purchased specifically that variant package in 2020.

[Delta2k5]

@SN0WY33

Can I please get some clarity on the purchasing aspect of this? As I understand it, NCAR is being brought to the sim for free. This will include the 4 basic class aircraft. The expanded fleet is available for purchase.

If you already purchased the expanded fleet in MSFS2020, you get those aircraft for free.

But what if, like me, you only purchased the base pack in MSFS2020. Now those aircraft are being brought to MSFS2024 for free. Do purchasers of the base back in MSFS2020 also get the expanded fleet for free? Or do you get nothing? Not upset about whatever the answer is - just curious.

This was clarified basically on the stream. Exact timestamp:

September 2026 Developer Stream | Microsoft Flight Simulator

[SN0WY33]

Thanks for the timestamp.

For those that don’t want to watch:

“What used to be called ‘Full Collection’… used to be a $60 addon and we’re going to make it a $40 addon in 2024 and what this means is we’ll also lower the price in 2020. And of course for those of you that already have it… it’s free. You get the entitlement in 2024.”

So yes, as @Zadma guessed, as I understand it you will only get the full collection for free if you had it in 2020. If you just had the base pack, you do not receive anything.

[SmotheryVase665]

From the Release Notes - SU7 Beta 1.9.13.0 - September 24, 2026

National Championship Air Races

• Added message during turnaround
• Added a skip to next phase after several landing attempts
• Fixed timer start in practice mode
• Fixed STOL disqualified because of crash
• Added texts for new commentator voicelines

[CommonBloom31]

Is FFB working in those Air Races?