When I first started this hobby, it seemed Italy was a big player. I have fond memories of Lago, and the Maddog, my first payware add-on. It came in a box with a nice manual. There was a nice LIRF, and a good freeware LIML, and maybe even an LIRN. I also remember a great complex approach in southern Italy (although the name escapes me). Of course, the Maddog is still with us, but it seems the scenery has dried up. Thanks to Aerosoft, Germany is covered. I seem to remember comments that some payware developers believe certain countries are, shall we say, less respectful of intellectual property than others, and that factors into their project decisions. Whatever the reason, it seems FSX is missing out on a wonderful part of the world by not having good Italian coverage. I lived in Sicily (Belpasso, up on the knees of Mt. Etna near Catania) for a few years and flew on a lot on Alitalia MD-82s.

 

Another reason I miss FS9.

Orbx has some of Italy covered. Info here

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/381729-excellent-scenery-for-italy-switzerland/

Funny that you should mention this Tim as ADX reported today that LIRF by Dream Factory Studios has been pushed back and probably wont release in 2013. Apparently Aerosoft received the FSX version or files and decided that they didn't want to publish it. I'm guessing that was due to either performance problems, perhaps like the ones reported when they published EHAM by the same developer and were flooded with performance support problems, or for some other reason, maybe quality? I'll bet it was due to performance though and they probably don't want a repeat of what happened with the EHAM release with people mad about lousy performance.

 

That being said, besides Bari, Venice and Florence published by Aerosoft, Milan by Sim Giants, and the freeware Palermo here on Avsim, there is not much to choose from for Italy.

The Aerosoft things are great, and they actually got one more, Olbia. Also, there's a freeware LIRF ported over from FS9, but works great, and there also is Naples as freeware!

Besdies that, Aussiex have some excellent photoreal sceneries for the Norther part of Italy, also freeware! And as far as I am aware, those photoreal sceneries also enhance at least some of the default airports in that area, e.g. Genoa.

Wow. That's disappointing news about having an LIRF so close and Aerosoft balking. I'm sure they have their reasons. But a flight sim world without a high-quality LIRF is pretty sad. It's not like there are no ambitious Mediterranean sceneries out there, e.g. LEPA. Venice is great, but the airport is more or less an afterthought to the cool city scenery, and I think Florence might be the same. I have EHAM and haven't noticed any serious performance issues, but admittedly, my computer is pretty high end. I'll check out the library for some freeware scenery -- thanks for the tip about Palermo -- and Milan, too, although I can't say I'm familiar with Sim Giants. I have picked up some South American scenery recently and found it to range from really good (MMMX by Taxi2Gate) to meh. I guess that's why I'm reluctant to pay for new airports from companies I'm not familiar with.

 

I swear I had a scenery that optionally had Mt. Etna be erupting. It might have been that LAGO product for the airport across the Straits of Messina, not sure. I wonder what the health of the hobby is like in Italy. I don't know that that should make a difference, since good Italian scenery would attract a lot of people in the Anglophone world and elsewhere.

Funny that you should mention this Tim as ADX reported today that LIRF by Dream Factory Studios has been pushed back and probably wont release in 2013. Apparently Aerosoft received the FSX version or files and decided that they didn't want to publish it. I'm guessing that was due to either performance problems, perhaps like the ones reported when they published EHAM by the same developer and were flooded with performance support problems, or for some other reason, maybe quality? I'll bet it was due to performance though and they probably don't want a repeat of what happened with the EHAM release with people mad about lousy performance.

 

That being said, besides Bari, Venice and Florence published by Aerosoft, Milan by Sim Giants, and the freeware Palermo here on Avsim, there is not much to choose from for Italy.

 

Their excuse for EHAM was it is heavy on frames because of the design of the airport, with the taxiways and such. Sounds like that is just another load of BS and the developer just isn't talented to make good performance scenery at all, something I suspected all along. I wish a talented dev came out with EHAM too.

Plenty of Italian downloads listed here...

 

http://www.freewarescenery.com/fsx/italy.html

 

 

Chris.

Thanks, I'll check those out.

Google Mazzokan Scenery and you will find a lot of freeware photoreal scenery.

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

 

The best scenaries for italy around have been already mentioned in the end, there is a photoreal Tuscany and Liguria, also Valle D'Aosta.

 

The biggest disappointment here is about the full coverage of Italy as a scenery that was supposed to be released, but of course everything died because someone wanted to make a profit out of it

 

http://sirx.flightsimulatorcenter.com/photoviewer/photogallery.aspx

 

Pieces of it now can only be found for the Alps thanks to Frank Danese sceneries, but that's about it. That huge addon was also supposed to update most italian airports, but it's too late now :(

I've got a feeling that having just done Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal, MSE will be doing Italy very shortly...