Airport user or collector?

[sgreen91 182]

I'm one of those that use no payware airports, I only use afcads to improve the default taxi and parking positions.  I have about 30 payware airports most from flightbeam and fsdreamteam but after using them I noticed if I landed at one I would taxi to gate and exit P3D seeing it for maybe 10 minutes and that was it.  I just decided for myself it was not worth it, I don't even install liveries for my aircraft becuase I never leave the flightdeck.  

I'm just an oddball probably.

 

Edited April 17, 2019 by sgreen91

[Jude Bradley 659]

I actually "blame" PMDG for all this. After buying the NGX way back when (10 years!), it make FSX look rubbish, like driving a Rolls-Royce into a council estate. I had to start buying addons to make the NGX credible. Robert should get royalties from all my addons.

 

[SunDevil56 183]

7 hours ago, cmpbellsjc said:

I personally avoid defualt airports like the plague, even ones that have been modified or dressed up with ADE.

Ditto here... I rarely fly a default airport these days, but I do have a few freeware airports that I use occasionally.

I guess you could say i'm an "airport collector", i've pretty much lost count of how many add on payware airports I have installed...😁

To be honest, I don't fly many of them all that often, but when I do, it's worth every penny...

[StChalky 10]

I work my way round my airports either on a whim because I just fancy heading to a certain part of the world or, I fancy pretending I'm based at the airport in which case I'll fly in/out of it for maybe 4/5 flights before I move to another base airport.  Probably once a year I'll use a default airport and mainly that is because I want to scope out the area if I'm thinking of buying an add-on version of the airport but not familiar with either the airport or that part of the world.  

 

Certainly using one as a base helps me feel I'm getting good use out of it.  Got in the range of 30+ add on airports.

Cheers

[UAL4life 239]

I have airports I haven’t even flown to so I’ve started to only buy airports when I fly to them.  

I use the https://earthroulette.com to pick a place to fly to from my last arrival city.

Then go to Kayak.com to book flights and sort by cheapest which usually gives me 8 options on various airlines and sometimes crazy routes. I use a virtual dice website app to roll a dice (you can choose how many dice and sides) and which ever number it lands on is the option I use  

Earth roulette sometimes just gives you the country but Kayak gives the most popular cities(airports) within that country to which I use the dice app again to chose which airport within the country.

Right now I’ve been ending up flying a lot in Africa— While you do hit up a large amount of default airports, I’ve been finding most of my airports as either freeware upgrades or even payware! GSX level 2 helps with older freeware and default airports, I only wish they would add Light poles with dynamic lights to the parking spots to give an easy way to light up the tarmac without the use of ADE.   

 

 

[vbazillio 2,234]

14 hours ago, curt1 said:

Has anybody else been weighing the cost versus return ratio of their airport sceneries?

I weight it everytime a gorgeous/awesome/spectacular whatever product gets released. Just have to answer : will I use it or not ? Worth it the money ?

If you're not able to answer the question, simple : don't buy it or don't complain collecting products 😉 On the bright side, you support the addon industry !

Edited April 17, 2019 by vbazillio

[andreh 125]

I agree with Dan, the cost of this hobby is not nearly as steep as it is sometimes made out to be, so I buy addons without any regrets. I don't like to fly to default airports so I just get an addon even if I don't plan to fly there frequently.

I used to play a lot tennis as well. One week of indoor court fees was more than I spend on flightsimming for a year, including paid updates for P3D. Simming is cheap!

 

[CFIJose 5,485]

Just like buying an airplane, I usually take the time to read, watch videos, reviews, and anything else I can find on the plane. I also enjoy learning about any airport that I buy or get for free, exploring the area, checking out the textures, testing performance, and practicing touch & goes with my A2A 172. If you are only using the add-on once, then you are missing out immensely!

[bbuckley 133]

14 hours ago, w6kd said:

I keep a set of maps that show where my addons are, and when planning a flight, I use that visual aid to help choose city pairs for a flight.

How do you create the map initially? I haven't been able to figure anything out other than manual entry. I'd like to include the payware and ORBX Freeware Airports in the areas I like to fly. I already have a map someone created for ALL the ORBX Freeware Airports.

Like many of you I prefer to fly from payware to payware and the investment seems well worth it to me.

[Nemo 1,305]

21 minutes ago, bbuckley said:

How do you create the map initially? I haven't been able to figure anything out other than manual entry. I'd like to include the payware and ORBX Freeware Airports in the areas I like to fly. I already have a map someone created for ALL the ORBX Freeware Airports.

Like many of you I prefer to fly from payware to payware and the investment seems well worth it to me.

If you have SimStarter, it can create kmz.files of all add-on airports for Google Earth. There were other small programs who could do this too. Maybe Little MapNav or Plan-G have  related possibilities.

[AndrejS 25]

Am i turning into an airport add-on collector? 
Well, i'm a rookie on Medium+ realism (bought p3d 4 months ago) and i have like 30+ add-on airports and practically all Europe and Oceania covered with sceneries. Most of them i buy to relive memories or fulfill my dream routes and neither memories nor dreams have the price. Since Since i only fly GA aircrafts (to avoid the fps bottleneck), visual quality is of great value to me and i always fly with Google maps turned on to additionally check the similarity to the real world. 
In the end, if you fly GA, airports are merely points where you start and end your flying, what really matters is the path from A to B, the weather you encounter, all the small details. Many times i try the VFR flying without navigation to see if my memory still serves me (try doing that in the Alps with ActiveSky turned on to see what i mean). This week i'm flying the NZ scenery (2-3 hours daily in the evening) and it's just awesome, last week i was doing France. Next week i'll fly Spain. It just never ends...
So, no matter what the answer to the given question is and you feel bad about it, spend some time & money on GA aircrafts and sceneries (there's lots of great freeware too) and enjoy the view, it's worth it. 

[Bob Scott 7,721]

On 4/17/2019 at 7:15 AM, bbuckley said:

How do you create the map initially? I haven't been able to figure anything out other than manual entry. I'd like to include the payware and ORBX Freeware Airports in the areas I like to fly. I already have a map someone created for ALL the ORBX Freeware Airports.

Like many of you I prefer to fly from payware to payware and the investment seems well worth it to me.

I use these as the foundation, then use Photoshop to add colored polygons where I have improved airports (different colors/shapes for full high-quality add-ons, resurrected FSX ones, and ADE-only enhancements):

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/refmaps.html

Regards

[ryanbatc 12,855]

I used to fly on vatsim a lot more so I liked having a payware airport where the big events were. Now I rarely go to the big ones...mostly just stay near Orbx stuff or flightbeam stuff