Airside
Everything on this page may be quoted or reproduced. Last updated 6 September 2026.
Airside is an air traffic control simulator for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. You work the tower and the ground at any airport in the simulator: you sequence the departures, run the taxiways, and land the arrivals, and the aircraft do what you tell them.
Airside is an air traffic control simulator for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Every other product in the hangar puts you in the cockpit. This one puts you in the tower.
You work Ground and Tower together on one channel, the way a small field really works. You clear pushbacks, route aircraft across the taxiways, sequence departures and land arrivals, either by speaking on the microphone or by issuing from the strip. Every aircraft has a voice of its own and reads its clearance back.
The airport comes from the simulator itself, so any field it has, Airside can work. The voices and the speech recognition run on your own machine.
People who fly in Microsoft Flight Simulator and have spent years listening to controllers, and people who would rather run the airport than fly across it. No aviation background is needed: the tutorial teaches the phraseology, and it can only teach sentences the product understands.
| The aircraft obey | An instruction changes what an aircraft does, and a wrong instruction shows you what a wrong instruction does |
| You can just talk | Say it on the microphone and it is heard. Or issue it from the strip. You choose which when a shift starts, and the choice is not permanent |
| Crews that answer back | Every aircraft has a voice of its own and reads its clearance back. Fifty four voices, dealt so that one does not come back until the others have been heard |
| Any airport the simulator has | Real gates and stands, real taxiways, real runways, read from the simulator. Nothing is hand drawn for one field |
| It runs on your machine | The voices and the speech recognition are local. No account, no cloud, no charge per word |
| Launch price | €19.95, for the first 30 days |
| After that | €49.90 |
| Supporter edition | €99.90. The same product, plus a vote on what is built next, new versions before release, support messages at the front of the queue, a supporter role on the Discord, and a name in the credits. Nothing behind it changes what happens on the airfield |
| Licence | Perpetual. Not a subscription, no recurring charge |
| Computers | A set number at a time. Moving a licence to a different computer is something we do on request, once in any twelve months |
| Updates | Included, and not charged for |
| Sold by | Paddle.com Market Ltd as merchant of record |
Airside runs alongside Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. These are what it asks for on top of the simulator's own requirements.
| Operating system | Windows 10 or 11, 64 bit |
| Processor | No additional requirement |
| Graphics | No additional requirement |
| Memory | 2048 MB |
| Storage | 2 GB free |
| Sound | A microphone for voice mode. Click mode is the other of the two and works fully without one |
| Internet | Required at start up |
| Download | About 720 MB on first install |
Required: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, owned and installed. Airside controls the simulator and does not replace it.
Optional: FSLTL, as a source of airline models. Airside works fully with the simulator's own aircraft.
Sold direct at airsideatc.com. Release date not announced.
Airside publishes what it does not do, on the site and in the installer, rather than leaving it to be discovered: the jetway does not visibly move, wake turbulence is not simulated, taxi routes are read out by letter only at airports that publish taxiway names, and the simulator's own aircraft traffic has to be turned off. The full list is at airsideatc.com/known-limits.html.
Airside is made and published by an independent developer.
It uses Kokoro (Apache 2.0) for the crew voices, eSpeak NG (GPLv3, called as a separate program) for pronunciation, and Whisper (MIT) for speech recognition. All three run locally.
Airside is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Microsoft Corporation, Asobo Studio, or any airline, airport or aircraft manufacturer whose name or livery appears. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
| Title | Airside |
| Genre | Air traffic control simulator |
| Platform | Windows 10 and 11, 64 bit |
| Requires | Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 |
| Publisher | Self published |
| Sold through | Paddle.com Market Ltd, merchant of record |
| Price | €19.95 launch, €49.90 after, €99.90 supporter |
| Licence | Perpetual, updates included |
| Release date | Not announced |
| Languages | English |
| Download size | About 720 MB |
| Website | airsideatc.com |