FlightSim Studio Super 27: the best thing FSS sells, and you cannot buy it alone

On Contrail, the Super 27 Expansion Pack is rated 4.82. That is the highest score anything FlightSim Studio sells. Higher than the 727-200 Freighter it bolts onto, at 4.34. Higher than the Passenger, at 4.35. Considerably higher than the 727-100 bundle, at 3.76.

It is also the one product in that list you cannot buy.

Not on its own, anyway. The store page says so twice, in bold, and then adds a sentence you do not often see next to it: "This expansion can only be used in combination with the 727-200 Freighter or Passenger variant (or both). It is not a standalone product. No refunds given!" You need a $39.98 aeroplane first. Which makes the real price of the Super 27 about $64 — and puts you within a dollar and change of FSS's 727-100 All In One at $65.03, a bundle containing three aircraft.

That arithmetic is the review. Everything else is a story about a very good expansion attached to a base aircraft that its own developer has announced it is rebuilding.

We should be straight about the evidence, because there is not much of it. The Super 27 came out on 2 October 2025, nearly eleven months ago, and in that time it has collected one customer review on simMarket, one on flightsim.to reading "good good good", one written review on Contrail, and no independent review of any kind — no written outlet, no video that is not a trailer. Seventeen people have rated it on Contrail and they love it, and that is close to the whole public record. Treat what follows as a first look with a long tail, and treat the score as provisional.

We read sixteen sources for this review: four store listings and every review text on them, the developer's product and news pages, four trade write-ups, two AVSIM threads running to February 2026, a full written review of the base aircraft, and two trailers.

What you are actually buying

An add-on to an add-on. It converts the FlightSim Studio 727-200 into the Valsan-style Super 27 retrofit — the late-1980s and 1990s programme that hung modern engines on a 1960s airframe.

Expansion price	€16.76 ex VAT direct from Aerosoft · €16.77 simMarket · $23.76 Contrail · €20.29 flightsim.to
Base aircraft required	727-200 Freighter or Passenger, $39.98 each
Realistic total entry	about $64
The alternative	727-100 All In One — three aircraft including a Super27-100 — $65.03
Released	2 October 2025
Current version	1.1.8
Simulators	MSFS 2020 and 2024
Download	548 MB

What it adds: JT8D-217C pod engines with clamshell thrust reversers on the outboards, refined flight dynamics for the extra weight and thrust, and a High Idle mode. In the cockpit, an optional Rockwell Collins EFIS-86C suite and APS-85 autopilot — the developer's own description promises everything "from simple heading hold, through NAV tracking, to full approach capability down to CAT II minimums" laterally, and programmed climb and descent profiles vertically, making "the 727 becomes fully LNAV and VNAV capable". Alongside those: a digital transponder with TCAS, a digital VSI, digital fuel gauges, dual DME receivers, auto spoilers and a moving map. Twenty-four liveries, nine freighter and fifteen passenger.

The word doing the work is optional. You can fly the Super 27 with the classic panel or with the glass, which is the whole appeal — one reviewer called it "a fascinating blend of old and new".

One thing it takes away. In the Super 27 the GNS-XLS is the only navigator; the GNS530 you get in the standard aircraft is not available. An experienced simmer spent a day on AVSIM in February 2026 unable to make the aircraft follow a flight plan before discovering the nav source is changed with the Course button on the unit itself.

What the community consistently praises

The blend, which is the entire premise and by all accounts it lands. 彦峰, in the only simMarket review, 15 February 2026: "Its cockpit and avionics create a fascinating blend of old and new." Damiel, on Contrail on 28 September 2025 and the most-liked review the product has, owns both base variants and called the expansion "a no brainer for me… Totally worth it if you enjoy the Cargo and/or Pax base package."

Second, the range. This is the practical payoff and it is easy to miss in a feature list. The -217C engines and the extra fuel turn a domestic trijet into something that will cross water: "the increased range compared to the original 727 makes it possible to fly transoceanic routes in MSFS with the 727 (provided you make good use of the jet stream)". For anyone who has wanted to fly a 727 somewhere interesting rather than somewhere near, that is the sentence that sells it.

Third, the base aircraft it attaches to is genuinely liked, and has got better. FSNews reviewed the 727-200F on 7 August 2024 and, despite a long list of systems faults, ended: "Despite all of the issues, there's something about this aircraft that just keeps me coming back to it." Since then FSS has worked through hydraulic logic, engine gauges, ILS approach stability, inflight restart logic and more across a run of point releases. On AVSIM in January 2026 pmplayer's contribution to a thread about the newer -100 was simply: "I love there -200 !!"

Fourth, the autothrottle is worth having here specifically. longhaul747, AVSIM, 9 January 2026, on FSS's optional autothrottle across the range: "I seem to remember only bothering to use it on the Super 27." The heavier, faster, longer-legged aeroplane is the one where it earns its keep.

Fifth, and this deserves saying because so many add-ons get it wrong: the requirement is disclosed everywhere. Every shop that sells it leads with the fact that it will not work alone, in bold, before the feature list. Nobody is being tricked into this purchase.

What keeps coming up as a problem

Given how thin the record is, these are early signals rather than settled patterns — but the ones that exist are specific and dated.

The real cost, and the bundle that undercuts it — still open

$39.98 plus $23.76 is $63.74. The 727-100 All In One is $65.03 and contains the 727-100, the 100F and a Super27-100. A buyer arriving fresh, wanting a 727 with modern engines, has to notice that.

It is not a straight win for the bundle — Contrail's users rate the -100 family at 3.76 against 4.34 and 4.35 for the -200s, and the -100 is a different, shorter, livelier aeroplane. But nothing on the Super 27's store page tells you the comparison exists.

Lord Farringdon, a former real-world 727 crew member who first flew them in January 1981, bought the -100 bundle on 8 January 2026 and noted the same tension from the other side: "Having now packaged the 100, 100F and the Super 27 in one download, the FSS price was rather hefty." He paid €43 after a 20% discount for owning the -200.

It inherits the base aircraft's bugs — still open

An expansion cannot be more stable than what it sits on, and the FSS 727 codebase still throws things. From the January 2026 AVSIM thread: Daytona125 reported switches that "stop working after a while, become un-clickable", that opening the large cargo door "causes the plane to crash while sitting on the tarmac", and VR zoom that is "WAY too zoomy sometimes putting the view right outside the plane".

regis9, the same week, found that IAS HOLD does not hold speed on either the -100 or the -200, and quoted the manual back at it: "In this mode the autopilot will vary pitch and attitude to maintain the indicated airspeed existing at the time IAS HOLD is selected." It does not.

Undiscoverable avionics — resolved for one user, unaddressed generally

desbean's AVSIM thread of 20 February 2026 is worth reading before you buy. He could not get the Super 27 to follow a flight plan at all: selecting NAV lit the VOR/LOC annunciators red while sitting exactly on route, Direct-To did nothing, and the same imported plan worked perfectly in the standard aircraft with the GNS530. The answer, found by the poster himself later that day, is that the nav source is changed using the Course button on the GNS-XLS. Nothing pointed him there.

Installation through Aerosoft One — still open

The single simMarket reviewer's only complaint, 15 February 2026: on the Microsoft Store version of MSFS the download through the Aerosoft One client can fail with an error. His workaround is to add the Steam installation path in the client's settings, switch Aerosoft One to the Steam version, and download it there. That is a real barrier for Microsoft Store users and it is documented nowhere official.

The base is being rebuilt underneath it — disclosed, undated

On 23 May 2026 FSS published a 2026 roadmap. Both 727-200 variants are getting a native MSFS 2024 rebuild with new textures and a revised 3D model, and — the part that matters here — FSS is adding an ADV variant with auxiliary tanks which, in the studio's own description, "will serve as the new base for the Super 27". No release window was given.

Nothing about that is dishonest; they said it out loud. But you are buying an expansion whose foundation is scheduled to be replaced, on no timetable, and Contrail currently lists the expansion as not MSFS 2024 native while listing the 727-200 Freighter as native.

Performance and stability

Nobody reports a frame-rate cost from the expansion, which is unsurprising — it is 548 MB of engines, panels and liveries bolted to an aircraft you already have installed.

Stability is inherited rather than introduced. Nothing in the record attributes a crash specifically to the Super 27; the faults people report — the cargo door CTD, the switches going dead, the VR zoom — belong to the 727 platform and appear across variants. FSS has a solid record of patching these, and the expansion itself has moved from 1.1.3 to 1.1.8 since release.

The one thing we cannot assess is long-term behaviour, because almost nobody has written about flying it. Seventeen Contrail votes and two store reviews in eleven months is not a stability record; it is a suggestion.

Who should buy it

If you already own the FSS 727-200 Freighter or Passenger and you fly it: buy it. This is the profile the product is built for and the only one the evidence really covers. Every owner who has written about it is delighted, the price is fair for what it adds, and the range increase gives the aeroplane somewhere new to go.

If you want a 727 that can cross an ocean: buy the base aircraft and this together. Nothing else in MSFS gives you a trijet with the legs for it, and the transoceanic capability is the most-cited practical benefit.

If you want the glass cockpit specifically: buy it. The Collins EFIS-86C and APS-85 with VNAV are the substantial part of this package, they are optional so the classic panel is still there, and no other 727 in the simulator offers the choice.

If you own no 727 at all and just want the modern one: do the sum first. $39.98 plus $23.76 is $63.74 and the 727-100 All In One is $65.03 with three aircraft in it. Look at both before you spend anything, and note that Contrail's users rate the -100 family lower than the -200s.

If you are on the Microsoft Store version of MSFS: be ready to fight the installer. The one person who reviewed this on simMarket had the Aerosoft One download fail and needed a Steam-path workaround to get it installed at all.

If you want to wait for the MSFS 2024 native rebuild: that is defensible, and nobody can tell you how long. FSS announced in May 2026 that the -200s are being rebuilt and that a new ADV variant will become the Super 27's base. There is no date. If you buy now you get the current aeroplane and, on FSS's past form, the rebuild when it lands.

If you were hoping for a standalone modern 727: this is not it, and the store tells you so. There is no refund if you buy it without the base aircraft.

Where it stands today

The Super 27 Expansion Pack is the highest-rated thing FlightSim Studio sells and one of the least-examined add-ons we have reviewed. Those two facts are related: an expansion that requires a $40 purchase first has a small, self-selected audience, and that audience is made entirely of people who already like the aeroplane. Seventeen votes at 4.82 tells you that people who buy it are pleased. It does not tell you much else, and this review will not pretend otherwise.

What can be said with confidence is that the thing itself is well judged. It picks a real and interesting conversion, it makes the glass optional rather than compulsory, and it solves the 727's most limiting characteristic by giving it the range to leave the continent. The complaints in the record are about the platform beneath it and the shape of the deal around it, not about the work.

The shape of the deal is what should slow you down. Sixty-four dollars all-in, against a sixty-five dollar bundle with three aircraft; a base aircraft that FSS itself says is being rebuilt on no announced timetable; and an installer that can defeat Microsoft Store users. None of that is hidden — FSS and Aerosoft disclose the requirement more prominently than most developers disclose anything — but none of it is on the page you buy from either.

Our 3.9 is provisional and will move when somebody finally reviews this thing properly. If you own the 727 already, stop reading and buy it. If you do not, the question is not whether the Super 27 is good. It is which 727 you should be buying in the first place.