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Installation Guide

Please follow the information on this page to install FlyByWire Simulations products for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

Downloads

FlyByWire Installer

Download the new FlyByWire installer where you can select either the Stable, or Development build. Our installer downloads and installs the add-on directly into your community folder.

The following commands can be used:

Ctrl+F5 - Refreshes Installer

Ctrl+F12 - Opens the debug tool

Installer Debug Logs

You can send us logs to our Discord for support if you encounter issues with the installer. Please follow the steps below:

  • Open the debug tool Ctrl+F12.

  • Find and select Console in the top menu.

  • Right Click anywhere in the log displayed.

  • Click Save as and send the log to us.

Download Installer

Manual Installation

Manual Installation is not recommended

We recommend using the FlyByWire Installer for the best download and installation experience. The Installer uses the Cloudflare CDN to ensure fast downloads and also download smaller chunks of the file to ensure more stability during the download process.

Manual download is done from GitHub, which can be slower and less reliable.

Especially during a build and upload of the master branch the manual download can be tricky as files might be missing or being changed during the download process.

  • Download A32NX

    Current Stable Version -

    Stable is our variant that has the least bugs and best performance. This version will not always be up-to-date, but we ensure its compatibility with each major patch from MSFS.

    Download Stable

    Latest release notes: View Here

    Development will have the latest features that will end up in the next stable. Bugs are to be expected.

    It updates whenever something is added to the 'master' branch on GitHub.

    Download Development

  • Download A380X

    Current Stable Version -

    Stable is our variant that has the least bugs and best performance. This version will not always be up-to-date, but we ensure its compatibility with each major patch from MSFS.

    Download Stable

    Latest release notes: View Here

    Development will have the latest features that will end up in the next stable. Bugs are to be expected.

    It updates whenever something is added to the 'master' branch on GitHub.

    Download Development

    4K vs. 8K Textures:

    We recommend using the 4K texture option for

    • Use frame generation
    • Virtual Reality (VR)
    • DX12 beta
    • or are otherwise limited by your graphics card VRAM amount.

    Use the 8K texture option for the full fidelity experience if your system is powerful enough to support it.

    • DX11 recommended
    • HIGH or lower texture resolution setting recommended

Please follow ALL steps in this section if you encounter any issues with installation before seeking support.

Open the zip that you downloaded from one of the links above, and drag the flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo or flybywire-aircraft-a380-842 folder inside the zip into your Community folder.

See below for the location of your Community folder.

Community Folder

Microsoft Store and/or Game Pass Edition

  • Copy the flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo or flybywire-aircraft-a380-842 folder into your community package folder.

It is located in:

  • C:\Users\[YOURUSERNAME]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_<RANDOMLETTERS>\LocalCache\Packages\Community.

Steam Edition

  • Copy the flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo or flybywire-aircraft-a380-842 folder into your community package folder.

It is located in:

  • C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Community.

Boxed Edition

  • Copy the flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo or flybywire-aircraft-a380-842 folder into your community package folder.

It is located in:

  • C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\AppData\Local\MSFSPackages\Community.

Troubleshooting

If the above methods do not work:

How to find the correct Community folder

To find the Community folder that MSFS is using, please follow these steps:

  1. Go to your General Settings in MSFS and activate Developer Mode.
  2. Go to the menu and select 'Virtual File System'.
  3. Click on 'Packages Folders' and select 'Open Community Folder'.

This opens the Community folder in a Windows Explorer. Please ensure that your add-ons are installed in the folder that is opened.

If your issue is not related to installation visit - Reported Issues

Clean Install Steps

Automatic Clean Install

FBW Installer version 3.0.0 introduced the Uninstall feature. To perform an automatic clean install:

  • Ensure you have the latest FBW Installer on your machine.
  • Click on the "Uninstall" button.

This removes the aircraft from your community folder and the extra files in %appdata or %localappdata.

Your Work folder is retained to save your throttle configuration, FDR files, and any other presets we save. (These are small files and do not need to be deleted to fulfill a "clean install" state.)

Manual Clean Install

If you would like to manually perform a clean install you first have to delete the flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo or flybywire-aircraft-a380-842 folder from your community folder.

We also store additional information related to the aircraft in a separate directory, which is built when you load the aircraft in the simulator. You also need to delete the contents of this folder, but not the folder itself.

These locations are found below:

If the above folders are hidden to you, follow the directions on Microsoft's support site.

Once in the correct directory, delete all files in the folder but maybe leave the work folder:

img.png

Work Folder

The locations below contain a "work" folder. We store important things here that you may not want to delete:

  • Your EFB throttle configuration.
  • Your FDR files (for debugging purposes, which we may ask you to provide).
  • Your lighting presets.
  • Your last fuel tank levels.
  • Your flight model configuration (if you have changed it).

It is up to you to keep this folder or not.

Microsoft Store Version

The folder can be found here:

A32NX:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\packages\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\

A380X:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\packages\flybywire-aircraft-a380-842\

To quickly locate the %localappdata%:

  • Press start
  • Type in run into the start menu and press Enter
  • Type into the box %localappdata%
  • Press OK

This is not your community directory

Steam Version

The folder can be found here:

A32NX:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\

A380X:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\flybywire-aircraft-a380-842\

To quickly locate %appdata%:

  • Press start
  • Type in run into the start menu and press Enter
  • Type into the box %appdata%
  • Press OK

This is not your community directory

See Recommended Settings.

Estimated System Requirements for A380X

Minimum (1080p30 Low)

  • CPU: Intel i5-4460 or Ryzen 3 1400
  • GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or AMD RX 480 8GB
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Storage: 28GB* free space (HDD or SSD)

*At least 4-8GB needed for pagefile (virtual memory)

Recommended (1440p30 High)

  • CPU: Intel i5-8400 or Ryzen 5 3600
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB or AMD RX 6600 XT 8GB
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Storage: 20GB free space (SSD)

Flying By Wire (1440p/4k DLSS 60 High/Ultra)

  • CPU: Ryzen 7 7800X3D
  • GPU: RTX 4080 Super 16GB or 7900 XTX 24GB
  • Memory: 32GB
  • Storage: 20GB free space (SSD)

Contributing

More info FlyByWire Development Overview or GitHub Contributing.md

SimBrief Airframe

A32NX:
SimBrief Integration Guide

A380X:
SimBrief Integration Guide

We have moved this information to the location above.