Choose a place.
Search a city, enter a grid or place a launch point. Set the time of day, weather and wind over streamed terrain.
KESTREL / Windows alpha
Build your aircraft.
Take the controls.
An FPV simulator built around your aircraft. Choose the parts, connect your controls and fly over streamed scenery.
Free public alpha. Windows x64. Internet required for streamed terrain; coverage varies.
Discuss a licence or trialMake it your aircraft.
Build it. Set it up.
Take it flying.
Choose a build, check your controls and find a place to fly.
Build for the flight.
Configure an aircraft from part specifications. Save the build and carry its predicted performance into pre-flight.
Review your flight.
Open a recorded flight with playback controls, camera views and telemetry. Flight Review preserves the distinction between recorded and simulated data.
The parts change the flight
Not every aircraft
flies the same.
Frame, motor, propeller and battery choices shape the simulation. Build the combination you want to fly.
Performance predictions are simulation aids, not validated real-aircraft performance.
How to get it
Free to download. Unit licences and trials by conversation.
The public alpha is the whole simulator, not a demo.
- Download the ZIP (about 680 MB).
- Right-click it and choose Extract All.
- Run KESTREL.exe from the extracted folder. The build is not publisher-signed. If Windows or your organization blocks it, keep the exact message and ask the project or your administrator for a supported installation path. Do not disable protections.
- Public alpha
- Free. v0.44.2 for Windows x64, about 680 MB, from GitHub.
- Unit licences
- For a unit or training team. No public price: talk to us.
- Trials
- A fixed-price trial built around your own training area. Talk to us.
- You need
- A Windows PC, internet access for streamed terrain, and a keyboard, gamepad or USB radio.
The Windows package is not publisher-signed. Use it only where that is permitted, and don’t disable protections to run it.
Bring your controls
Keyboard, gamepad or your own radio.
Calibrate flight axes, set inversion and rates, and save the setup. A radio that presents as a USB joystick works as a controller. Device support varies.
Review a flight
Flight Review opens ArduPilot DataFlash logs and replays the flight in the simulator, with camera controls and telemetry. Replay height is relative to launch, not a surveyed reconstruction.
Know the limits before you download
What works today, and what doesn’t yet.
The v0.44.1 release passed package checks and an upgrade from v0.44. See the release notes for validation details. Every controller, display and aircraft combination has not been tested.
In the package
- Parts-based aircraft with saved builds and your own parts catalogs.
- City, grid or coordinate search with a movable launch pin.
- Configured time of day, weather and wind.
- Mission Builder with import and export, and scored runs.
- Keyboard, gamepad and USB-joystick radios.
- Experimental LAN hosting, discovery, direct-IP connection, lobby and Ready controls.
- Six configurable keyboard or digital gamepad actions: map, camera tilt up/down, restart, view and motor arm/disarm. Radio-button binding is limited to map.
- Flight Review of ArduPilot logs.
Not finished
- Two-PC multiplayer validation; experimental LAN is included.
- Complete input rebinding; six actions are configurable today.
- TAK or ATAK integration.
- A live-mission C2 overlay.
- Calibrated real-aircraft performance. The flight model is not validated against real flights.
- Live weather, or online address lookup.
Streamed terrain needs internet access and provider coverage.
Your next flight starts here.
KESTREL is free to download as an alpha. For unit licences or a pilot on your own training area, talk to us.