I am in the infancy stage of organizing and co-producing a project to change this - it will be a huge investment but negotiations are ongoing - if enough simmers can show interest and support to get a Southern African (SADC) World Update for MSFS including high detailed bush strips and lodges that would help a lot. Let’s see how it goes… 
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I don’t know much about programming, but if I can help whichever way, I’m willing. Let me know. What interest are you talking about? Please, Please keep us posted on here.
I do not want to give too much detail at this stage - I thought I would chime in here just to get a feel and response of interest and support from the community. I do not know how far this will go, as we are African our resourses are a bit more limited - however once we get around that and have a green light to move forward, I will be looking for people that are local in the region for site photography and/or into 3D modelling. I have also contacted Dangerous Banana whom you most probably know from his great work on flightsim.to and he was also keen to play a part.
I started my aviation career as a bush pilot in this part of the world years ago and have many passionate ideas of what the region could bring to the Sim in terms of content.
We can use this thread to keep in touch and also show Microsoft/Asobo that we want support that Africa is on the map to be virtually represented.
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Some feedback - just came out of a teams meeting with Vexcel (Microsoft’s imaging partner) - due to lack of urbanization the surveying of higher photogrammetric image data of parks, nature and Geology has zero priority to get funding from their side. Unfortunately. A lot of wasted potential from my humble point of view.
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@V5ZEB: FYI, I’ve moved your posts into this new topic for you so not to go off-topic in the Wishlist topic you originally posted to. 
I don’t get it. It is MICROSOFT/OSOBO’s product. They should take ownership/responsibility to better their product.
This thing goes beyond Microsoft Asobo unfortunately. I did have brief contact with Jörg Neumann about this before the publishing of MSFS 2024 and he did show a general interest but referred me to Vexcel Imaging (When you start your 2024 Sim, you can see their company and logo listed there briefly before the loading screen appears - they are also responsible for the high detail Bing Maps, that the Sim taps into when not using satellite Images and satellite photogrammetry).
There was a lot of back and forth with negotiations on how to get a project underway and until today it all seemed positive until I specifically mentioned imagery detailed on landscape and geology and as we Africans know, a beautiful country like Namibia for example is mainly rural and limiting a high detail scan to the capital city is not really that interesting for the Sim - my idea was to fly over most of the country to capture interesting landscape topology and geological data as well. The person from the Vexcel Data Program wanted to know nothing about it and basically told me to get lost with the idea and I could not expect any support - it was actually quite humiliating as what I argued is at least debatable - I imagine beneficial spinoffs are numerous including the promotion of lodge tourism, plant-, vegetation- wildlife projects, water surveyance etc etc. They are clearly focussed on urban areas as this data is of prime interest of their paying clients that bring in the $$$ - so my impression is now, that the Sim is just a spin off and not their main focus at all.
As I have written above, this part of the world has a special place in my heart and I was prepared to make a personal investment to pave the way and create some kind of African Safari DLC, but I and my aerial survey partners can not do this without support from big-tech or other sources for the business plan - the cost of a 4th generation aerial survey camera is more than a 1million € investment alone.
Btw - this is probably also why the areas outside of the big cities are far from perfect out side of the bigger urban cities in the Brazil update and not so perfect airstrips that people have reported about. “Digital Twin” is flawed
I am still open for alternative ideas and possibly producing some smaller projects for the Sim Marketplace, should there be an active developer that wants to partner up.
Let’s see what happens in the future.
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I greatly appreciate your willingness to improve the South African scenery, but to be an interesting FS product it would have to be enriched with activities, local assets (architecture, biome, typical vehicles and aircraft) and interesting bush strips. If you could partner with people like Bijan Habashi to make flying the area low and slow a real “wow” experience, it would sell.
As an example, I bought the FS2020 Okawango Delta adventue scenery from SWS and flew there some times, but in the end there were too much static elements and as a whole too little plausibilty to really feel “there”. The FS2024 career system is a good foundation but has to mature for the long term. More flexibility and variation will be key (one separate company for each possible activity seems nonsense). I could imagine some “life of an allround bush pilot” theme - supply, medevac, people transport, wildlife monitoring etc. We have the great Caribou or the AN-2 that could fit well there.
Just my 2 ct as a complete Africa theoretician.
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Would crowd funding raise enough for a camera set up? Or a couple of interested millionaires/billionaires?
I would love a cargo mission moving wildlife from one sanctuary to another, Fishermen VIP’d to the small islands off Mozambique, VIP’s to Game lodges, sports teams to match venues, game spotting in Namibia or SA - Kruger Park, veldt or bush fires, cargo to mines and bush strips - the possibilities are endless.
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All those things mentioned are sort of what I had in mind - the possibilities are pretty endless especially for career mode - I have a list longer than an A4 page…
If Bijan or Cli4rd are interested to collab - I am open for that. I have an private aircraft for fly-in Safari so going to places to collect 3d data with participating lodges is not an issue - we can split the travel expenses bills or come up with some kind of a deal. There is an aerial survey company also for callboration - just that it is not Vexcel technology but would be sufficiant to capture individual locations - the latter would however be needed to sell topographical aerial data straight back to Vexcel and Microsoft (Bing) which then would enable a World Update.
I did think about a crowd funding or pre purchase option this morning but the point is to make an 1000% sure commitment to really deliver something great for all participants of such an investment. The camera would remain property of the shareholders and could be utilised for similar projects elsewhere.
Maybe this thread will start a productive discussion and get some people together that can get something moving.
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What about approaching some of the bigger companies, like Anglo American, MTN, Vodacom - all who might have an interest in the mapping capabilities of this project in terms of their own development needs. They too could then have a share interest in the use of this equipment even when the MSFS 2024 project is done. To be sure the game parks would like their names on a board at each location, in fact all interested parties could have a “name” board which would increase the awareness of these parks - and others - in terms of tourism. I suppose it is just whether Microsoft /Asobo would go for that detail.
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It would be something really refreshing after Europe and US updates 
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Have you tried government agencies (e.g. tourism) for funding? You might want to contact some tourism departments from other countries first - e.g. in the Carribean - to see if they saw any impact to tourism / increase enquires, etc. after the MS WU for their region was released. Having some hard facts to show financial benefits from WUs positively impacting smaller economies would help when making any financial requests.
There are already some direct contacts or consultants to the right organisations - also in terms of flight permits. But it does not make sense to approach them without a concrete business plan and the ability to put things into action. Same goes for the lodge properties - I think individual interesting airstrips are less red tape to capture.
One would have to differentiate between what would be required for a World Update or just a lodge/bush strip bundle products.
Another issue is - I can not do all of this by myself as I have to earn my bread and butter as a bizjet jockey…
Getting ideas dismissed by the Vexcel Data manger was not encouraging - then they can find someone else to do it… which they probably will sooner or later
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I am sure there are local South Africans who Sim who might be interested in collaborating with you and providing a bit of project management. Come on Local SA’cans give the man a hand.
When you have time it might be a good idea to propose this idea on many of the discords and also if a senior moderator could drop this idea in Jorg’s lap. If there were other developers doing world Updates - depending on their contract with with Vexcel who may have exclusivity rights - I am sure they would go for it as it improves their product. I dont know how you find out the limits of Vexcels contract other than asking Jorg.
Discussions have been going for months to facilitate a project. It is not as simple as it seems. I am just reporting a reflection to the community.
Jörg referred me to Vexcel and has not engaged with me further what I respect because I can imagine he has thousands of other priorities atm. and from experience it seems to me that the data they receive is really just a spin-off from Bing - they use the material and process it as they get it but do not make direct orders for purposes of the sim.
Vexcel is primarily interested for their aerial survey partners to qualify to join their data program to invest into their technology and the price as I have stated in a previous post is heavy. So there is a big risk, a dependency and no guarantee that you will have ongoing revenue from this investment and they have a kind of monopoly of what you will get in return for the data at the end of the day. There are a number of aerial survey companies in South Africa that have been in the business for decades that seem not to be able to find required financing to get the technology - the rand/euro exchange rate and African interest rates pose serious limitations - also the dependence on Vexcel is a deterrence to some. Some other companies already have the technology but utilise it solely for their own interests and requirements.
The other issue is that locations with high urban density profit from receiving prime attention - the feasibility and usage of data is directly proportional to the level of urbanisation. Southern Africa however is in large parts going mainly rural to uninhibited. So that is why the areas covered in past World Updates are those that are highly urbanised.
Vexcel even offered to loan us a camera - but only for their direct interests - and this interest was not collection of data MSFS to my surprise and I basically was shot down in a very unnecessary dismissive manner that they do not support this idea and quote: “my problem”. Even though my ideas coming from the perspective of a pilot ignorant of aerial procedures and applications and fan of MSFS may have been flawed, miscommunicated or technically „too far up in the sky“ to be realistic - I refuse to partner up with a company and co-fund their projects that treats potential partners in any kind of disrespectful manner. I have zero tolerance for that or willingness to get burnt. Maybe it was that specific representative individual but it does not reflect good hygiene.
There is a general policy of doing things at the expense of others.
Speaking of that - I also find the state MSFS2024 was released and current state of the product absolutely disappointing - it is flawed in almost every aspect and others i.e. 3rd parties are left to iron things out and making this into what it is supposed to be. I know things will improve but the whole policy towards the end user is broken at the moment. I say this as a a BD700 Captain and private aircraft owner involved in aviation for a few decades now and has known Flight-simulator since FS1.
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DEM data for South Africa exists down to 2M resolution from what I can see. Photogrammetry even exits (Google maps has a few photogrammetry cities). Decent aerial imagery, particularly of rural areas is seriously lacking. Even Google maps has low resolution imagery of Kruger National Park for example.
I would have thought the most interest for simmers would be focused on these rural areas, particularly the national parks. A focus on imagery for these areas, and crafted buildings (rest camps) and airstrips, improved biome detail (seasonal river levels for example) and improved fauna spawning and accuracy of numbers would open up a whole new area and type of flying that most simmers aren’t exposed to. Something like this might find support and funding through the National Park Service because it would add a lot of exposure. Think - SAN Parks official career add on featuring rural VIP charter and cargo flights, wildlife surveying, anti-poaching surveys, dropping and collecting rangers, ecologists and vets to remote locations, aerial safaris (which I know don’t happen, but could in the sim).
Just some thoughts.
I saw in the last live stream that there are more detailed scenery areas coming, but again they are massively focussed on Europe, USA and a part of Australia. I appreciate these areas being made even better but I really think Jorg and the team should focus on bringing more areas up to a higher standard. Interestingly Jorg seems to like the animals so might be supportive of the above ideas.
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Yes - all you say is 100% correct.
Vexcel however seems to have some kind if gold standard with their technology at the moment and they are setting the industry standard. The Phase One Cameras mostly being used in Southern Africa are just limited and inefficient unfortunately.
If one could - then just getting a camera plus Software from Vexcel would probably be the best bet in the long term - but that can only be done with feasible projects at hand granting some kind of independence. But this is above our present financial capabilities. As mentioned we are open to collaboration with others - either to work with presently available equipment or for expansion.
We could also do so much for Wildlife NGOs, research on land usage, wildlife counts, land encroachment and forestation and even for governments etc. Government will obviously profit in any case as they will get prime access to the data in order for us to receive required flight permissions. Also the potential for tourism advertisement is big.
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