Please tag your post with either msfs-2020 or msfs-2024 if you would like to discuss a specific sim.
I know this has been covered occasionally in the past, but time and third-party airports march ever onwards…
I’m interested to hear opinions on what third-party airports are worth the asking cost over Asobo’s own hand-crafted versions for the UK & Ireland, either the stuff they bundled with the core/premium/deluxe versions (eg Heathrow) or the various airports added during World Updates (Liverpool, Cardiff, Farnborough, etc)?
Very good question, I would like to know too. I am always worried that 3rd party airports will cause CTD’s.
I would also like to know whether once purchasing them, do you have to do something to the Asobo airport or does it just disappear on its own.
@Doehead If you are nervous about spending money on payware airports for the UK (or elseware), why don’t you try some the hundreds of legit freeware airports available on flightsim.to?
Many of them can equal the best payware in quality, and I have never experienced any crashes or other major issues with ones I have tried.
I’m not nervous at all, and already have a good number of very high quality payware (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aldergrove, Leeds, Birmingham) and freeware (Gatwick, many other small Scottish airports) options. I was just wondering which upgrades over the hand-crafted Asobo ones are worthwhile.
To answer your other question, it’s easy enough in 2020 to just disable any built in airports in order to allow a thirty party (either from the marketplace or elsewhere) to not clash with it. You just use the content manager in the options/profile bit of the main menu.
Not sure how it works in 2024 as they’re streamed by default but I’m sure something similar is possible.
There are only a few hand-crafted UK/Ireland airports that have payware alternatives: Heathrow, Cardiff, Liverpool, Farnborough, Stansted, Barra and Cork. The payware version of each is better than its default equivalent, however to what degree is subjective. Only IniBuilds’ Heathrow is significantly better than the default, largely because Heathrow was one of Asobo’s earliest (and therefore most basic) hand-crafteds.
This isn’t objectively true, I’m afraid — with all due respect to those who offer their work (and time) for free, the very best freeware isn’t in the same ballpark as the very best payware. If it were, third-party devs would make very few sales.
Thanks for that. There’s a few more I think (Sumburgh, Donegal, Land’s End) but they’re all fairly small and it sounds like Heathrow is the only one really worth bothering with anyway. My wallet thanks you
Yeah, I knew I’d forgotten a couple. The payware Land’s End really isn’t any better, and I’d say the hand-crafted Sumburgh is in fact superior to the ageing Orbx version. I did think about Donegal but wasn’t aware a payware version was released in June. It doesn’t look great, though.
The later hand-crafteds are obviously all by Gaya, who’ve a track record of producing good quality airports.
Ini’s latest EGLL, for FS2024, is definitely far superior to the Asobo version, and the difference in performanmce is negligible.
There are also some excellent smaller devs who create niche or very localised scenery that’s easily on a par with the work of any of the above:
AeroDesigns (New England)
AUScene (Australia)
Burning Blue (UK & US GA airfields)
Digital Design (UK, Germany, Russia)
Dreamflight (US & Mexico)
FSimStudios (Canada)
Impulse Simulations (Australia)
Lisium (Baltics)
M’M Simulations (smaller European airports)
MXI (Greece, Turkey & the Balkans)
Northern Sky (Alaska & Hawaii)
NZA Simulations (Australia & NZ)
RealVFR (UK)
Siamflight (Thailand)
WF Scenery Studio (China)
For North Africa, you’re mainly looking at Azrsim, FSDG and Sim Design group, but none deliver the same quality as those listed above.
There are a few devs who are worth watching as they’ve demonstrated significant improvement lately. The nmost prominent of these I’d say is TaiModels but their early work is poor.
Thanks so much for this list. It’s quite worrying when you aren’t aware of the good airport devs. Aircraft I’m familiar with but not these. So Thanks again
You can always post in these forums if you’re unsure about a purchase. There’ll typically be someone who’s got the scenery in question (and therefore able to offer advice). Just be aware that some very detailed airports might work well for those with the latest high-end hardware, but not so well for anyone with an older or otherwise less capable machine.
