A couple of versions back (was it FS-2000?) Microsoft told us that the sim now included all airfields in the world, some 20,000+ of them.  We've been told the new one will have 40,000+.  Why the difference? Have that many new airfields sprung up in the last 20 years?

The new terrain is constructed from aerial/sat imagery, it automatically carries all the visible airports. The past iterations of the sim had a totally reconstructed terrain of coarse textured LC maps on which selected airports were pasted. That would be the most probable explanation. 

In one of the X019 interviews, the MSFS lead stated, "about 48,000 airports".

6 minutes ago, Bottle said:

In one of the X019 interviews, the MSFS lead stated, "about 48,000 airports".

There is so much more information on what is an airport now...

There are a lot of airports in the world. Some are small grass strips, some are mega-airports...

And sometimes there are more secluded areas, and some stuff isn't recognized as an airport officially.

It's hard to get a nice and correct number, air travel has grown drastically.

FSX was always missing airports. 

Half of them will be rough grass and dirt strips. There must be thousands of those across the world.

23 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Half of them will be rough grass and dirt strips. There must be thousands of those across the world.

Probably greater than half I would imagine. It's hard to quantify because it depends on what definition is being used. Perhaps Asobo have used some sort of criterion such as; 'recognisable purpose built/maintained strip of land that will allow aircraft to land and take off'. I can imagine that  definition giving a number like 48,000. As more criteria are added (e.g., includes navigation aids, paved surface, pained markings, etc.) the numbers in each category will drop down markedly.

Last time I updated the real world airport database for one of my apps I counted 42103 distinct ICAO codes. 

Best regards

40 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Last time I updated the real world airport database for one of my apps I counted 42103 distinct ICAO codes. 

Best regards

Knowing that it is the other 5,897 which are really interesting to takeoff and land. 

They added all the airports discovered in the Inner Shell of the hollow Earth, obviously.

I know right off seven airstrips that do not have ID codes.  One is a private neighborhood with a grass strip and all 8 homes have hangers.  I also know of other strips, grass, dirt, and even paved, that are on American farms.  I believe I read that there are over 41,000 airports in the world but only like 17,000 with ICAO codes.   I have wondered if the 41,000 includes helo pads such as on hotels or hospitals.

I'll be impressed if they have, for example, Linkwasha Airstrip in Zimbabwe (19°7'33"S   27°12'3"E).

There's actually still a lot of airports that don't have ICAO codes.  Many of those we fly in to as a private operator.  Some of these airport are fairly well known also.  S25 is one of those here in the states.

31 minutes ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

There's actually still a lot of airports that don't have ICAO codes.  Many of those we fly in to as a private operator.  Some of these airport are fairly well known also.  S25 is one of those here in the states.

Same thing in Canada. Im a PPL and I can tell you of 4 places just in my local area (Class D control zone)  that dont show up in the CFS. There are so many out there. 

Which makes for an interesting question? My brother lives in the "country" and at one time a FedEx pilot had a grass strip he made for his Cessna 172 type airplane. Is this an airport? If indeed it is not in the MSFS 2020, I would like to create it one day if possible. I mean it wouldn't have an ICAO, and just might show up in the new MSFS 2020 when I go to fly over my brothers house, which I am for sure going to do 🙂 Very interesting!