We begin our fourth year offering RealFlight Evolution DLC by announcing the release of both 2026 Quarterly Content Pack 1 and the 2026 Year Content Pass!

2026 Quarterly Content Pack 1
2026 QCP1 includes 6 new aircraft: 4 standard + 2 premium. Clicking the individual links below will take you to the items’ Steam store pages, where you can view pictures and learn more about them.

• E-flite Beechcraft RC-45J 1.5m
  
• E-flite Gee Bee R-2 1.0m
  
• E-flite Timber 10-year Anniversary Edition 1.5m
  
• E-flite UMX Eratix 3D FF 450mm
  
• E-flite UMX Viper 30mm EDF
  
• Koi (F3P-A)

Here is a direct link to the 2026 QCP1 bundle containing all the above items.

QCP1 content requires RF Evo version 10.10.203 or higher. You can check your version number in RealFlight’s About dialog. Please note that this time around, the required update was not published very far in advance of the QCP release, so there is an increased likelihood you will not have it yet and will need to force an update. Doing so is very easy, however. See “How to Get It” at the bottom of the 10.10.203 announcement for instructions.

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For those new to RealFlight Evolution or simply needing a refresher, the first DLC release of a new year is a good time to explain some details about what it is and how it works.

DLC defined
DLC stands for Downloadable Content. It is additional content you can purchase for an application you already own.

Standard vs. premium aircraft models
What makes a premium model different from a standard one? In short, a premium model is more work for us to produce meaning you get more as a result. More what? It could be one or more of the following:

• More features – Examples include retracts, flaps, and other articulating components
  
• More detail – Things like scale details, an unusual or extra-complex design, multiple color schemes, and/or a full cockpit
  
• More variants – Includes multiple variations such as with and without floats, slats, etc.

How to buy
RealFlight Evolution DLC is available a few different ways.

• Each quarterly batch of content is available in a money-saving bundle. See the QCP1 link above for one example. Each individual item page also contains a link to the bundle that contains it.
  
• The Year Content Pass is a way to buy all the content for a given year--all 4 Quarterly Content Packs--at an even greater discount. When you purchase it, you get immediate access to any content that has been released so far that year. If any of that year’s quarterly content is still to come, then as it is released it will unlock automatically for you. So, whether you buy it at the beginning of the year, essentially prepurchasing all of that year’s content to come, or hold off and buy it at the end of the year after the final QCP is released and get all the content at once, or anywhere in between, the end result is the same.
  
  • The 2023-2025 YCPs are complete and will remain available to purchase for anyone who would like to get all that content at once at the highest possible discount.
    
  • The 2026 YCP is now available and will work just like its predecessors.
• Individual items from the content packs are also available for purchase separately. If you purchase one or more items a la carte and later decide you would like to own the whole pack they came from, you can! The QCP bundle will only charge you for the models you don’t already own, and you’ll pay the discounted bundle price for them. This “complete the set” option is only possible for QCPs (YCPs do not support it).

Finding the new models in RF Evo
DLC that you own will appear right alongside all the other models/airports in Evolution. Look for them by name in the selection dialogs or find them with the Quick Load dialog. Also, the main selection menus now offer additional filtering options that include the ability to show only DLC.

Releases Roadmap
As we touched on in the RealFlight Evolution announcement, RF Evo will live in the marketplace for a number of years. DLC offers a way to keep getting more out of RealFlight without the need to upgrade your version every year or two. Software updates will come when they are ready, whereas DLC will release sometime within its given quarter (i.e., Q1: Jan-Mar, Q2: Apr-Jun, Q3: Jul-Sept, Q4: Oct-Dec).

RealFlight version 10.10.203 is now available as a free release for all Evolution users. It includes numerous improvements and bug fixes as well as support for 2026 Quarterly Content Pack 1 DLC.

Some noteworthy “quality of life” improvements:
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Users who are new to the RealFlight Swap Pages sometimes download and import an Aircraft Variant that is based on a custom Entire Aircraft without downloading that required additional content. They end up with a vehicle that doesn’t work and no understanding of why or what to do about it. RealFlight now prevents that situation.
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Imported AVs and EAs are now treated more like stock content and afforded many of the same protections. This guards against two things:

1. Editing someone else's work and saving it with the same name, overwriting the original version. And, since the original version can’t be overwritten in the first place, this avoids the situation where a modified version with the same name is uploaded to the swap pages as an AV. (To be clear, you can still make changes and save them under a different name, just as with stock content. It can still be deleted or renamed, as well; you are not stuck with a download once you import it.)
   
2. Exporting someone else’s 3D model as an EA. As always, you are very welcome to make physics or colorscheme edits of your own and export those as an AV or CS, respectively.

Note: The custom content creation pipeline, where a vehicle under development is imported from an .FBX, is unaffected by these changes.
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Users now have the option to specify the location where RealFlight will read/write “user files” on disk. This offers a workaround when the default location causes problems. See the bottom of this post for details.
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It should not be possible for RealFlight to make the DirectX driver crash in modern Windows. Such problems typically indicate some kind of GPU hardware failure. However, if that does occur, RealFlight handles it more gracefully now.

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Features

• Added a check that aborts the aircraft variant import process if the required base vehicle is not present.
  
• Vehicles imported from an .RFX cannot be overwritten or reexported. They are treated more like stock RealFlight content.
  
• Ability to specify RealFlight's "user files" location on disk via command line (details below)
  
• Added Support for 2026 Quarterly Content Pack 1 DLC

Improvements/Fixes

• Fixed a crash when opening the the Aircraft Editor or Airport Editor while a recording is playing
  
• Fixed a crash when importing an .RFX containing a custom prop that already exists on disk and choosing Overwrite for the prop
  
• Improved handling of DirectX driver crashes. RealFlight displays a single error with more useful information about what is happening and offers to restart automatically.
  
• Import: When multiple .RFXs are selected for import, they are ordered by type to better handle potential dependencies and avoid spurious error messages
  
• Training: When loop behavior is enabled, lesson playback correctly handles reaching the end of a lesson
  
• Selection menu filters normally persist within a session, but if they result in an empty list, the menu will revert to unfiltered on its next load
  
• Clicking Reset to clear all selection menu filters does not alter the scrolled position of the filters section
  
• Radio Profile Editor: The "Smoke" channel is more accurately labeled "Smoke/Gear"
  
• Award dialog appearance is correct when unlocking vehicles (fixed a broken header image)
  
• Scenario Quick Select dialog correctly defaults to the most recently loaded scenario, even if some invalid scenarios have been removed from the list above it
  
• Scenario Quick Select dialog displays error messages for invalid scenarios when a filter is active (though only for scenarios that filter includes)
  
• Description text for AV & EA export options is updated to encompass the new protections for imported content
  
• The default multiplayer server message text refers to its correct location on disk for those who wish to modify it
  
• Manage Game Lists dialog's listbox is now scrollable for stock game lists, allowing all the games in longer lists to be viewed
  
• Misc. other UI improvements

Aircraft

• E-flite 4-Site 3D FF Flat Foamy 800mm: Vertical stab is strengthened
  
• E-flite Carbon-Z T-28 Trojan 2.0m: Servo sound volumes for aileron, elevator, rudder, and flap servos are correct
  
• E-flite Eratix 3D SWS 1.6m: Visual Frame for steering wheel physics component is set correctly
  
• E-flite Micro B-2 Spirit of America Twin 30mm EDF: Differential thrust mixing is set up correctly

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How to Get It
Steam will detect the new version and automatically update RealFlight when it thinks your computer is not very busy. You can trigger the update manually if desired by completely restarting Steam. Right-click the Steam icon in your system tray and select Exit. Once everything closes, run Steam again, and the update should complete.

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Custom User Files Location
As mentioned above, users now have the option to specify the location where RealFlight will read/write “user files” on disk. By default, Evolution uses <Documents>\\RealFlight Evolution (e.g., C:\\Users\\Ryan Douglas\\Documents\\RealFlight Evolution). However, sometimes that default location causes problems for RealFlight, such as when the path contains unsupported characters or when Microsoft OneDrive is involved. Setting RealFlight to use a different location on disk can sidestep those issues so the software will run.

Specify the desired location using a command line argument as in the following example:

-UserFilesLocation="D:\\My Files\\RealFlight Evolution"

Notes:

• The location given must be a full path including drive letter (i.e., an absolute path).
  
• If there are spaces anywhere in the path, the whole thing must be wrapped in quotes as shown above.
  
• If the specified directory does not exit, RealFlight will create it.
  
• Make sure it is in a location that is writeable by an application with standard user (non-administrator) privileges.
  
• Do not set it to the user files directory from a different version of RealFlight!

To add a command line argument for RealFlight:

1. Run the Steam client.
   
2. Right-click on RealFlight Evolution in the left pane and select Properties…
   
3. On the “General” page, add the new option as shown above in the text input box beneath the text saying “Advanced users may choose to enter modifications to their launch options.”.
   
4. Close the Properties dialog.
   
5. Run RealFlight like usual.

This is a new feature. Please report any issues you encounter while using it.