Your TOP 10 Favourite Places to Fly?

Discussion Hub World Discovery
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Your TOP 10 Favourite Places to Fly…
(…and what in!)

Yep, I’m back with another list. :rofl: Not ranking these (or maybe I will) but just to share ideas and our passion for particular places in the world that are amazing to us for some reason or another.

Please list out (up to) your 10 favourite places and a little description about each. Like this:

1] Tokyo, Japan (in Bell 206B by FlyInside)
And Yokohama / Kawasaki.

I could spend days just looking around here in the heli! It’s also great practice as a LOT of the skyscrapers have landing pads on. The city of Tokyo is SO massive and once you think you are done, there is just a band of autogen that then blends into Yokohama to the west, and the photogrammetry is very good and well optimised (especially considering it is from WU1!). There is just so much to see and such varied and interesting architecture styles.

I recently bought the SamScene3D enhancement but it doesn’t really need it. Would be number 1 anyway, but for the price that adds a few nice touches and tidies things up well. Also got a quite nice freeware helipads pack for the area. Great stuff!

2] Malaga, Spain (in Bell 206B by FlyInside)

Another fantastic photogrammetry area with really interesting architecture nestled into every nook and cranny. In fact almost all of the Spanish PG is particularly good (Seville is really clean and not-melted. Barcelona has some nice sightseeing spots), but the terrain around Malaga elevates it to the most interesting to explore in detail for me.

3] Victoria Falls, Africa (in Lake Skipper by Got Friends, Helicopters, Low ‘n’ Slow)

Of course, this only stands a chance with the fantastic addition of the Payware by Jeppeson2001. So many details crammed in and a ton of helipads (marked and unmarked) makes it a very rich area to explore. I like scaring my paying customers by taking them sightseeing while stunt flying. Well, serves them right for buying the Premium Experience tickets!

4] Bodmin, UK (in Cessna 172 by WB Sim)

Bit random, but it is one of my nearest active airfields IRL and I flew the C172 from here, so I use it as a base for exploring the local area and the rest of the south of UK, and heading home again. Using the payware by Burning Blue Design which is totally spot-on to how it looks.

5] Rome, Italy (in anything, but exploring in helicopters mainly)

Another fantastic detailed photogrammetry city with a ton of character and lots to see all around. The PG spreads pretty far out into the countryside and I love the rest of Italy, so often find myself starting or returning here as part of longer legs up and down the country. Venice, Verona, Bologna, Florence, Milan, Sicily… all nice too!

6] Manilla Bay, Philippines (in Bell 47G and 206B by FlyInside)

Using the most excellent freeware by Cli4D, brings this large area to life. It is so relaxing, but has a good variety of challenging landing spots for precision helicopter landing practice! I also have El Nido from the same creator (payware) which adds another massive area in the Philippines of the same quality.Essential add-on for anyone into whirlybirds.

7] Silverstone Circuit, UK (in anything “racey”)

With the Red Bull Air Race add-on by Mechanical Madness, this place is amazing for when I want to get the blood pumping or test out a new aerobatic plane. I have held a few race events here and once everyone gets their eye in and into a rhythm, it makes for some great close racing!

8] California, USA (in Bush planes, Wilga, and Bell 206B by FlyInside)

OK that is a pretty big area hahaha. But I am running out of slots here and this nicely covers off a few of my regular places I fly, namely:

The //42 Bush sceneries (Sharktooth Ridge, Hogsback Ranch, Coyote Estate, Mr. Goodbar, High Voltage, Sunset Strip, Bluffers Hill), which are really well detailed and close to each other when I just want to do a little hop and practice some short grass landings.

There is also the excellent eSTOL venue at Johnsons Farm and then Los Angeles with the Police and Medical helicopters pack and the pretty decent photogrammetry in that area. A good test for my PC settings too!

9] The Alps, France / Switzerland / Italy (in anything, bush planes, helicopters, jets)

Visually stunning area, with plenty of airports all around to start and end at. Of course the amazingly challenging Courchevel, but also Meribel (I have the payware one from the store) just around the corner is a fun approach. I prefer it when it’s not all white with snow as it really brings out the details.

If flying with helicopters here the MamuDesign cable cars and ski-lifts add-on is a MUST!

The way the valleys are arranged makes it ideal for low level runs in fast jets too, as they are quite “neat” clearly visible and make natural deep corridors with splits and turning options everywhere. A lot of mountain regions in comparison are more like moguls with not so defined channels.

10] Pyrenees, Spain (in anything)

A sadly underused area of the world I feel. The terrain is amazing and there is a really nice fantasy add-on with around 14+ airfields in EXTREMELY challenging locations that are a lot of fun to try to land (and take off) at in various bush planes.

Honourable Mentions:

Manhattan, New York, USA
Spent a lot of time flying around to test system settings and it is an amazing place, and it’s awesome when running smoothly that a PC game can present this density of detail on screen. I’m often caught doing totally illegal low flying in a chopper or aerobatics in a jet between the buildings.

Helicopter Playground at Point Conception, California, USA
I know I’ve mentioned California already but wanted to highlight this particular free mod by Stoopy, as it’s really great for helicopter practice. I guess there is an overall theme here that I’m leaning into helis a lot recently. Actually since moving to VR around Xmas, I have indeed mainly been flying helicopters as it’s so amazing in VR!

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Cool thread topic!

I’m going to think about it.

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Yes, good idea this.

It will be interesting to see which are the most popular places for siming and should be useful too for finding new areas of interest :+1:

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Great post…
I fly mostly airliners but I use the drone cam for sightseeing plus some occasional tour on a Cessna.
Here are some of my favorites:

  • Barcelona, Spain. Being my hometown, I recognise every landmark (and even my home) and photogrametry is great.
  • Italian cities: not only Rome, but Firenze, Venice and Naples look great, excellent PG. I know the places from many holiday trips and I love the MSFS view.
  • Arizona, US. I was there on holidays last Xmas and I “prepared” my vacation with MSFS (on a virtual Cessna). Monument Valley, Horseshoe Bend (Page) and Grand Canyon look great in MSFS (unless yoy fly low in the Canyon) and when I got there IRL I had a “deja vu” feeling.
  • Canary Islands, Spain. Get the payware airports and hop between islands on the ATR with a Binter livery. As real as it gets…
  • land at Innsbruck (LOWI) with the ATR (easier and less stressing than with an airliner).
  • Paro, Butan, with the A320, most challenging landing ever. Never been there IRL, and probably never will…
    And so many more…
    Hard to make a short list…
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Literally flew out of Bodmin in the Reims Rocket only yesterday :airplane:

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I can’t think of a top 10 right now, but I can think of a top 1: Southern California, or California in general. With Vincent Bazillo’s awesome freeware airports in the San Diego area (and a couple elsewhere) and a plethora of good payware in the LA area, I like to fly in both areas. There is just a ton of diversity to the environment from mountains, coastline, islands, farm fields, deserts, cities, pretty much everything is within a short flight which makes it a great playground.

My #2 pick might be Colorado in general. Though it’s a bush paradise, my current go-to for this area is flying the Lear 35A out of the Steamboat Springs area to all of the vacation towns. Tons of interesting approaches and of course breathtaking mountain scenery.

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@Baracus250 you evidently need to do a top five/ten favourite heli list too.

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You’re on! It’s so obvious now you mentioned it lol

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I second @Stardrifter2232’s comment. I’m biased because I live in San Diego County, but the terrain diversity and proximity to LA and Catalina, etc. make it pretty great. I also agree that @Vincent1064’s work on the local GA airfields is fantastic. I also enjoy military aircraft, so having several Navy/Marine Air Stations, plus a few of Miltech’s carriers in the area is nice.

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  1. the Great Lakes region

It’s where I live and you have different interesting areas to check out, plus the weather changes pretty fast depending on what season your flying in

  1. Arctic Circle
    I’m very fascinated by the arctic circle with its history

  2. the US East coast
    The only areas i travel to IRL is the east coast so I do most flying on the east coast

  3. NY state
    My home state has to be explored a lot of times and GA flying is normally done in the Buffalo NY area because that city is the most GA friendly area in NY while airline flights are out of my local airport (KROC)

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After getting quite a few payware airports Greece is now a great place to island hope however atm bing maps is in an awful state.

All across the Miami / tampa area is good as PG has great coverage.

La and San Francisco area too also has great PG coverage.

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Hi,

My favorite place to fly is in the Alps. There are so many beatiful places to visit in Austria, Switzerland, southern Germany and southern France as well as in northern Italy.

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I don’t have enough for a top ten, but here’s my usuals/favorites in no particular order.

Northeast Wisconsin: It’s home base, plus the free KOSH airport with the EAA runway dots and famous Fisk Approach landmarks. I’m also a trucker very familiar with the major roads in the region and it’s nice to follow the highways in the sim and know where I am without needing the VFR map up.

Chicago: I often park at KORD gate F27 for benchmarking tweaks.

Grand Canyon: F-18, need I say more?

London: For when I’m in a dystopian mood.

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Is that hope you will get there?
Or hope it looks OK when you do?

Sorry! :rofl:

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We’ve been hoping for a Greek WU since forever. Nothing wrong with a bit of Greek island hoping. :wink:

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I guess this topic is mainly for GA enthusiasts like myself who enjoy sight seeing.

There are so many beautiful places to fly. I love the US pacific northwest, Alaska and BC and all of Canada and I fly there and other places quite often. I’ve explored every country at least to some extent now and some countries quite extensively.

Lately I’ve realized that East Tennessee US is one of the most beautiful places and is quite a large beautiful area to see all along the border of NC and TN. The Smokey Mountains and the Tennessee river system provide so much interesting terrain and waterways to see and explore. Lots of little air fields all around or you can fly out of Knoxville if you prefer larger airports. All very stunning scenery. I hope someday they get some photogrammetry for Knoxville, but even without that I still enjoy flying all around there and along the river system and into the mountains or down to Chattanooga. Not taking anything away from Switzerland, Austria, the Pyrenees which are all very amazing places to fly, but I really think East TN is on par with any of them as far as beautiful terrain and waterway scenery. I post this not to say it is better than any other place, just to suggest a place that some may not have visited yet that is very worth a visit for the natural beauty of the area.

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  1. I’m UK(Scotland) based so stick a lot around locally/regionally depending on what I am doing. My local airport is EGPF so I use it a lot. Also spend time in England, Wales & NI.

  2. For airliners I fly a lot of hubs & usually pick a big hub like EHAM and fly airliner to/from there.

  3. I fly California a lot NoCal (I used to live there), SoCal & love the PG around there.

  4. I fly south western US (Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico), used to visit there a lot when based in CA. The desert is amazing place to visit, fond memories.

  5. I’ve been flying a lot in Caribbean since world update came out, it’s great to island hop.

  6. In winter (here in UK in live time), I have a habit of just picking somewhere that already has (in real time) daylight and better weather, so Greece is where I end up in the mornings, although it’s now getting lighter here in UK daylight wise so more of a winter thing.

  7. I fly eastern US mainly with airliners into/out of big hubs.

  8. I fly New Zealand. Note: the NZA Simulations NZMF is amazingly good especially with a heli.

  9. Other places I’ve enjoyed exploring include Alaska, Japan & Spain (which as you pointed out has some nice PG)

  10. Recently I’ve been using helis, have been doing HEMS ops and just picking a random area to go do HEMS ops in. It’s a great way to sight see new places as well as do random rescues at the same time. Hospital landings in PG areas etc. Often on helipads not listed in the sim.

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@Baracus250 Another wonderful thread, although it is hard to do a proper top 10 list. Thank you for mentioning Malaga, I tried it last night in the Lama and it is indeed awesome.

I mainly fly helicopters and GA propeller planes.

  1. Seattle and the San Juan Islands: Orcas Island (KORS) is my favorite place to try new planes. The whole area is amazing, including Seattle with the landmarks package. Renton (KRNT) is another favorite, even before it got the great Drzewiecki update.

  2. British Columbia and Alaska the with the freeware Return to Misty Moorings package: Bush flying paradise!

  3. London: The photogrammetry could be better, but there is a good landmarks package for the city. Don’t know how often I have flown from London City (EGLC) over to Heathrow or to the default heliport on the Thames.

  4. Los Angeles: great photogrammetry covering a large area, many airports, and most of the high buildings have helipads (emergency only IRL, but who cares). Add to that the OrbX police and hospital helipads. What a great playground for helicopters.

  5. Milford Sound, New Zealand: Another great area for bush flying, especially with the NZA Simulations addon.

  6. Munich and the Alps: my home town, wonderful photogrammetry for the city, and so many interesting places to fly to. Obvious choice is the short hop from Oberschleißheim (EDNX/EDMX) to Innsbuck (LOWI). Wish there was a good scenery for Pfaffenhofen (EDMO).

  7. Tokyo: Another place with numerous helipads. And the photogrammetry is really good!

  8. New York: Another of my regular flights is from Teterboro (KTEB) to JFK (KJFK).

  9. Norway: I am still on my way from the Nordkap down to Oslo along the Norwegian coast in the FSReborn FSR500. Breathtaking scenery, especially with real weather enabled.

  10. Anywhere in the world: I still find it hard to grasp how great the satellite image coverage in MSFS is. Even remote places like Namibia have amazing scenery.

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You are most welcome! That is REALLY what this topic is meant for, so we can all find some cool new places to fly.

You and I are pretty much on the same trip, so I will definitely be trying out yours! A fair few are the same already and yes Milford Sound was close to hitting my list too haha).