I thought I’d make a topic about JoinFS as a few people have asked about it, especially when we talk about doing group flights.

JoinFS is a small program that allows pilots to connect their simulators together so they can see each other flying in the same session. It’s mainly used by flight sim communities when they want to fly together but don’t want to rely on the built-in multiplayer. The nice thing about it is that it works across different simulators, so someone flying in Microsoft Flight Simulator can still appear in the same session as someone using X-Plane or Prepar3D. It’s also very lightweight and usually runs quietly in the background once it’s connected.

A lot of groups like using JoinFS because aircraft movement tends to be smooth and it works well for things like formation flying or organised events.

Getting JoinFS
JoinFS itself is free and can be downloaded from the official site: https://www.joinfs.net/en/

Just download the version that matches your simulator and run the installer like any normal program. Once installed you can start JoinFS and then launch your simulator as usual. When JoinFS opens it should automatically detect your simulator. If everything is working correctly you’ll see the simulator connection showing as active in the JoinFS window.

Connecting to a session
JoinFS uses something called hubs, which are basically shared sessions that people can connect to. Some hubs are public and some are private depending on the group running the flight. Once you connect to a hub you should start seeing other aircraft appear in your simulator. From that point you simply fly normally as you would on any flight, but other pilots in the session will appear around you in the simulator.

Model Matching
One thing people sometimes notice is that aircraft might not always appear exactly as another pilot is flying.

This is called model matching.

JoinFS will try to show an aircraft that is similar to the one the other pilot is using. If you don’t have that aircraft installed, it will substitute something close instead. For example, if someone is flying a 737 but you don’t have that exact aircraft, you might see another type of airliner instead.

You can improve this by scanning your aircraft folders inside JoinFS so it knows which models you have available. The more aircraft you have installed, the better the matching usually becomes.

Final thoughts
Overall JoinFS is a really useful little tool if you enjoy flying with other people. It doesn’t take much to set up and once it’s running you hardly notice it. It’s especially useful for community flights, formation flights, or when a group of people want to fly together in the same area.

If people are interested I can also post another topic with some extra tips and settings that help get the most out of it. DOwnload today: https://www.joinfs.net/en/