The AIRAC data must match an existing airport BGL file in the sim.
I learned a long time ago that if the physical airfield doesn’t exist as a BGL file, it will won’t get shown even if AIRAC says it’s there. There has to be a primary key, and in this case, it’s what’s understood to exist on the terrain, then overlay the Navigation data.
Similarly, if the BGL file is Overtaken By Events or more succinctly, the AIRAC data is newer than the BGL field, you will get mismatches - notably on Approaches as the usual situation is a runway closure or creation. That will show in digital FMS as being a missing Approach.
In your case, it’s the reverse, a BGL object exists where there shouldn’t be any. But the concept is the same - both data sets must reconcile.
Then there’s the additional complications of BlackShark making a pass to populate autogen SimObjects for airport buildings, but that’s a side issue.
At a larger level, this is exactly what the challenge is across the sim. Big Data. Reliance on OSM for autogen height maps is another example.
There’s no single system of record that can encompass all of those things, terrain, NavData, autogen height, etc. So the best anyone can do is take the most authoritative record sets and bang them up against each other. There will be data point integrity issues. There always is in Big Data.
I can’t speak about airports per se, but the plain-vanilla terrain, mapping, and scenery data that Bing gets borders on Paleozoic at times.
Case in point:
My “home airfield” while in Russia is Ostafyavo, (UUMO) and the local terrain and scenery shows roads that are just beginning construction, (the initial cuts and fills), that were actually finished over ten years ago and have been in active use since then.
I would not be surprised if airport data is similarly dated, at least in some cases with remote airfields.
For sure, I can see how outdated mapping data will influence what the sim renders for terrain.
What I find weird about my, specific, situation as mentioned in my OP, is the fact that the US Government’s Federal Aviation Administration database has this airfield clearly specified as Closed Indefinitely.
For the USA, I’d have thought there would be a regular cross-check of data for the sim whenever the navdata updates are issued.
Of course, errors occur and items can be missed due to a mistype or some other data entry mistake. Nonetheless, it still surprises me.
I had another person mention, (in reply to a comment I made in another thread about the same thing), that the NYC data was similarly dated, at least in certain respects.
The North Shore of Long Island has a number of notable omissions. The Shoreham Nuclear Power Station being entirely missing is one of them. The entirety of the Stony Brook University Campus, including their 40-or-so year old Medical Center, is also missing. And so on.
The South Shore is just as bad - the entire Robert Moses Causeway and the famous twin bridges are also conspicuous by their absence. This is tantamount to finding the Eiffel Tower missing in Paris, or the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty being missing in the NYC area.
IMHO, there may be more to this than just stale AIRAC data.
It’s always been a game of chase the current data. Satellite data and PG are particularly expensive, and not at all refreshed on a regular cycle. That’s in the hands of the providers, everyone who needs it needs to live with the data currency. And not all data is of sufficient fidelity to be sim usable. Mindful this is all being done for free as far as the sim users go. Jorg’s most recent presentation on Scenery was very enlightening on how the sausage is made.
I’ll second this. Data for my home city (CYGK) is 10 years old as well. There are a couple of bridges that were built here in the last decade. In the sim imagery, they’re just beginning the groundbreaking for the first, and that was back in 2013.
Bing already had newer data for this area at launch and has since been updated twice, with the current dataset being 2 years old. But the sim’s data has never been updated since launch outside of what was covered in the world updates.
But yes, what you’ll see for large parts of the world, the sim doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s in the real world (subject to the rules of the BGL files CasualClick mentioned) right now.
Since the lion’s share of the terrain and scenery data is live-streamed from their servers, why can’t they update it?
Even if they decided to do a full-up in-sim scenery update, and it would force another multi-day download, (like the original install does), I would go for it if it would do things like remove the last-century greenhouses being where a shopping mall is today and otherwise updating the base scenery.
It isn’t streamed from Bing servers. They did a capture of the Bing servers at some point early in development, and that’s what’s streamed to us by the MSFS servers. We don’t get streamed live Bing data.
They update areas with the various world udpates. But at this point, the data in the sim is getting to be downright ancient. It really needs to be updated with current data. But unless an area is covered by a world update, it’s not looking good. I’m wagering that 5+ years from now, my area (even though it’s a reasonably populated area in Canada) is still going to be on the same outdated data.
The airfield even though it is “Closed Indefinitely” is still in the FAA airport database as you described. As long as it is known to the FAA, it will appear in the AIRAC data, therefore distributed to all AIRAC users such as MSFS and Navigraph. The “Closed Indefinitely” statement is in the Airport Remarks which I assume is not included in the AIRAC data. The airport owner might be keeping the airport in the FAA database for legal or tax reasons we are not privy to.
Since the airport is still in the FAA data and the airport is clearly visible in aerial photos, MSFS (and Navigraph) correctly includes the airport even though it is “Closed Indefinitely”.
Your flight planning is very good checking the airport status before flying to it.
What I have found is Airfield condition relates closely with SkyVector.
It would not surprise me if SkyVector’s details are layered onto the terrain.
Also, on the Airfield’s info page, there is a list of fields with Instrument Procedures.
Where I am, central UK, this list corresponds with MSFS fields with ATC.
All smaller fields with AFIS are silent in MSFS. Not even a weather report.
