Some aircraft arrive in Flight Simulator because a developer wanted to nail a specific Cessna rivet. This one arrives because someone grew up watching Macross. The Fan Racer, the small aerobatic aircraft flown by Hikaru Ichijo in the opening of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and by Rick Hunter for anyone who knew the show as Robotech, has been recreated for MSFS and released as a free download.
The release comes from Delmonte Simulations, which lists it plainly as the “FanRacer,” a high-performance light aircraft with a contra-rotating coaxial propeller. The store page never mentions Macross, which is expected for a fan recreation of another company’s intellectual property. Anyone who knows the series will recognize the shape on sight regardless: the canard foreplane, the twin ducted fans at the rear, the engine tucked behind the pilot, and that famous red and white racing scheme.
In the anime, the Fan Racer is a civilian racing aircraft with a 2,000 horsepower ceramic rotary engine driving a double fan, plus six rocket boosters set around the exhaust for short bursts of speed. Delmonte’s version leaves the boosters out and keeps the aircraft closer to something that could plausibly exist, which suits its real-world inspiration in the canard and pusher aircraft of the 1970s and 1980s. From a distance it looks like a fighter jet, then shows itself as a propeller aircraft once you get close.
Inside, the cockpit is a mix of eras in a way that fits the retro-futuristic source. There is a traditional six-pack of analog instruments sitting next to glass PFD and MFD displays, plus a pair of extra digital screens for the pilot. Delmonte says the layout was built around visibility and a strong sense of presence, and the instrument pedestal sits in an isolated, almost glider-like position. Systems include a working autopilot, two radios, and a transponder.
On the paint side, Delmonte includes the iconic red and white scheme along with several alternates in blue, yellow, black, and orange combinations, plus a plain white template for anyone who wants to roll their own liveries.
The FanRacer is native to MSFS 2020 and listed as compatible with MSFS 2024. As tends to happen with that arrangement, a few things behave differently between the two. Some cockpit lighting and certain digital panel brightness controls do not fully carry over to 2024, and a handful of ground features depend on the parking brake.
Being freeware, the FanRacer uses the simulator’s stock sounds rather than a custom audio package, which is worth setting expectations around for a fictional 2,000 horsepower engine.
The FanRacer is available now on flightsim.to for MSFS 2020 and 2024.
