Best payware airports in Europe?

[NismoRR 191]

Just started flying for KLM in A Pilot’s Life v2 and really enjoying Europe. As many of you may know, there’s an Orbx sale going on and looking to pick up an airport or five. I think I’ve heard many great things about Fly Tampa EKCH so that’s the one on the list already. Obviously it would be great if EHAM was out. What else? International airports as I’ll get the most out of them with APL. Thanks! 

[Silicus 849]

Aerosoft Mega Airport Brussels is one of the best airports ever made for Flightsim. Highly recommended!

[hhbrbg 136]

Hi,

below you will find a few very nice airports.

Edinburgh (EGPH) | Pyreegue

Glasgow (EGPF) | Pyreegue

London Heathrow (EGLL) | iniScene

FilbertFlies reviewed them and a lot more.

[Fielder 3,644]

London City for a challenge. It's fun watching youtube videos of real life landings in the wind. EGLC Orbx.

[737_800 434]

I can also recommand EDDK, Simwings EDDH (though later is not perfect), Flytampa LGAV (there is also freeware, if that might be enough for you), and of course EBBR. If you fly on VATSIM just consider that EBBR is barely active, but they have every second fridays an event going on.

If you consider buying Prague, I heard that the Tailstrike version is better than the ORBX, however, it's not on sale right now. Aerosoft EDDN is also nice, however there is cheaper version by freds-airports if that might suffice you. As mentioned EGLL by iniscene is very decent also.

I am considering buying LIRF; LPPT and LPPD. But not sure quality-wise and if there might be other rendations coming in the future. What do you guys think: it is worth? LIRF looks too clean to me.

[sonny147 573]

anything fly tampa . preegue and orbx, after that justsim MK studios Macco some good stuff out ther 

[ryanbatc 12,798]

There was an Austrian one I bought for flying in the Alps....

Digital Design Salzburg is excellent!

[NismoRR 191]

Great suggestions guys! Looking at Filbert videos. Lol funny I just landed at stock EGPH and the payware looks excellent. Have to check what airlines use these as hubs as SAS does with EKCH. 

[NismoRR 191]

17 minutes ago, sonny147 said:

anything fly tampa . preegue and orbx, after that justsim MK studios Macco some good stuff out ther 

Big FT fan too. I live in Vegas and we know how good KLAS is.  I thought it may be the best flight sim scenery but I now hear it’s Brussels. 🙃 Even though I’m looking at Europe, first FT that gets my attention on Orbx is KBOS! 

[sonny147 573]

Dont forget Flightbeam good stuff !

[salasnet 95]

I am a fan of BMW airports. Does not necessarily focus on the "big" airports, but the quality is always solid and the pricing is great.

https://beautifulmodelworld.com/map/

[Ricamato 7]

2 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

There was an Austrian one I bought for flying in the Alps....

Digital Design Salzburg is excellent!

It was solely due to the DD Salzburg airport in P3D, that I dragged my wife to see it (and the museum there) when we visited Salzburg in 2019.  She still does not know we went there because of a scenery in a simulator.  I agree, excellent. Had to get it for MSFS, of course.

 

Mike

[sniper31 629]

4 hours ago, NismoRR said:

Big FT fan too. I live in Vegas and we know how good KLAS is.  I thought it may be the best flight sim scenery but I now hear it’s Brussels. 🙃 Even though I’m looking at Europe, first FT that gets my attention on Orbx is KBOS! 

EBBR is indeed one of the best developed airports in Europe for MSFS as of right now. And, as for KBOS by FlyTampa, you will be most happy with that one too. It is another super well done airport and FT has done an excellent job with it. 

[Fielder 3,644]

KBOS has interesting 'easter eggs', one is at 6:50...

 

[Konterhalbe 295]

Oh, well, I'm really really picky when it comes to addon airports.

I've got a lot of different criteria an addon has to match. Some of those criterias are...

1) ATC coverage on VATSIM: worst is, when an airport gets to see very little coverage like LIBB Brindisi FIR, LFBB Bordeaux FIR or LRBB Bucharest FIR and when there's ATC, it's not scheduled. Most points in that regard get airport what sees ATC scheduling on a reguar basis. Like for example Milano FIR, Austria, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, Scandinavia and some others are well scheduled on https://statsim.net/atc/?tables=true.
This is extremely valueable for me as I like to have ATC whenever it's possible and scheduled online times of ATCs makes planning of routes possible where I get the most ATC.
Then there are airports that get to see coverage on a regular basis but are mostly not scheduled like ATC positions in Spain, Greece, France.

2) Runway Textures: I don't buy airports that show repetitive texturing on the RWY (be it the surface itself or just the rubber on the runway). I didn't buy flytampa EKCH because of wrong approach lighting and the rubber marks on the RWY. Once they are not centered to the centerline but rather 20m off to the left along the RWY edge. Can't buy it then cause that's something I'd have to look at every time I land on that RWY.

3) Apron and TWY Textures: again, no repetitive texturing, no default textures. Markings must match the real world layout.

4) Terminals and Buildings: again, strong focus on texturing.

5) Appearance during night times: some airports have really bad night texturing of the terminal.

6) Winter: some airports show minor od major issues since the MSFS snow coverage patch.

7) RWY Slope must match the real world slope gradient and/or RWY profile. When using P3D, I could never imagine how much of a difference a sloped RWY makes!

8. RWY Markings must match the real world (Gaya released quite a few airports in the past where most RWY markings were missing).

9) Static Aircraft: I don't buy airports from developers, who do not add an option to disable static aircraft or at least have a .bgl with "static" in it to easily disable it by renaming it to .bak.

10) Airport surrounding in the sim is o.k (some exotic airports could potentially have bad sat imagery around the field).

11) Correct approach lighting and placement of PAPI lights.

12) Suitable for a short hop within Europe.

13) I do not buy from developers that are likely to pay some sort of tax in Russia (Digital Design, Justsim, BMW).


Not many airports match all these criteria but here are the ones that made it into my shopping cart:

EBBR + EDDK Jo Erlend Sund
LGMK 29Palms, Emmanuel Stefanakis
EDDN Captain 7, 29Palms, Limesim.
EPKK, EPSY, EPMO, EPRZ, EPZG, EPLB, EPBY, all Drzewiecki
LGAV flyTampa
EDDW FSDG
LOWW Gaya (some minor issues but had to buy it, because of home bias)
UKOO, UKLL, UKBB, EGPF, EGPH, EGAA all Pyreegue (snow depiction is wrong but dev is aware of it)
LEIB iniScene
LFPO, LFBO Jetstream Design (want to get LFRS and LIML too but there's an update in progress I'll wait for)
LEZL, EINN MK-Studios
EGHI, LEAS, ENML by ORBX
LEMH, EDDH Simwings
GCXO Wolkenblau.

In addition to them, I can really recommend the following free MSFS World Update Airports: EDJA, EDVK, EFVA, EHRD, EKRN, LFMN, LICJ, LIPB, LPFR, LPPI, LSZA, LSZH, LSZR, TNCM.
Just give them a try, they are free and quite good imho.

I've been watching and reading a lot of videos and reviews of airports that were on my watchlist previously but didn't make it into my shopping cart. Some of them are:
Flytampa EKCH (wrong approach lighting and unrealistic tire skid marks on RWY) and LGKR (tire skid marks again).
ORBX LIEO; ESGG and LGSK: not removeable static aircraft.
ORBX LOWG: 35C Rabbit lights missing, 17C has got full approach lighting in the sim but there's no lighting in reality, Stands 29 and 38 not marked on the ground etc.
ORBX ESMS: issues with winter depiction (big green rectangle under the airport surfaces. -> will buy after an update.
Gaya LIRQ: very low FPS.
Dreamflight LFBZ: Most beautiful scenery ever but static aircraft can't be removed.

Many more didn't make it further down the purchasing process.
 

3 hours ago, Ricamato said:

It was solely due to the DD Salzburg airport in P3D, that I dragged my wife to see it (and the museum there) when we visited Salzburg in 2019.  She still does not know we went there because of a scenery in a simulator.  I agree, excellent. Had to get it for MSFS, of course.

 

Mike

I love to hear that 😄👍👍👍

Edited March 19, 2023 by Konterhalbe