Most of the flying I do in FS9 - aside from VA flights - is pretty aimless. I go from one place to another and don't give much thought to anything else but the performance itself. It'd be great to have a virtual "home base" so to speak to fly from and to. Something larger than a grass strip and a hut, but still small-scale; suitable for GA twins but not for commercial jet traffic.So, I figured I'd ask for your advice. I'm sure many here already have found such a place - perhaps they live close to it in real life. At this point I don't put much emphasis on the location. It could be in the US, Europe or Timbuktu for all I care, as long as it fits the description, is based on a real location, is freeware and goes above and beyond the "norm".Any ideas?

Good question.May I start with Flightscenery LRFD 2004 St-Malo Dinard Pleurtuit regional airport by Vauchez. It's freeware and a very nice GA strip with photreal scenery.

One of my favorite areas is Islands of the West Indies from Flight 1.Dozens of airports ranging from 1000ft runways and the infamous ST Barts which is one of the most difficult landings in fs9 to large 10000 footers with airlines,freight facilities and termimals.Another bonus are the frame rates. With all the water and painted textures, I can run EVERYTHNG MAXED OUT. Ai,Asv clouds, visibilty,autogen,you name it.Get Fscargo,set up a base and deliver goods to the islands. There is a good mix of short runways with tricky approaches with longer ones.There are alot of reviews out there and the graphics take some getting accustomed to. But with the great fps,large number of airports and the overall tropical feel, I quickly warmed up to the different look.

I'll second the IWI vote. There is a lot to do there and challenging approaches to boot. Perfect place for Premier's DHC6, FSD's Porter, Carenado's 206 Amphib. I personally like flying FSD's Seneca there (I still just love the way that one simulates a light twin and that soundset is incredible). I also did a lot of flying there while reviewing Majestic's Dash 8 which should be up in the next day or so.

Max,Flightscenery's LRFD was a good start! It has a little bit of that "homely" feeling I was looking for, but I think I could do with more :) I'm going to keep it nonetheless, thank you for the suggestion!JIMJAM & Zane,Unfortunately IWI is not a freeware scenery. Looking at the screenshots, it does look promising aside from that. Thanks for the suggestion in any case :)

I believe there are some French and German airport sceneries that are freeware, I know I have seen some impressive screenshots but don't remember where to find the packages. Neuroflight does have a very challenging Courchevel freeware package. If you don't mind changing eras Tom Gibson's California Classics has some very nice 1960's era airports including Honolulu. I have three installations of MSFS on my computer, one with Bill Lyons' Golden Wings representing 1930's era, one with his Silver Wings and all of Gibson's Cal Classics stuff as well for the 60's and finally current with UT, MyTraffic and one of the following BEV, GE, or VOZ depending on where I want to fly.

Come and join us up here in Canada. We've got a bunch of freeware sceneries for Manitoba and the Maritimes. Also, check out www.flighontario.com . Lots of goodies there.Adam

Zane,I think I'll stay with the "present" setting, thanks :)I also have Neuroflight's Courchevel installed but while the sloped runway is curious I'm not too keen on the blocky ground textures that come with the required AltiRelief.zip mesh :/Adam,I checked Flight Ontario's website, but unfortunately most of the sceneries require UT which I don't have :( Lake St. John, for example, seemed like a fitting airport aside from that requirement.Do you know who made the Manitoba and Maritimes airports you mentioned? I searched AVSim's file library with those words but found nothing.

Yup, my group CanUk made them. If you do a search here in AVSIM for "CanUk" they will all come up. You can also check out our website at the link under my name. The latest sceneries we did were done around UT but work fine without UT. Many people who don't have UT use them.Thanks,Adam

How about Napeles, Italyhttp://www.napulevola.it/products/2006.aspxPhoto scenery and airport Albenga LIMGorat AVISIM download.Look for the Julliana arport and St. Barths like that was suggested. They are close to one another. Great sceneries.Or even Hawaii airport sceneries.. there are atleast 6 well done Hawaii airports.Manny

With AFCAD2 and the Rwy12 Object Placer (both freeware, here on AVSIM), you can create your own airport from scratch and make it just how you like, where you like.Martin

Rather surprised noone has mentioned http://www.flyways.info/html/edlm2005.htmlVERY nice freeware and a great base for some great flights :)

Adam,Thanks for your help - I'll check out the airports on CanUK's website. The readmes I checked list a number of gotchas, though, so we'll see what comes of it :)Manny,I downloaded St. Barth's and checked it out - it has potential, although for some reason I had some performance issues. It *could* be due to GA-Traffic, though, so I'll have to try the airport out without that at a later time. Juliana is larger than what I had in mind, but thank you for the suggestions! :)Martin,I'm primarily looking for real airports, ones that represent something that exists in the real world. On the other hand, without actually visiting an airport I can't know what it really looks like... so in any case I could just go for what feels appropriate and create it myself.We'll see. I've never done it so I'm not sure the results would be all that great though :)

Jay,Thanks for your suggestion! That airport seems to be the right size and the scenery looks nice. It's also pretty close to the VA hub I operate from - just under 100 miles - and "only" 400 miles away from LFRD as suggested by Max. Not too far to visit with a fast twin :)

I'm partial to my own home airport, KASH (Boire Field, Nashua, NH). It's a towered class D single 5000' strip with ILS on 14 (they allow landings on the grass to the right of 32 as well) about 30 mi north of Boston, MA, and about a 5 minute flight from KMHT - Manchester, NH. It's also a good gateway airport to the White Mountains of NH and Maine. The largest jets you'll normally see there are G-IV's and the like. There are a few amphibians based there, as well as a fox and some deer that frequent the runway. The on airport restaurant is very good, although they limited the hours to breakfast and lunch a few years back.I released a version of it a couple of years ago, and am about to release an update of it (not finished yet, but it's time to get it out there). Nowhere near payware quality, but it certainly makes the airport feel more realistic to me.Other choices in the area are 8B1 Hawthorne Feather and 69NH (formerly 8B8), other airports I've done. In fact I've got a whole bunch of stuff I'm going to release on my website for New England at my website below hopefully this week.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)