I now wonder if this may be why some airstrips in the sim seem impossible to visually identify? Although I would think the AI would at least make it look like a grass airstrip.
I believe the AI worked by combining both Bing aerial imagery and airport data (from whatever data source was used), however they needed both for it to work (so the AI knew what to put where). This was run a long time ago and isn’t regularly updated, this is where the World Hub will come in.
When airports are missing it’s generally because they weren’t in that data, or have poor aerial imagery so the AI can’t ‘see’ exactly where the airport should go (for example, there’s a lot missing in Nunavut Territory, Canada due to poor aerial imagery).
Here’s my two questions. First, is it true that these changes will be downloaded in the form of updates to everyone, not just those who request them? So if someone makes an update to an airport that is technically correct but could have been done better, will I be forced to accept it? Of if they add a lot of workers, airport vehicles, and other items and it just doesn’t look right or causes performance problems, what are our options? I assume that I’ll be able to use the SDK to create my own version that would overlay it on my local PC only and “repair” the issue as we do today.
Also, what if “Bob” makes an update, then when “Mike” sees it, declares that the changes that were made (for example, a new hangar) aren’t exactly correct - the color might be off, the size, etc. So Mike goes in and makes his own update - then Bob sees it and decides his was correct and uploads his change again, etc etc etc. Hopefully the staff won’t have to resolve these issues.
Many farmer’s fields if plowed a certain way look like grass airstrips.
Tough one as it could always be done better. But it’s not hard to beat the AI. Well, it’s hard to fix the AI’s work but easy to make it better.
I suspect there won’t be nearly enough developers skilled enough with the SDK and demand for hand fixed airports will be high.
I’m debating on weather or not to do the ones I’ve made, I’d probably simplify the work and keep the published ones for the extra polish.
Many scenery developers also seem to put more work into the 3D models and not the airports. I suspect they won’t be jumping to do basic airport work.
This all should be good news for XBox users who can’t currently load community content.
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Well, one thing that MSFS gets right with the default airports is that grass strips are not stuck on ‘bowling-green’ rectangles like in FSX and predecessors. They just use the underlying Bing Maps imagery - with (I think) shorter 3D grass than most other places. The runway is effectively invisible (not an overlaid object), but still exists with its usual parameters (length, width, heading etc.) which is how you can spawn on it and how the game knows you’ve landed on it etc.
This works well for grass strips that are still there for real. And I really like that airfields are hard to spot vs sims of old.
Sometimes the ‘trimmed grass’ strip (likely taken from a database of airport info or AIRAC) doesn’t quite align with the aerial imagery, which shows white-painted numbers a little off to the side in very long grass.
I don’t think any airfield data was purely derived byAI. All of the airfields in the game likely came from some kind of database or an old AIRAC cycle. The AI was likely only used to place the buildings and other visual elements, and remove static aircraft from the aerial images (which it occasionally failed at).
Yes, that’s how it will work I’m sure, based on past Q&As. There will be some form of moderation so you shouldn’t receive updates which cripple your PC. Only default library objects can be used anyway, no fancy custom 3D buildings. Where two people (Bob & Mike) ‘fight’ over an airport, that remains to be seen. But airfields won’t be getting updating every day. You’ll get updates in batch when there are sim or world updates, I believe.
If you make your own scenery and put it in the community folder, it will take precedence over the default scenery just as it does now, so that will always be possible.
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It will be interesting! I’ve purchased airports in the past and have been disappointed to find much of the same misplaced mess. Most free community ones are very well done.
I get it as many people probably don’t want to pay for correct taxi signs, misplaced lighting being removed, accurate glide slopes, accurate parking, runway and approach lighting, etc.
I may actually do a few as I wouldn’t have to stress about getting a 3 or 4 star review for not having custom 3D assets.
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Interesting. That’s not how I interpret it at all. It seemed to me the World Hub is to work like the Ex-Plane “scenery gateway,” where it’s all an optional download. Airports get “checked out” by people to avoid conflicting versions in parallel, and they have a time limit to update, and submit for approval. Instead of using a program like WED in Ex-Plane, supposedly the default library objects will be increased/improved, and it will be easier to update the airports.
I guess we’ll see, when we see. LOL.
I checked this and it seems we are both correct - airport updates for XP from the Scenery Gateway were optional downloads, but some submissions would become “recommended” and would then be included in the next update as part of the default scenery. So, the user changes were both mandatory and optional at the same time! 
I won’t link the page but here’s the relevant explanation:
Approved (This airport submission has been approved as suitable for inclusion in a future release of X-Plane. “Approved” submissions may be downloaded from the Gateway by X-Plane users. However, if there are multiple approved submissions for the same airport, only the “Recommended” submission is a candidate to appear in a future release of X-Plane.)
Recommended (Denoted with a star in the adjacent column – this airport submission has been recommended for inclusion in a future release of X-Plane. Airport submissions that are “Recommended” at the moment of capture will appear in the next release of X-Plane.)
I completely forgot that if you upload an airport to the XP scenery gateway, you lose control over it, and Austin can put it into the base game through an update. Good point.
The airport object does have a closed property in the SDK. Although that isn’t the same as deleted.
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