Could the "World Hub" be used to delete non-existent airports?

Discussion Hub General Discussion
1

I’m not sure if this can be answered ahead of time, but I think it’s a very valid question.

MSFS receives navigation database updates, but the airport database is sorely out-dated. As a predominently GA flyer, often utilising grass airstrips, it’s not uncommon to find that airfields in the MSFS database (and on the world map) do not actually exist in the game - at least as far as the scenery goes. There may be houses or warehouses where a grass strip used to be. Sure, there is ‘technically’ a runway (and possibly some parking spots) in the world as far as the game is concerned, even if the player cannot see it to land on!

So with my justifications laid out, my question is:

Since the World Hub will allow people to edit and submit their changes for existing airports, could it also be used to allow people to nominate default airfields for deletion?

If this is unknown, or confirmed as not possible, then I propose to move this post to the Wishlist category for voting :slightly_smiling_face:

Allow Deletion of Closed (non-existent) Airports via 'World Hub'
Scenery Gateway System - World Hub
2

Wouldn’t it be better to make any runways like that visually better instead of deleting them? Until we know the depth of what can be done in the tool though, it’s impossible to answer one way or the other.

3

I agree, it makes much more sense to fix the runways by removing the buildings with an exclusion box, rather than deleting the airfield. If the airfields are still there in real life that is!

The only thing we know for definite in terms of what will be possible and what won’t be, is that it is going to be using SDK features to edit the airports, however which of those features we will have access to and everything else is unknown

4

Sure, if the airfield is still there then users are going to fix it with the World Hub in time. But I have visited many airfields that show on the MSFS world map which are not there any more. The aerials (which are more up to date than the airport database) might contain a new housing estate (but no 3D buildings), or a car park, or something else.

While you can land on the car park, to which MSFS thinks you have landed on the “runway” because it exists in the database in that place, but it would make much more sense to remove that airfield from the database so it no longer shows on the world map, and is no longer used by programs that read the database, such as Little Navmap and so on.

Perhaps I come across this problem a little more than average because I often use Air Hauler 2 to generate flights for me, and I suspect it’s similar for users of other apps such as FSEconomy or NeoFly and so on.

5

I know of four “airstrips” in the MSFFS database and on the World Map but do not exist scenery-wise nor in AIRAC. They are: KBRI, KNII, KVER, KVEV. There may be others. Apparently whenever a new AIRAC is installed, anything not in the AIRAC but in the MSFS database isn’t removed.

6

I don’t believe the AIRAC cycle adds or removes airfields anyway? It may go so far as to renumber a runway (?) due to magnetic variation changes but it won’t cause any scenery to change in the sim. That’s beyond what’s included in the AIRAC data, as far as I know. Should airfields which are not in the AIRAC be removed? Maybe, but without seeing all the data it includes, it may be an overzealous option.

There are obviously reasons against having the airfield data continuously updated, due to there being no single data source for this, but the World Hub will solve that for the most part as the community can update airfields as differences are identified. I just hope it allows these errant airfields to be removed too.

I have looked previously for any existing lists of airfields that shouldn’t be in the sim, but found nothing. Perhaps we should start one!

7

The AIRAC is the World-wide one single source for aviation data, not only for flight sims but for IRL aviation databases and navigation equipment. It is updated and distributed on a regular cycle containing the information sent by each countries government aviation department, for example in the US it is the FAA.

MSFS processes the AIRAC data for use in the sim which is why there is a delay between the AIRAC publish date and when it is available in the sim.

8

I appreciate that, but surely the AIRAC alone does not contain sufficient data for updating MSFS’s airports in terms of scenery - which is why it is not used (as far as I know).

It may contain runway locations and sizes, and taxiway designations and their general locations, but I am guessing it doesn’t contain all the information that is required to display an airport correctly in MSFS, including things such as windsock locations and building layouts, because we would end up with some kind of hybrid mess between old data sources and new AIRAC data? Some of the airport data must be sourced elsewhere and that’s what is so out-of-date in places.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but given how many people reported incorrectly designated taxiways and missing or obsolete airfields, I don’t think MSFS is fully using the AIRAC data…

9

AIRAC is a file containing aeronautical navigation information only. AIRAC has nothing to do with scenery, never has, never will.

It contains precise runway latitude/longitude, dimensions, composition, slope, lighting, runway heading, surface weight limits, runway markings, radio navigation frequencies, etc.

Well it is a hybrid mess! The was a developers video some time ago where the entire scenery process was presented and described the roles of the various subcontractors such as Blackshark. The scenery info is sourced from many different places and there are multiple processing steps to clean up the scenery and merge it into existing scenery. It is a thankless, never-ending job! Part of the scenery cleanup is to translate runway approach lights described as “MALSR 1,400 Foot Medium-intensity Approach Lighting System with runway alignment indicator lights” into scenery that matches this description.

Taxiways, gates, missing airports, obsolete airports are issues that are being addressed by Asobo. Taxiway designations used to be unusable. Now to me they seem up-to-date. Sim Update Release Notes sometimes contain lists of added airports that were missing. Meanwhile obsolete airstrips are great for creating adventure missions because they aren’t on any chart.

I have no idea what AIRAC data MSFS uses or doesn’t use. Runway weight bearing capacity probably isn’t used by MSFS. Landing a 747 on a small runway isn’t going to buckle or break it. The condition of a runway surface probably isn’t used. What does a poor surface look like?

10

Having it line up with the point in time for the MSFS scenery must also be a challenge. The Bing data being fed into MSFS seems to be older than what you get from the live Bing maps.

As a human, you can see where the PAPI lights are and their types, windsocks, etc. The Blackshark AI isn’t going to be taking away airport scenery developer’s job any time soon. I’d be thrilled if it could tell the difference between trees and buildings and stop making some of those hybrid tree-building monstrosities.

Then there is the SDK. I swear the vegetation AI tool places the tallest trees center line on the runway. No matter what properties you give that thing, bam big tree. Nothing you do short of stripping all vegetation can stop it.

After doing airport work, I often find myself seeing all the mistakes scenery developers are making around airports. They make nice 3D models and buildings, but then make a mess of the airport basics. It’s usually more so on paid content too. :frowning:

11

I think there are a few types that seem to impact sound (and possibly friction?). But the SDK is very limited and offers no ability to customize any of that. But it will put challenging trees at the approach ends.

12

This conversation got a little more ‘passionate’ than I expected, though I appreciate your input. Based on how the conversation had been going, it sounded like some people thought the AIRAC updates would update the airport database in MSFS. I have not really seen any evidence that it does. It seems to update everything BUT the airports. Which is why we still have lots of errors with airports. Whether they are missing, or obsolete, or use incorrect frequencies or what-have-you.

So that was my only point - regular AIRAC updates are not giving us a world of up-to-date airports. About that point, I think we can all agree :slight_smile:

Some of the AIRAC data could be used to drive the scenery generation in the sim, despite the fact it “has nothing to do with scenery” as you said. I never meant to imply it contained scenery information for a simulator, but our scenery is (or rather “was”) derived from it in part, likely combined with OSM data, some BlackShark AI algorithm and so on. I totally agree that it’s a thankless task to keep on top of, as you will never have data sources all with the same data etc.

So, my point in summary:

Since the regular AIRAC updates DO NOT update the default airports in an entirely satisfactory way, I hope the World Hub will let users nominate airports for deletion from the database, as well as changing what is already there or adding to it. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. The 50 people who may be trialling it might be under NDA so can’t comment anyway.

Just one example to illustrate my point. Here’s an airfield that existed about 6-7 years ago. It is in the MSFS database, shows in every GPS unit (and in my Little Navmap database), and is on the world map:

image
image931×434 39.4 KB

This is how it looks today AND how it looks in the sim, complete with huge warehouse:

image
image917×476 71.3 KB

So if you fly there, as you might using some auto-generated flight by an external app, or by picking it at random on the world map, you get a whole new kind of “landing challenge” :laughing: It simply needs removing from the sim’s database… I hope the World Hub gives us that chance.

Reporting such airports to Zendesk is not the answer. I reported several back in 2020 but they are all still there…

13

Me too… I’ve reported for one specific airport several scenery collisions that should not exist. One collision occurred when taxing to a gate, there was a huge corner of a terminal building right across the yellow taxi stripe preventing access to the assigned gate. I checked aerial images from Apple Maps, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Bings Maps. All show the corner of the building several yards away not blocking the taxiway. All of the maps showed the taxiway and assigned gate correctly.

Another collision instance occurred at the same airport where shipping containers and concrete divider barriers were placed across a taxiway. I reported this to ZenDesk but the “fix” moved the objects closer to the gate. These objects did not show up on any of the mapping programs I checked.

I don’t know how these bizarre scenery objects are created (along with trees, buildings, and rotating beacons in the middle of runways). My biggest fear for the World Hub is that it will be crushed by an overwhelming number of changes. I hope stress testing is performed before general release!

1 Like
14

I just had another thought about this, in the dev snapshot the ‘Missing Airports Sent to Zendesk’ bug thread says ‘Planned (World Hub)’. This implies that we will be able to add missing airports with the World Hub when it is released. So it’s not a stretch to hypothesise that we will be able to flag airports for deletion too!

1 Like
15

The sim scenery actually is several years out of date, so I’m not sure what the target would be for “current”. Even the Bing data fed into the sim is older than what you get on the web site.

Deleting might get controversial for people that want historical airports, such as Meigs. Although, they could be offered as free addons in the Marketplace.

16

Roughly nothing is known about the “world hub”. :smiley:

17

Haha, yes indeed, but there are always edge cases like that. At least it makes sense for the airport to be in the sim if you have installed it with the 40th anniversary content (can’t remember if it’s optional or not). If it is optional, then removing it from the ‘base’ scenery is no issue.

Approval will be needed for any changes anyway so we don’t have to worry about airports mysteriously vanishing in the night :wink:

Seems that way! I have watched all the dev Q&A sessions but haven’t watched all the SDK streams. I’m also not often browsing the forums these days so I just hoped someone might already know the answer as this feature nears release, but looks like we just have to wait and see.

Either way, deleting an airport is going to be a lot less work that updating an airport, so I’m good to get involved with that :laughing:

I’d like to try updating some too, in time. I dabbled with X-Plane’s scenery gateway a few years ago but didn’t really achieve much in the way of completed edits.

2 Likes
18

What I found interesting, especially in England, are the number of abandoned airstrips all around. You can see them, even land, but they aren’t listed.

19

This sounds like it would be a new feature. It’s quite possible you could make it look abandoned but like you said it would need to be marked as deleted so to get it off the list for ATC and potentially AI planes as well.

I wouldn’t hesitate with finding out about the World Hub, I would just raise this as a Wishlist straight away, if you get in first, then the team working on the World Hub are more likely to look at it sooner rather than later! :+1:

20

These old farm strips that no longer exist already look abandoned/invisible, it is just a case of erasing them from the database for ATC, AI, GPS systems and external apps.

As for the Wishlist, it’s probably too late to gain much traction now (and this is unlikely to race to the top of any charts), so let’s wait and see what options are available on release. If it’s not possible I’ll start banging the drum again later :slight_smile:

Yes, there are a huge number of old airbases from WWII which are distinctive and plain to see from the air.

Some are now business parks or warehouses, some are race tracks, some are solar farms, some are partially used for small flying clubs (usually listed in the sim then though), and some are simply abandoned. England was basically a giant aircraft carrier in the 1940’s…