Attention, Microsoft Flight Simulator pilots! Christmas is coming earlier this year, and your present has arrived! We are thrilled to release the long-awaited addition of aerial refueling to the Flight Simulator world. This is not just a nice looking feature — it’s real, and it’s a challenge that won’t be easy.
Prepare for the thrill of mid-air refueling with two options: the drogue system and the flying boom system. Choose your favourite aircraft and master the art of precision flying.
Over 50 aircraft are already configured and ready for aerial refueling, ensuring a wide variety of flying experiences. But that’s not all — you can make ANY aircraft compatible by simply setting the contact point position before takeoff.
We provide two tankers for your refueling missions: the KC-46 and the Il-78, and as a bonus, the MQ-25 refueling drone. The list of available tankers will continue to expand, so let us know which one you’d like to see next!
To accommodate pilots of all skill levels, we have implemented three difficulty levels: Rookie, Pro, and Ace. Each level is designed to fit different types of pilots—from casual flyers to advanced aviators, and true heroes ready for the ultimate exercise.
And that’s not all — many more features are on the horizon, so keep an eye on future updates.
And now sad stuff 😔 We are still fighting with sim limitations, so not all features work as expected yet. The update landed on the MSFS Marketplace this week contains several bugs which may affect your flying experience:
– rookie mode does not work with helicopters and aircraft with small wing span (like F-16), choose different difficulty level to avoid it
– if you try to use AAR right after Airshow was installed or updated, tanker will not appear; that is SimConnect issue which we can’t avoid anyhow, but for the clearance warning message will appear in next update with further instructions
– some aircraft may have non-refualable tanks, which cause incorrect fuel indication and “infinity refuelling”
– tanker airspeed is incorrect compare to the selected value
– some airplanes (mostly by DC/SC Designs) has custom self-refueling script which activates when you engage built-in refueling probe or receptacle doors
But you know what is awesome? 😁 All these bugs were fixed already and a new update was sent to the MS for approval. So we are all waiting for next week’s Marketplace update with excitement. Happy flying!
Aircraft compatibility table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qRnXrvNaPtnUJD7HON4hR1jJBUM4tECMb6BktFr3hUw/
Ah, completely forget, we have increased the add-on price to $19.99. As a gratitude for everyone who has helped us during past development, it was on sale for $2 during Summer sale so I believe it’s a fair deal. Thank you, guys!
19 feedbacks on AirshowAssistant v3.0 – Aerial Refueling
Recently purchased, …great activity, lots of fun! Tried MSFS 2020 night refueling with B-2 and KC-46. Instead of visual of tanker lights, a large blue moon-like circle appears in tanker’s position (see screenshot attachment, more available). When within 300 meters of tanker, the blue moon circle disappears, and tanker lights become visible.
This is refueling triggers helper, part of the tutorial mode. You can disable them permanently by this switch toggle.
if i fly with friends and they also have air show assistance will the tanker show for both of us and can refuel from the same tanker? thanks
Live tanker route in development. results are mixed, it is barely usable at the moment, but we are trying to improve it. Once finished, detailed tutorial will be made.
At first, i have a great fun with aerial refuelling, but i have a problem with the DC Design f-4e Phantom, the aircraft needs boom refuelling, but only drogue is possible. Is a file (XML_File???) existing to correct ? FGR2 und F4 are correct.
Aircraft developer placed F4, F4J and F4E models under same model/type label “Phantom F4” which makes impossible to separate AAR type for them. I have moved existing liveries into new F-4E category, but to make boom refueling available for the all new F-4E liveries “atc_model” value should be set as “F4E” for this modification by developer.
Fix will be released next week. If you have experience in XML coding or SDK tools (Behaviours window), you can change L:TC_AIRSHOW_AAR_TYPE value to 2 and it will affect AAR tab in the toolbar.
Problem resolved
Problem resolved.
Hello, May had a question. Could you add a French KC135 because it has a different boom and would think it would be very cool, would that work and for me with the KC135 from the US the boom doesn’t work properly, only the outer pods.
I would be very happy about an answer
Kind regards from Saxony
Have a nice afternoon to you
We have no plans to add variants right now, but maybe in the future.
Boom simulation may not work properly if you have //42 WASM products installed (Campout or SimFX), somehow their code affects Airshow calculations. If so, you may try to remove then and test boom refueling again.
I bought this add in through the game store and it downloaded but I cannot find it in game, I’m on the Xbox series S, I go in activity’s and can’t see it available am I doing something wrong?
It’s not a single mission but ingame toolbar – find three F/A’s icons on top of the screen during flight, once clicked you’ll see a toolbar with smokes, flares, wingmen and AAR sections.
I installed latest update (V3.0) from Marketplace in the ;last week of Sept 2024. It produced a series of Placeholder aircraft in My Hangar for Boeing KC135 aircraft that are not properly installed or even work. I uninstalled your V3 and these mysterious placeholder aircraft were removed from my hangar. I reinstalled the Assistant V3 and no problems UNTIL I rebooted MSFS and the mysterious placeholder reappeared.
Bij mij gebeurd precies hetzelfde heb hem dus verwijderd.
Will be fixed in v3.10.4 this week update. Thanks for report.
Hello so i downloaded the mod im on xbox but it says WASM not running so i followed the step it didnt do anything
First thing to check twice that you have latest MSFS Add-ons support installed. Even if it not pop-up during MSFS start automatically, open installed games with available updates list and check there no add-on support thing.
Second – WASM script may crashes because of some reason. Thirst thing to do it start the flight with some default aircraft – like F/A-18 or Cessna. Open Airshow panel – does it appear properly? If yes, then we can dig deeper into the issue.
Is there a way i can get a hold of this for cheaper as im only ever going to use it for one flyover but wasn’t able to purchase this in the summer sale? many thanks
Sales not planned while add-on in active development. You may get free version with formations functionality if you need it for content creation.