I only have FlyTampa St Marteen and Tampa downloads - nothing else. My head is spining with all the options - freeware, Aerosoft, ORBX, REX, Megascenery, Newport, Taburet etc.I am looking for major US airport and cities.It seems ORBX only doe Australia, and small US airports. FlyTampa has 2 or 3 US Cities for FSX I can get. But who makes the best NY City Scenery? I'd like Chicago and NY with JFK, LGA, EWR ORD and Midway detailed for starters.Any advice?My computer is pretty high end so I could handle the frame rate hit - but I am not too good installing this stuff - so I need a simple install. How are the free addons?

Aerosoft does a great Manhattan.... easy to install. http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/us/iboshop.cgi?showd,,10813 The Flytampa stuff is really top notch, I recommend them all. Also, FSDreamteam does a few other US airports, but I don't feel their quality is as high as Flytampa. Finding good freeware is like finding a needle in a haystack.

FsDreamteam for US airports.

For New York combine these:- Megascenery Earth NYC City Pack- FSDreamteam KJFK- ImagineSim KLGA- Aerosoft Manhattan X- and for nice night lighting: Ultimate terrain X: USSadly, there is no addon for Newark available in FSX.For Chicago combine these:- Newport Chicago Photoscenery- Aerosoft USCities X: Chicago- FSDreamteam KORD- FlyTama KMDWFor mroe info, see this review I did for simflight where I built "the ultimate Chicago": http://www.simflight.com/2011/05/articlereview-ultimate-city-x-chicago/

Thanks, now I know what to get myself for Christmas.

OK I added the JFK scenery from FSDreamTeam. It is pretty good. The FlyTampa airports are a notch above. But the JFK addon today was good. I'll add ImagineSim LGA later. Now how do I add planes at the gates with real liveries?I have FS Traffic and it is too complicated. I could never get planes atthe gate. I just want static jets at the gates. I don't care about real schedules etc. Any suggestions for an easy traffic add-on.

You hit the nail on the head there Paul, FlyTampa is one of the leaders when it comes to design and impact, FPS wise, on the sim.Now as for your question regarding static aircraft, here is a reply that I found by Reggie Fields:

Yes, you can use a scenery design program to add static aircraft to your airports. You will have to do that one airport at a time, one gate at a time. You will have a much smaller selection of aircraft models and airline repaints than you have with AI aircraft.But that will not solve your issue about FPS drop.Because a static aircraft will have polygons, close to as many polygons as the moving AI aircraft. The reason your FPS drop is because your system has to draw so many aircraft. If they are static models or AI models - they will still use a lot of your resources.There are some really poor paper airplane type static models available with low polygons - but that is what they look like - paper airplanes.

You can add AI using freeware like WOAI who have the most up to date liveries available. You will have to download the packages and use the installer which will require a bit of learning but it is quick and easy to do once you get the hang of it. The aircraft will not be static as you have to modify the traffic.bgl although you may find some info in their forum which pertains to making aircraft static.http://www.world-of-...allpackages.phpCheck this site out for adding static AC, it will get you started. To modify any traffic schedule you will need TTools by Lee Swordy.http://www.kb-sim.co...c_aircraft.htmlIn the end you can use Ultimate Traffic 2, again no static aircraft but you can modify the weekly schedules to suit your needs. This IMO is the beauty of our hobby, there is always something new to learn.

Thanks, now I know what to get myself for Christmas.

Didn't think that was the idea of Christmas

OK I added the JFK scenery from FSDreamTeam. It is pretty good. The FlyTampa airports are a notch above. But the JFK addon today was good. I'll add ImagineSim LGA later.Now how do I add planes at the gates with real liveries?I have FS Traffic and it is too complicated. I could never get planes atthe gate. I just want static jets at the gates. I don't care about real schedules etc. Any suggestions for an easy traffic add-on.

OK, I added the FSDreamTeam KJFK and then the ImagineSim KLGA. In my opinion, FlyTampa is better, then the Imagine Sim KLGA. The KJFK FSdream is still good but takes 3rd place. I like the ImagineSim KLGA as it has planes with real liveries - 757 and 737 at KLGA. I don't see any real liveries at JFK. It also appears that in the FSDream software, you can tweek the setings based on your performance, but the ImagineSim you can not. I am not sure abourt this. Butthanks for your suggestions, I added per your recommendations and now have really good NYC scenery.