FSRealistic+: the add-on whose own store listing shouts at you not to buy it

On simMarket the product is not called FSRealistic+. It is called FSREALISTIC+ MSFS24 (CHASEPLANE REQUIRED), and the first line under Requirements reads, in capitals, with four exclamation marks: "CHASEPLANE REQUIRED !!!! DO NOT PURCHASE IF YOU DO NOT OWN CHASEPLANE !!!!" Directly beneath it: "NO EXCHANGES OR REFUNDS GIVEN!"

Nobody writes a product title like that unless people have already bought the thing by accident.

Here is what the shouting is about. FSRealistic+ costs $29.99. It does not run without ChasePlane, which is a separate $30 camera add-on from Parallel 42, which as of today is still sold as an "EXPERIMENTAL release", which replaces your simulator's built-in camera system outright — Parallel 42's own words: default camera features "will be inaccessible" — and which does not work in VR. Meanwhile the previous version, FSRealistic Pro, costs exactly the same $29.99, needs nothing else, covers MSFS 2020 and 2024, and does work in VR.

So the review almost writes itself, except that it doesn't, because the product is good. The in-sim panel is the thing everybody who upgraded mentions first. The all-axis camera work is a real advance on Pro's single vertical axis. The default aircraft profiles are unusually well judged. rkApps' support fixed a launch-day install failure with, in the customer's own words, two hours of work and many emails. And the ChasePlane requirement is not cynical bundling — it is architectural, it was disclosed in the very first announcement on 1 October 2025, four months before release, and the most level-headed post in the whole launch argument points out that if you strip ChasePlane out, most of what makes this a new product goes with it.

The question is not whether FSRealistic+ is good. It is whether you should spend sixty dollars to find out.

We read twenty-one sources for this review: four store listings and their rating spreads, the developer's own product pages and undated changelog, Parallel 42's product page and published limitations list, three forum threads running from 2 February to 28 April 2026, four written outlets, two video reviews, and a further Parallel 42 release note from 7 April 2026 that changes one of the answers below.

What you are actually buying

Two purchases, and you need both.

	FSRealistic+	FSRealistic Pro
Price (rkApps store)	$29.99, currently $20.10	$29.99, currently $20.10
Requires ChasePlane	Yes, $30 extra	No
Simulators	MSFS 2024 only	MSFS 2020 and 2024
VR	No	Yes
Interface	Native in-sim toolbar panel	External Windows app
Camera axes driven	All	Vertical only
Free trial	7 days	7 days

Note the first row. FSRealistic+ is not a premium tier above Pro — it is the same price as Pro. It is a fork, and the fork costs you an extra $30 to walk down.

Prices across the other stores, all currently running the same 33% August sale: simMarket €24.99 (now €16.74, sale ending in mid-September), Contrail $19.87, Aerosoft $20.09, iniBuilds £21.99 excluding VAT. Upgrade pricing for existing FSRealistic Pro owners is where this gets genuinely attractive — $7.95 at Contrail with code FSRPLUS-UP, around $8 at simMarket and iniBuilds, and AVSIM users reported paying $9 at flightsim.to and Just Flight in February. ChasePlane itself is $30 direct from Parallel 42 and is not discounted.

In the box: over 35 effects (rkApps says 35 on some listings, 37 on others), full 3D spatial audio in place of stereo panning, all-axis camera motion, custom sound support, per-aircraft profiles, and rkApps Cloud for profile backup and community sharing. Version 1.1.9 at the developer's store; Aerosoft was still serving 1.1.8 when we checked.

Both products have a 7-day free trial. ChasePlane does not. That asymmetry matters more than anything else in this section: you can test the $29.99 half of a $60 purchase and not the $30 half.

What the community consistently praises

The in-sim panel, first and loudest. Turning FSRealistic from an alt-tab Windows application into a native MSFS toolbar panel is the change everyone notices. It caused exactly one predictable problem — AJZip2 went looking for it in Task Manager on 3 February 2026 and could not find it, because it is no longer a Windows program — and that was cleared up in one reply. alexcolka, the same day, called the panel the feature he liked and then immediately wished for it without the ChasePlane requirement, which is the whole review in two sentences.

The camera work, second, and this is the concrete answer to "what does the extra $30 actually buy". Steam's Maki put it cleanly on 28 April 2026: with Pro only the vertical axis moves, with FSRealistic+ every axis moves, and the audio is better too. That is not marketing — it is a user explaining the difference to another user who was reluctant to install ChasePlane at all.

Third, the default profiles, and specifically that they are not airliner-centric. kerosene31 worried on 4 February 2026 that toilet-flush and cabin-chatter effects would be absurd in a Beech Baron; mmaclauchlan flew the Black Square Baron the same day and reported the right noises were already set; MrBitstFlyer confirmed on 5 February that the GA profile is called "piston" and works out of the box. Three independent posts inside thirty-six hours, all landing the same way.

Fourth, support. Eriktu01 could not launch the product at all on 3 February 2026 — the executable would not run from the sim icon or manually — and was back the next day reporting the problem "resolved very professionally by someone from RkApp", after two hours of work, many emails and a new build. For a launch-week failure on a $30 utility, that is a good outcome.

And fifth, though it belongs as much to the seller as the developer: the disclosure. The ChasePlane requirement was in the first public announcement on 1 October 2025. It is in the product title on simMarket, in a red READ FIRST block on rkApps' own page, in the iniBuilds copy ("will not work without it"), and on Aerosoft and Contrail. Whatever else is arguable here, nobody was hiding it.

What keeps coming up as a problem

The total price — still open, and it is the loudest complaint by a distance

The most-endorsed post in the entire launch thread is a refusal. JYW, 2 February 2026, fifteen likes and five further reactions: having ChasePlane as a requirement removed any interest he had, and he is not buying a full-priced camera add-on he does not otherwise want just to make this work. monica6211 agreed within twenty minutes and hoped for a version without the requirement. Nearly three months later the arithmetic had not moved: kerosene31, 24 April 2026, owns and likes both — "Overall they both cost $60, which is significant". CFIJose, same thread, same day: "At $60, that's the cost of MSFS 2024."

Nobody in the record disputes the number. The disagreement is entirely about whether it is worth it.

ChasePlane is still experimental — still open

SierraDelta asked the sharp question on 3 February 2026: is it not slightly strange to release a product that requires another product still labelled Experimental? Seven months later, on 19 August 2026, ChasePlane's Parallel 42 store page still opens with "This is an EXPERIMENTAL release." Parallel 42 said as recently as 7 April 2026 that MSFS 2024 betas ship without notice and ChasePlane may break with future ones.

No VR — still open, with a stated intention and no date

ChasePlane's own limitations page says of VR in MSFS 2024: "Currently not supported. You will encounter issues in VR, try at your own risk." GCBraun flagged the timing on 3 February 2026. sleightflight, on 21 February 2026, said he flies only in VR now and would not upgrade. AJZip2 found out the hard way, having bought the upgrade through Just Flight with, by his own admission, very little research — he missed both the ChasePlane requirement and the VR problem, went back to FSRealistic Pro instead, and reported on 4 February 2026 that Pro is great in VR in MSFS 2024. He is the customer that simMarket's shouting title exists to prevent.

Parallel 42's 7 April 2026 note says the new Asobo Camera API opens a viable path to VR and that work begins once Sim Update 5 leaves beta, with — their words — no timeline promises. Believe it when it ships.

What ChasePlane takes away as well as adds — still open, partly fixed

Because ChasePlane replaces the sim's camera system rather than sitting alongside it, buying FSRealistic+ has consequences nobody advertises. Parallel 42's published list, which they preface with "Please do not purchase if you think you will be affected by any of them", includes: no night vision goggles, no camera control during the default replay system or anything built on it such as GEES, no camera movement when clicking a checklist item, depth of field only in world views, and a warning that an Xbox controller cannot be both your flight control and your camera control.

One item on that list has since been fixed and the correction matters: an AVSIM poster warned on 24 April 2026 that Career mode was affected, but Parallel 42's SU5 beta build of 7 April 2026 had already restored toolbar add-ons, ChasePlane included, in Career mode. We could not find Career mode on the current limitations page. Treat that particular warning as out of date.

Some content went backwards — still open

This one complicates the "next-generation evolution" framing more than anything else in the record. wiltzei, after a couple of hours with it on 5 February 2026, counted what Pro had shipped with — ten rumbles, seven ground effects and winds, thirteen touchdowns, thirteen shakes, five taxis — and reported that FSRealistic+ carries fewer, and that the airfield ambience effect he had enjoyed in the previous version is simply gone. rkApps' own listings support the direction of travel: FSRealistic Pro is sold on "40 camera and sound effects", FSRealistic+ on "over 35".

No manual — still open

CFIJose went looking on 24 April 2026 and said he found it hard to believe the developer has no PDF manual on the website. kerosene31 checked and confirmed there is none. The consequence appears in the same thread a few posts later, when CFIJose pasted an AI-generated description of a "Seatbelt Light" effect and asked someone to confirm it; kerosene31 loaded the default 737 and found nothing of the sort. In the absence of documentation, people guess.

Per-repaint profiles — still open

kerosene31, 24 April 2026: profiles attach to individual liveries, so every repaint of the same aeroplane needs configuring or importing separately. He has several Black Square Barons and Bonanzas, some set up correctly and some not. He calls it a headache while being clear he still recommends the product.

Performance and stability

Mixed, and thinly sourced on frame rates.

The only measured figure in the record is Digger57's, on 4 February 2026: an IFR flight from ENKB to EHGG in the Flysimware C414AW ran at 60 fps without FSRealistic+ and 45–55 with it. He called it acceptable and moved on. One data point on one aircraft is not a verdict, but nobody posted numbers contradicting it either.

Stability has improved across nine builds, and the changelog is honest about what it is fixing. v1.1.2 fixed a service crash that hit anyone with no default Windows audio device selected. v1.1.4 fixed the ground roll effect moving the camera while the aircraft was stationary and retuned Touchdown Main, which many users had complained was too aggressive on soft landings. v1.1.7 fixed multiple crash causes and added a troubleshooting wizard for service connection failures — and then broke something, because v1.1.8 exists solely to fix a crash affecting people who had installed v1.1.7. v1.1.9, the current build, improves memory usage and connection stability.

Two unresolved conflicts are worth knowing about. FPVSteve, developer of Self-Loading Cargo, reported on 24 April 2026 that FSRealistic caused the FSLabs A321neo to reset its systems during pushback, and stopped using it. And SN737 reported on 5 February 2026 that on the 7-day trial, with ChasePlane installed, none of the physics effects worked in the PMDG 737-800 — only the sounds. Nobody in the thread reproduced or resolved it, and the same effects were working fine for other users in GA aircraft and helicopters.

The changelog has no dates on it, which makes it impossible to say how quickly any of these were addressed. That is a small thing to fix and rkApps should fix it.

Who should buy it

If you already own ChasePlane and FSRealistic Pro: buy the upgrade immediately. It is $7.95 to $9 depending on the store, you already own the expensive dependency, and every objection in this review is about the dependency. This is the profile the product was built for and it is an easy yes.

If you already own ChasePlane but not FSRealistic: take the 7-day trial, then buy it. At $20.10 in the current sale you are paying sale price for the audio and motion layer on a camera system you have already committed to.

If you own neither, fly on a monitor, and want the most immersive setup available: buy both, but in this order — read Parallel 42's known limitations page first, then buy ChasePlane, then trial FSRealistic+ for seven days before paying for it. Doing it the other way round means spending $30 on the untrialable half first.

If you fly in VR: do not buy this. Not "wait and see" — do not buy it. ChasePlane does not support VR in MSFS 2024, Parallel 42 will not commit to a date, and FSRealistic Pro costs the same money and works. AJZip2 made this exact mistake in February and ended up happier with Pro.

If you are still on MSFS 2020: do not buy this either. It is MSFS 2024 only. Pro covers both.

If you own FSRealistic Pro, do not own ChasePlane, and are content with Pro: stay where you are. You would be spending roughly $38 to gain camera axes and spatial audio, and to lose VR. That is a bad trade unless you actively want a new camera system.

If you rely on the default replay system, GEES, night vision goggles, or an Xbox controller as your primary flight control: read the limitations page before you spend anything. The problem will not be FSRealistic+; it will be what ChasePlane switches off underneath it.

Where it stands today

FSRealistic+ is a better piece of software than FSRealistic Pro and a worse purchase than FSRealistic Pro, and both of those statements are about the same fact. rkApps built their new version on top of somebody else's camera engine because that is the only way to get motion on every axis, and Georgleboui made the fair point on 2 February 2026 that if you take ChasePlane out, what is left is spatial sound and custom sound support — real improvements, but not a new product. The dependency is honest engineering. It is also a $30 toll gate on a $29.99 add-on, in front of software that has been "experimental" for seven months and does not do VR.

The store ratings look better than that summary suggests, and they should be read with care. simMarket shows a flat "5" across 35 reviews; the actual spread is 33 five-star, one four-star and one three-star, which averages 4.91. Contrail shows 5.0 across five votes. But eight of the ten most recent simMarket reviews were posted on 23 and 24 February 2026, launch week, by people who had already chosen to own ChasePlane. They are not a sample of everyone who considered this product. The AVSIM thread, where the people who declined also get a vote, is where the fifteen likes went to a post explaining why someone would not buy it.

Right now the arithmetic is at its friendliest all year: the 33% August sale runs to the end of the month and brings FSRealistic+ to $20.10, so the full new-buyer entry is $50.10 rather than $59.98. If you already own ChasePlane, none of the above applies to you and you should stop reading and go and buy the upgrade. If you do not, wait for VR, wait for ChasePlane to lose the word "experimental", or buy FSRealistic Pro and be done — it is the same price, it works everywhere, and by the account of the one person in our sources who tried both routes in the same week, it is still great.