So with a multitude of great developers for FSX, why are some huge, busy, famous and overall great airports being completely overlooked? Europe's mostly got it covered, with a great London, Madrid, Paris, Lisbon, Vienna, Amsterdam and an OK Frankfurt, mostly covered by Aerosoft, and North America is pretty OK, with relatively new NY, LA, DFW, Miami, Chicago and Tampa sceneries being covered by FT and FSDT, however Atlanta could really use a rework. As well, Asia is a totally undeveloped market, only covered slightly by ImagineSim, although their techniques are pretty dated. For example Beijing and Dubai are some of the largest and busiest airports anywhere. As well Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, KL, Taipei and Bangkok have no really good sceneries. Even Sydney, a huge airport and the base for Qantas, has not had a single developer accurately try to represent it. Even Africa, with OR Tambo, Cairo, Nairobi and Lagos has not been ven considered by some of the great developers of today's FSX market. Some other large airports that could really use a redo include Toronto, Moscow, Mexico City, Rio, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Auckland, Islamabad, Istanbul, Rome, Milan and Mumbai. Again these are just suggestions. Any response would be appreciated, so thanks in advance!

Because according to Aerosoft it is literally impossible to get AirSide Access to Airport in Canada/USA, its too bad. O well, FSDT and FlyTampa pull it off.

I've recently read in a German magazine, that there are currently THREE (!) developers working on Dubai: A hobby developer (preview here) EvolutionSim (see here) and FlyTampa (couldn't verify that one).

And I agree on the need of redoing Moscow, Milan and Roem airports, though there is quite a good Sheremetyevo for FSX on avsim.ru.

 

Regards

Flo

Yeah, getting access to airside with a camera and or video recorder iin the USA without ending up at Guantanamo Bay is all but impossible these days...

Hello

Sidney for FSX :

https://www.commerciallevel.com/webshop.php?actie=plist&groep=8

So first you complain that there aren't enough developers doing airports, then you bash one of the few developers doing those types of airports, Imaginesim. Who also have done WSSS by the way.

Let me answer your questions

 

Sydney Airport - it would prove extremely expensive to obtain an aerial image and getting a photoshoot of the airport is like trying to obtain secret documents. We could do it but it wouldn't be worth the money and effort put into it. You would be looking at around $50 at retail price and we would need to sell around 1000 copies before even attempting to break even! It is just the way things are.

 

Asia - easier said than done! Due to many government restrictions in many Asian countries it is next to impossible to get close to the airport with a camera let alone get inside it to take images. The only way we could ever do Dubia, Bangkok (etc) is to have a change in government policy or going on a photo mission by asking pilots and members of staff to take images, which they probably won't want to do.

 

Africa - it is in the process of being done by some developers but doing major airports is extremely uneasy to due the lack of access and more importantly the number of sales. The market research for major African airports suggest that people want major American and European airports more than African ones. It wouldn't be commercially viable.

 

Russia - very difficult to do because of the tight security of the Russian government. The aerial images are not the most expensive for Moscow but it is getting good images of the airport and a photoshoot which is difficult without getting into trouble. The smaller Russian airports are easier to do but no where as easy as doing American and European airfields.

 

Canada - we can do it but we would be paying more for the aerial image than the entire scenery project, that is money developers don't have in these economic times. We are in the process of doing one major Canadian airport but the economics don't add up. When you have purchased the image and completed the project you will need around 1000 sales at the price of $55 to make a decent profit and not many flight simmers will be willing to pay that much for an airport when other companies can make other major airports for more than half that price.

 

 

FlyTampa have done a Hong Kong scenery for FSX, just go to their website.

 

I hope this has helped you with the answers to your questions.

As for Sydney I understand the owners were quite keen on an FSX rendition by Orbx but JV maintains it just isn't economic for them and very much on the back burner. Never-the-less it is a big gap as we have highly detailed Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra (at least how it looked two years ago) airports but not Sydney - I don't regard the only payware version (which I have) as highly detailed.

 

Bruce

forgive my ignorance. What kind of aerial photography is required to do your projects? I take it Goolge isn't good enough?

Using Google images for a project is forbidden by their EULA. In order to do a project to FSX standards, devs need access to high-res aerial photos, and they're often very hard (if not impossible) to come by.

Milano Malpensa was done by Sim Giants some years ago (http://www.sim-giants.com/product.asp?prod=8), but now the company looks out of business, although the product may still be available. There are some quirks, however, for example my RealAir SF-260 sometimes hit invisible obstacles - but nor RealAir nor SimGiants were able to tell me why - other planes have no issues.

Airside access is always the problem.

Thank you all so much for all of the replies - makes sense!

Cant you go but a ticket or 3 at an airport and take pictures. Maybe cheaper I dont know. Than maybe supliment with google. Just dont tell anyone.