Why are so many airports missing?

Discussion Hub Airports
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Unless of course if the Panamanian government said no to MSFS. Speculation? Yes, but there is no difference if Air Alaska was to say MSFS cannot use their livery. As a commercial entity you have to abide by country and copyright laws.

People are missing the point here that the airports (other than the hand crafted extras, so-called “bespoke” airports, of which new ones are constantly being added) are generated by the BlackShark AI. There are no humans entering that data. Microsoft is BING and I can only surmise that they would likely NOT go into partnership with Google.

When a government, in a country you are selling your software, tells you not to add an airport, you don’t. When an official agency tells BING to blur out a satellite image they are going to comply. Both Google and Bing have stated, in their own ways, that satellite images are sensitive and not always released on their platforms without censure.

Regardless of what we as simmers want, or think, we live in a world where information is controlled by agencies that have no interest in your wants. If they say no, it is no.

That said, as long as the images at BlackShark’s disposal are lacking information due to cloud cover or poor images or, in some cases, just old images, there is no way for the AI to accurately represent every airport out there. Plenty are obscured by cloud cover. The AI doesn’t even know there is a airport there. Even if the data is all there and the image is clear on Bing, if the country where that airport is does not want it in the simulator, IT ISN’T.

The extensive list of missing airports will eventually be dealt with by handcrafting the ones that the AI can’t handle. Looking at that list, how long should it take for a handful of designers to create them all?

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22

What you are saying seems untrue. Nobody bothered to add even a single missing airport in the Benelux.

No government is “demanding” google or Bing to censor these airports. A case in point is EBBE, which is blurred in Bing but not blurred in Google Maps. Additionally you can find all the necessary information for these airports in other data sources which ARE already used because otherwise the airports that ARE available would not have any information like ICAO codes, radio frequencies, taxiways, runway designators etc …

At this moment, there is no indication these airports will be added.

Also, my baseline for flight sims is FlightGear (surprisingly a high baseline I have learned) and they are able to provide at least a runway and some taxiways for all these airports, auto-generated (with no funds).

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Yet there are airports in Panama in MSFS, one (MPMG) is even 11.8 NM from where MPTO would be. - just not MPTO, the most major one. Yes to all but 1 in MSFS. And why would the gov’t say yes to XPlane and FSX and P3D and 3rd parties??

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@Monkfishman3086
I did not make up these statements from Google and Microsoft.

Your security clearance is obviously much higher than mine, or theirs, if you can unequivocally state that no government is making demands.

No-one is suggesting that the airport itself is censured from public knowledge. There are instances of limitations on WHO gets to present the information based on how it may be used. It may simply be the country in question has a beef with Bill Gates. Who knows why governments do what they do, besides you.

Yes. There are airports that have ALL the necessary requirements to be in the sim. The images, the data, everything. If the BlackShark AI can recognize a grass strip in the middle of the Papua/New Guinea jungle then I am pretty sure it can discern a large paved airport in the French countryside. If for some reason the AI was told not to include it in the BGL there MUST be a reason. I am equally sure that Asobo, Microsoft, Blackshark nor the French government are going to explain why on this forum.

Ever consider that MSFS is a real, 3D, digital representation of the world. That it can and likely will be used for nefarious purposes. Does every one forget that its predecessor was used to train terrorists? Other flight simulators on the market can offer the same but not to the level of MSFS.

I do not have the answers. What I do know is that, to offhand dismiss outside influences in the decision to include something in the sim is naïve at best.

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25

I agree there must be a reason. And I, for one, would like to know the reason.

Some aren’t event blurred. All information is available publicly. The airports are available in other sims and as third party add-ons to MSFS. Yet apparently, somehow, there was this specific demand from this specific government for this specific flight simulator?

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@Monkfishman3086 Oh, really.

Perhaps you can explain this, then:

eheh
eheh1314×1143 312 KB

Now, should you doubt my veracity, or think me a liar, that is EHEH airport, and that screen snip I took myself less than 5 minutes ago. But, if you really don’t believe me, go to Bing maps and look it up yourself.

Now, do you suppose that was some sort of photographic glitch? Perhaps the high density detail that surrounds the airport was taken in 2020, but the airport itself is a photo from 1987?

No, it is neither of those. Do you think Microsoft censored that airport just for giggles? To anger their users, or just as some sort of prank?

Again, no. That airport is censored because someone, almost certainly a Government entity that governs the area that the airport resides in, told them to. Now, it’s also true that if you go to Google maps, it is not censored. Maybe that government entity likes Google more than Microsoft, or maybe google told them to kiss their lilly white ■■■, because they’re an American company and as such, are not subject to the laws of the Government that gave the order to censor the airport. Microsoft could have done the same thing, but perhaps they chose to make nice rather than be confrontational like that.

Of course, everything I just said is speculation, though most of it is reasonable. The only fact we have is that on Bing maps, that airport is blurred to hell and back for some unknown reason.

Now, pretend you are the AI software that has been tasked with looking at those images, and deciding what is, and is not, an airport. Do you think you could pull out enough detail from that photo to create one? Because I do not.

So your statement that nobody is issuing such an order is complete nonsense. Somebody is. Google told them to get stuffed, MS decided to honor the request. You’d have to call their respective legal departments to get an answer as to why, assuming they would even speak to you or answer your inquiry.

And in the words of Forrest, Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that”.

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27

No I could not, but the AI is just the first step. Afterwards, a lot of additional information must be added before the airport is usable in MSFS. It’s probably in this step the most important airports could be added with information from sources other than Bing Maps.

You are correct, I cannot know nobody did that. I do find it very hard to believe, but even if these speculations are true it is not relevant. It may answer why these airports are missing from Bing Maps, it does not answer why these airports are not included in MSFS - as promised.

It does not answer why these airports are not added during the world updates - as promised.

It also doesn’t answer why some airports, which are not censored anywhere else, are missing.

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As a follow up on that point: It’s also true for EHEH that if you go to the AIP, maintained and published by that same government, you can find this map:

afbeelding

Nobody needs the sattelite image from Bing. It may provide some details, but it is not necessary.

So the question remains, why are so many airports missing? Or perhaps the question should be: why is Bing the only data source for airport information (spoiler: it isn’t because there’s a lot of information not in a sattelite image that is in MSFS).

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@Monkfishman3086, this one is easy… It’s because MSFS uses Bing Maps to decide where the airports are, and where they aren’t.

As for the rest of your questions, all I or anyone else can do is speculate. However, to speculate that it was done at the request/demand of the Government entity that controls said airport is completely reasonable and probably correct. It’s also important to remember that Google does not make a flight simulator, at least that I am aware of. So it’s possible that the government entities are more concerned with the data being in a flight simulator, for reasons that were already mentioned like terrorists using it as a training tool, than they are with it simply being viewable on a map.

And it would be the terrorists that they’re concerned with as every nuclear power on the globe already has enough information to bomb those facilities to hell and back should they choose to do so. Terrorists, on the other hand, do not.

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I agree , it’s all speculation. Not sure why people want to make stuff up to answer a legitimate question by a user.

The question remains: why are so many airports missing?

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The marketing for MSFS was done long before the sim. It may actually have been the marketing that prompted any censorship that did occur. I imagine that Microsoft did not go to each country and ask to include their airports. I would imagine that once the marketing began those that did not want certain info to be included, stepped in and made whatever demands they did.

See above…

Consider what I mentioned before. Microsoft Flight Simulator has a history with “alternative” uses that I am sure they are very sensitive to. Remember how long it took for an update to come out that removed the Trade Center Towers from the sim? Days.

I can only guess that that reputation has also prompted some of the resistance to allow representations of ‘sensitive’ locations in a sim that claims, “As real as it gets”.

Not sure why you cannot grasp that world politics invades every aspect of your life. Some times it is subtle, but it is there.

Also not sure why you keep insisting that they can simply add all the missing airports manually in a matter of months. That’s WHY they use an AI to manage the addition of airports. Humans are not involved in that process. It is a program writing a program.

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What I cannot grasp is why a government would deny the use of a 5 to 10 year old vague sattelite image of an airport, while at the same time publishing detailed and up to date information of that airport. Why they would deny MSFS and only MSFS to use this while allowing it for all other Flight Simulators that have ever been made.

But this is all speculation, as neither MSFS nor Asobo have answered the question: “Why are so many airports missing” (they did promise to add them though)

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I’m the wrong guy to ask. I imagine that some of the missing ones are because of the government demands we’ve been discussing here, and others are for much more mundane reasons.

There were clouds blocking the photos, or shadows, or a million other weather conditions. Perhaps there was vegetation overgrowth that made them hard to see, or anything else you can imagine, and then some.

But, it’s still nothing but speculation on top of speculation on top of speculation.

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34

Now I understand.
You are focusing on the airport data. The published data is not what is in question. It is how a 3D, realistic model can be used. Saves a lot of effort if you want to rehearse something nefarious. This isn’t about looking at maps or instrument approach details. This is about limiting a hostile the ability to have a realistic 3D representation.

@KevyKevTPA is very right here though. I would confidently say that the majority of missing airports is due to lack of data for the AI to generate a model. The man hours required to replicate what the AI is missing is mind-blowing and completely unrealistic. Eventually the sat images will be updated and the AI will be able to make the corrections. So when they made the promise to add the missing airports, I do not remember them giving a timeline. Eventually.

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35

Aren’t I always?

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36

There are MANY reasons airports are missing, too many for anyone to take the time to list here. Also, only Asobo / Microsoft knows in a lot of situations. It’s unlikely anyone here understands why Benelux airports have been blurred in Bing, but the fact is they are. Given they are blurred, they are not going to be in FS. This is particularly a problem in France, as I understand it. I do believe Microsoft / Asobo is in negotiations about representing the airports there. I think they are mostly military.

There’s nothing stopping you from creating the airports you wish were there.

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While we wait for the resolution to this mystery…why not just go flying, taking advantage of the 30,000+ airports that ARE available?

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38

Good idea. Personally, I’ve never run into an airport I wanted to go to that wasn’t there. Occasionally I’ve run into errors, like the ILS frequency being wrong (for example, the ILS frequency for 18C at KCLT actually takes you to 18R, which is like a 40 mile taxi back to the airport), but never an actually missing airport. :man_shrugging:t2:

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39

I landed at Iwo Jima. In a field.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 10_6_2020 9_44_00 PM
Microsoft Flight Simulator 10_6_2020 9_44_00 PM1920×1080 170 KB

Seems there is no airport there. :wink:

40

I wanted to land at the airport on the island of Enyu on Bikini Atoll in the pacific. It clearly shows one on Google and Bing maps, yet there isn’t one in this sim. When I flew over the spot where it should be there are only trees. If they are using Bing maps then where is it?