This blew my mind. I was cheating - obviously - by refuelling a couple of times to reach McMurdo station with the Skyhawk from NZQN to NZPG, which is around 2K nms. Terrible weather, gusts over 60 kts occasionally. The last 200nm showed how little satellite information MSFS is working with in Antarctica, almost uniform sheet of white, blurred mountain edges, overly sharp sea shore. I put the skis down and landed next to NZPG location which had an almost rectangular building sitting on the snow. I felt happy that I found at least something there after such a long journey. Then I took off to explore the nearby area before I called it a day. And then I saw the wind turbines and eventually, the station. Obviously these are not perfect, but still, how amazing is this? MSFS rules.
Just a heads up, if youāre interested
I donāt understandā¦ Aerosoft sold a beautiful recreation of McMurdo and many other Antarctica airports and facilities for FSX. It used to be one of my favorite go-to places when I flew FSX (for almost 10 years).
Then a few days ago, I went searching for McMurdo on the MSFS world map and could only find the Rothera base. I started a flight from there and it wasnāt too bad but the surrounding area was arcade-like in every way!
Has no one made an addon scenery for McMurdo? I have the Orbx Mesh for Antarctica but is anyone planning to bring some talent to this area?
Aerosoft had penguins and even some Leopard Seals, as well as the 2-season activity changes, cargo ships, snow and ice machines running 24/7, etc., etc., etc. I need to login to Aerosoft and ask why they canāt bring in some of that FSX scenery to MSFS.
To be honest, Iāve been flying MSFS since 10-2022 and have been disappointed. MSFS seems to have limitations applied that keep 3rd-party developers from bringing in some of the best aircraft and scenery that Iāve ever owned when I flew FSX.
In fact, I only recently found out that I can install my FSX Deluxe Gold DVDs (along with the Acceleration Pack) into Windows 10. Back when I had Windows 7, word was that FSX wouldnāt run on Windows 10 so I didnāt switch my O/S to Win 10 Pro until 08 or 09-2022.
In the 9+ years that I owned FSX, I invested a lot of money in 3rd-party addons, (Iām talking about easily more than $3.5K USD). I was a āhard-coreā āFSXerā and it sickened me to have to leave it all behind.
Anyway, Iāve given it a lot of thought and decided to pitch MSFS and reinstall FSX. However, I canāt have them both on one computer.
My choices are to build another computer thatās as powerful as the one Iāve built to fly MSFS, (which cost me around $8K), or do a complete removal of all the MSFS software. That would include removing all the XBOX, MS Game, MS Store, and all that other background, superfluous, ā ā ā ā that I had to accept when I purchased MSFS. (Iām not a āgamerā and donāt intend to be)
Iām presently ceasing all purchases for additional addons to MSFS. It would cost me more to build another computer than it would to remove MSFS. So, I think Iām going to put MSFS on a shelf but it isnāt as easy as it sounds.
In the past 5 months, Iāve purchased enough addons to make me have to worry about how I can backup the the products I bought and to keep my assigned user keys and authorizations. The products I bought through Orbx would be in their records.
But the ones I bought through the MSFS MarketPlace could give me a problem because they didnāt send any keys. They sent the transaction receipts, but how long will they keep a record of themā¦
I donāt knowā¦ Maybe I will build another computer instead. Iāve been preparing sales adds for a lot of my previous hardware. Iāve taken photos and Iām working on a āBare-Bonesā combination ad that would allow the buyer to select from 7 different combinations.
I only have one CPU and one CL Cooling system to sell. But the the CPU and Closed-loop Cooling system would be a standard inclusion, (the āfoundationā of the sale). The buyer would only need to chose between two Motherboards, two GPUs, and two 16GB Ram systems to add to the deal.
The problem is that I donāt think Mercari has an option for that kind of combo offer and Iām not so sure eBay will allow it. Even though the way I see it, my Bare-Bones Combo deal would be a lot like someone selling a particular shoe style.
Theyād offer the shoe style in a variety of colors and sizes and perhaps a selection of laces to choose from. Some color and size choices would affect the price.
In my sale, Iām offering an Intel i7-4790K and Cooler Master closed loop system and allowing the buyer to select from 2 motherboards, Graphic Cards and Ram.
It works out to 7 different possible combinations and the price would depend on the combination they choose. Wow! I went way off topic!! 
ANYWAY, does anyone know if thereās an MSFS 3rd-party addon for McMurdo Station coming out anytime soon?!
Rich
Thereās a flightsim.to addon for various airfields around Antarctica, just look up āAntarcticaā and youāll see it. One of the airports is the new Phoenix Field at McMurdo, which is the airport that handles the heavies of the US Antarctic Program.
Are you saying this out of a principle reason, or that thereās some technical reason preventing this? I ask because I have both MSFS and FSX installed on the same system and they both run fine. I donāt have a DVD drive, so I did have to download an ISO file of FSX, but I still had the box and insert with the key that activated it.
Thank you! Iāll check them out ASAP. Iām familiar with flightsim.to and have downloaded numerous addons from them, but for some reason, I never thought to check them out and a general key-word search in my browser never pointed to them. So, Iāll take your advice!
Rich
Well Eefoe,
Itās a matter of resources. I have 8 internally mounted drives. One is a 1TB SATA NVMe dedicated to the MSFS installation only. Then I have one 1TB SATA, and six 500GB SATAās.
All have no more than 50% of space left on any of them, (Iām a photographer and deal with large files).
I donāt use cloud-sourced programs or operations, (I just donāt trust them. What can I say, Iām āoldā). So, thatās the resource side of it. However, thereās the other junk that I really never liked; the XBox & MS Gaming apps.
I have the complete FSX DVD set and I NEVER had to install Xbox or MS Gaming related programs. I even had the Sata drive that was dedicated to FSX, which I kept, untouched. Iām pretty sure that I canāt run the FSX sim on Windows 10 directly from that drive.
It was created through the Windows 7 O/S so it would never work. But thereās a lot of little ātweaksā that I made to FSX over those years and I think I may be able to extract some of that data to tweak FSX as a fresh Win 10 installation.
Anyway, with at least $3500 in 3rd party addons installed over a 10-year period, I there may be a benefit to keep it for anything useful (some user-key information, fixes, etc.)
Whatever I can scavenge from it may be helpful if I find the need. Iām guessing that you have MSFS installed through a cloud source, yes?
I wish I would have installed a 2-TB NVMe drive before I started with MSFS but even if I wanted to transfer MSFS to a larger drive now, it seems to be somewhat tricky. Thereās more to it than clicking to change the drive MSFS is installed on.
My motherboard will accept up to 4 NVMe drives but only one will run at the max speeds the drive is capable of. It has to do with the PCIe slots and it all gets over my head pretty quick.
My memory of the limitations is foggy right now, (I havenāt looked into it in over a year), but the point is that the GPU and the NVMe speeds become limited depending on the slots chosen for the drive and/or how many are installed.
I know it can be done, but the limitations come into the process and frankly, I donāt need the hassle. Still, with 8 internally mounted drives, the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Formula doesnāt offer the ability to āturn offā any drives you arenāt going to use while running FSX or MSFS.
Asrock had that option for one of my older builds and I liked that. I wish Asus would have done it too.
Rich
Sorry, I ādriftedā thereā¦ Itās late and I lost my train of thought.
Rich
I canāt seem to get the Ocean Giant ship to show near McMurdo Station. Any ideas?