yes it can http://www.airportdesigneditor.co.uk/

Not hard at all, open the airport, go to tools, change airport altitude

 

Plateaus are not issues IMO, they are the side effect of quality mesh

I get that. The problem is so pervasive that you could spend your life in ADE...lol.

 

FSGlobal solution (AFM) provides an overall generic approach to the problem that works efficiently, but has the added issue of inserting more .bgls into the scenery.cfg, and thus slowing down fsx load time further. And load time for global is already prohibitive as is imo.

Just want to observe here that in many of the hillier parts of the world, airports are in actual fact, on plateaus. For example, in my home state, Utah, KOGD, KHIF, and KSGU are (or were) on plateaus or high regions nearly exactly the size and shape of the airport and facilities... It would be inaccurate to insist that they be blended into the terrain.

Thinking about upgrading my European terrain mesh with FSGenesis NEXTMap as well. I am aware of the airport plateau consequences but does this occur predominantly with default FSX airports only? I have a lot of Aerosoft payware airports within Europe and I was wondering if the plateauing will effect payware airports as well?

Yes, a trade off - higher detailed landscape or less plateaus.  I put in a request a ways back for the next version of ADE to include a simple tool that lets you create a ground poly around your airport.  The center of it automatically takes the airport elevation while you circle around your airport dropping in points of elevation around the outer circle either taking measurements of your current mesh or manually adding an elevation point.  The idea was it would smooth out that plateau to match the ground around the airport.

 

Hopefully they will put something in like that in the next major release as simmers could push out dozens of airports in a matter of minutes and share them like they do AFCADs.

 

 

For example, in my home state, Utah, KOGD, KHIF, and KSGU are (or were) on plateaus or high regions nearly exactly the size and shape of the airport and facilities... It would be inaccurate to insist that they be blended into the terrain.

 

  Looking at KOGD for instance though even. Check the threshold elevations for every runway .. They are all VERY different. FSX see's an airport as simply one elevation. Sure you can take a fair bit of time to massage it using ADE which may work to varying degrees of success.

  To fix/tweak every airport you have a plateau issue with would take a very long time. I love the look that good mesh provides but it's all washed away when on approach and the airport and surrounding area looks so awful. Another case of asking more from FSX than it was meant to give us.

Given FSGenesis's reputation to be pretty solid and they fact they put out multiple sales per year if it goes on sale for the US I might just pick it up, ADE is not so hard to use and understand to a competent level, if the NEXTMap terrain is really that good I might take the plunge, I don't mind the plateau's so much so long as its not "jagged" but rounded to look more like an incline than a sheer cliff (unless of course that is realistic for that airport). This is one of the reasons why I did not get into FSGlobal Ultimate which looks extremely accurate; speaking of which anyone used that free tool that supposedly comes with FSG Ultimate, and if so what are your thoughts?

Given FSGenesis's reputation to be pretty solid and they fact they put out multiple sales per year if it goes on sale for the US I might just pick it up, ADE is not so hard to use and understand to a competent level, if the NEXTMap terrain is really that good I might take the plunge, I don't mind the plateau's so much so long as its not "jagged" but rounded to look more like an incline than a sheer cliff (unless of course that is realistic for that airport). This is one of the reasons why I did not get into FSGlobal Ultimate which looks extremely accurate; speaking of which anyone used that free tool that supposedly comes with FSG Ultimate, and if so what are your thoughts?

 

They are sheer cliff's.  The default airports themselves will be elevated on a plateau over the accurate terrain elevation.

Thinking about upgrading my European terrain mesh with FSGenesis NEXTMap as well. I am aware of the airport plateau consequences but does this occur predominantly with default FSX airports only? I have a lot of Aerosoft payware airports within Europe and I was wondering if the plateauing will effect payware airports as well?

 

It is possible that payware airports can be effected as well.  It all depends on how good the developer of the airport is to "fixing" this.

 

I have NEXTMap and quite a few of the Aerosoft European airports and haven't noticed any issues.