If you have ever had any interest in vintage aircraft and somehow missed picking up the Fokker F.VII, this is your week. Microsoft has made Local Legend 02 available for free in the Microsoft Flight Simulator in-game Marketplace from today until May 12 at 8am PT, as a nod to Australian aviation history alongside the release of World Update 21: Australia.
The connection runs deeper than just releasing both things on the same day. In June 1928, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew flew a Fokker F.VIIB-3m named the Southern Cross from Oakland, California to Brisbane, completing the first ever transpacific flight from the United States to Australia. The crossing took 83 hours and 38 minutes across three legs, via Hawaii and Fiji.
Three months later, Kingsford Smith flew the same aircraft across the Tasman Sea, completing the first crossing between Australia and New Zealand and back. The Southern Cross is now preserved in Brisbane, and Kingsford Smith remains one of the most celebrated figures in Australian aviation history.
The Fokker F.VII itself has been part of MSFS since World Update 7: Australia back in February 2022, when it arrived as the second Local Legend alongside the original Australian scenery update, developed at the time by Orbx. It includes the Southern Cross livery as part of the package, which makes flying it across the new Australian photogrammetry added in World Update 21 a particularly satisfying combination.
The free window is short. Head to the in-game Marketplace now and add the F.VII to your library before May 12 at 8am PT. Once it is in your account, it is yours permanently.
