There are so many payware airports out there, and I can understand people wanting to buy them for better realism. Some folks like to move a drone through a terminal and people watch. Some, mostly airliner guys (I’m not,) want more functionality, like accurate jetways.
To me, an airport is a place to land and take off from. I’d rather spend my money on better airplanes.
I bought my first marketplace airport (KSEZ) because it was on sale, promised amazing fidelity, and was rated 5/5. I flew a drone through the terminal and…meh.
I’m not saying it was a waste of money. It was kind of neat. But that’s all it was.
Maybe I’d have a different point of view with some other, larger airport.
This depends. Some payware airports are quite mediocre but even in that case they are still better than the default ones. Default ones don´t even have accurate taxiways nor parking markings in many cases (markings are not straight for instance). On the other hand airport lights are terribly placed (taxiway lights not aligned with taxiway markings for instance). Having generic buildings can be ok, but in my opinion the airport layout should be correct to a relevant extent and not just something basic that pretends to be an airport placeholder.
I’m all for buying them if they have a more accurate representation of the important aspects of the airport, like runways, taxiways, and terminal buildings plus associated things.
But I couldn’t care less if it has a fully realised gift shop, or has patrons eating at a restaurant. I am never going to see that from the cockpit, and would likely only drone camera over to look at it once.
I think their resources would be better spent elsewhere, really. Local buildings you can see on approach for example, anything that might assist with VFR navigation, that kind of thing.
Airports shouldn’t be some rectangular boxes, they should represent the real life when it comes to runways, taxiways, terminal buildings and all the equipment available.
I want to come to an airport and feel I’m arriving to a proper airport, not some lifeless place full of rectangular boxes.
I only buy airports within a certain range of my PC-21, usually less than 1 hour flights, so I can create a network of airports I can visit whenever I want.
If you are going to fly out of the same airport daily, it might make sense to upgrade from the generic–especially if you like floatplanes. I’ve bought a handful of them, but none are installed.
Makes sense. I do want to start flying my floatplane (Kodiak 100 Amphibious and maybe some day I’ll tackle the Latécoère 631 ) Better docks seems like a good place to spend some airport money.
I like to fly out of KSEZ a lot, which is why I bought it.
I’m with you on that. I’ve purchased few airports since I don’t care about them much other than takeoff and arrival. But that’s why there’s chocolate and vanilla…
I fly mostly VFR in the same few areas; learning the airspaces, visual landmarks, wind and weather patterns, and layouts of the local airfields is a really fun part of the experience. A more thoroughly fleshed out airport, when I fly in and out of it dozens or hundreds of times over its lifetime, is a more fun and educational experience.
I didn’t think buying airports could be worth it initially, given the cost. But then some of the airports I did want to fly to were so badly done by the AI that I got a couple, then they were so much nicer to fly to/from I now have a good range of airports around the world (since I do fly everywhere). I now almost always fly between 3rd party or Asobo airports and avoid autogen, to me it really makes the flight so much nicer.
Obviously if I’m bush flying VFR then it doesn’t matter.
I do have add on airfields but, like others, only if it is going to add something to my VFR, low and slow experience. Most of the add ons have been from Flightsim.to, so have only cost me a donation to the dev (Duxford in the UK is fantastic and RAF Stations Valley and Honington are pretty good too). I did buy Mt Cooke in NZ as I was using that as my base for NZ exploration and the default was/is(?) abysmal.
I have tons of addon airports and the reason is the same as why I prefer the PG regions over AI generated areas. They are closer to what is actually there in reality – or at least they should be.
The only place I get airports from are world updates and flightsim.to. I would personally never pay for one. When I spend money I do on airplanes (the high fidelity ones) and global tools like the avaiworx panels or FS-FLIGHTCONTROL.
I don’t really need a perfect replica of all the airports surrounding and especially the interior. I don’t look at it anyway. If the terminal looks convincing and there are signs and markers on the taxiways that’s good enough for me
I have countless free higly rated airports collected from flightsim.to, I organize them into folders for geographic areas and use add ons linker to link in only ones where I plan to fly. I end up randomly seeing or visiting these airports in my travels when I get to exploring a given country or region and it has always added a bit of delight as I can tell the difference vs auto generated ones.
I’ve also bought quite a few airports for certain places I like to fly on a regular basis and have improved scenery, especially in areas where there is good photogrammetry nearby and adding a more detailed airport makes it seem even better.
I don’t care much about airport interiors, though I enjoyed exploring the novelty of the Boeing factory at Renton.
I don’t mind buying nice airport add ons but do think often they are overpriced, they should not cost as much as aircraft, I am more likely to buy it if it doesn’t seem like a price gouge or money grab.
This is a good question. Caveat - most of my opinion will apply to GA flying.
The big factors as to whether an add-on is worth it is whether it will vastly improve some sort of recent layout change (like new runways or expansion) that isn’t yet in the sim, or whether the add-on will include something that makes the airport unique enough to notice (or even attract as a destination) in real-life. Thinking things like restaurants, unique GA terminal buildings, or the quirky, full-airport experiences at legendary destination airports. You get a lot of these on the west coast - Avalon, Big Bear, Oceano, Tahoe, Half Moon, Agua Dulce, even the larger GA relievers like Gibbs, SMO, San Luis Obispo, etc. Mountain airports in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, that sort of thing. Then you want your “home” airports to look good - if you’re always using an airport as a hub of your flying, sim only, but especially as it pertains to those who fly in the real world.
As I don’t fly airliners much (and when I do, I’m almost always simulating a charter flight), the expansions focused mostly on international airports, large passenger terminals, and all the eye candy you see there just don’t really excite me. Maybe that’s in part due to the frame hits those generate, haha.
There is room for global improvement on the AI stuff, placement and type of lighting, etc. I have several wishlist threads open on that. But I get that it was AI and it’s going to take a major rework to fix it.
Well I’ve never bought an airport or even a scenery for flight sim except that Global Trees for X-System and the freeware We love VFR. The only thing I wanted were airplanes. I simply cannot get the entire world so I don’t care to upgrade an airport or two.
Well I kinda did until the recent release of the payware East Midlands airport (EGNX). The environmental immersion the developer has created is superb. Some of the developers need to up their game and im not on about internal terminal modelling.
) Better docks seems like a good place to spend some airport money.
