Best payware airports in Europe?

[Ricardo41 5,949]

9 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

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

Digital Design Salzburg is excellent!

It's on sale at ORBX, but I watched Filbert's review of the scenery, and he has significant performance issues. 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Ricardo41

[GSalden 4,657]

RDPresets Gibraltar 

IniScene Heathrow (has VDGS)

RDPresets Rotterdam

RDPresets Naples

BMW Genova

FT Athens

Simwings Hamburg

FT Corfu

Scenery TR Designs Istanbul

BMW and FranceVFR Marseille

AS Brussels (Jo Erlund)

 

 

[Shack95 2,658]

Brussels and everything Fly Tampa is top notch. 

There are many other great sceneries, most of which have been mentioned. I would also add LFLL (Digital Design) to that list. 

[RobJC 2,069]

I have purchased only two airports, KDEN and YVR. Denver is my home airport, and it was really messed up. But i have a hard time dropping ~ $20 per airport because once i start doing that I can easily drop hundreds on airports. Of course the add-on airports look great, but wow does the cost add up over time, not to mention storage space requirements. But kudos to those that can buy and maintain so many add-ons.  

[Ixoye 1,821]

EKCH Kastrup Denmark is great, so are ESSB Bromma Sweden (ORBX).

[spitzer45 99]

I think the best airport is Jo Erlund's EBBR, textures of buildings and runways are just great. But it is normally a bit heavy at fps.

[Fielder 3,674]

Gatwick is payware quality but freeware 

https://flightsim.to/file/5784/gatwick-egkk-ultra-star-edition-phase-1-0

It was updated this month (about every 4 weeks or so there seems to be a new version by mkvy. 

[fra147 65]

In my opinion EBBR represents today the gold standard. Truly immersive and detailed.

FlyTampa (waiting for EHAM) and Jetstream Design my other favorites scenery developer in terms of quality:

LGAV FT

LGKR FT

LFPO JD

LIML JD

LICJ/LICG/LICD JD

 

Also very enjoyable Iniscene EGLL (good optimization with the last builds) and BMW sceneries (LICC in example) but a little step behind FT and JD 

 

PS: Also Latin VFR LEMD is a great scenery but a little bit heavy, I hope for a future optimization.

To be mentioned also, as a nice European airport, 29Palm Scenery LGMK

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by fra147

[Ricardo41 5,949]

Orbx are having a sale, so I went through their catalogue to see whether anything would strike my fancy. I have to say, I was quite disappointed at the quality of some of their airports. Some are quite good, many are several rungs below some of the great freeware airports available on flightsim.to. 

Overall, my sense is that Orbx just isn't delivering the quality stuff anymore. 

For example, I was interested in purchasing Rome-Fiumicino, but the MK version looks terrible. DD's Salzburg, OTOH, which I bought, looks decent. 

[ryanbatc 12,857]

29 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

Orbx are having a sale, so I went through their catalogue to see whether anything would strike my fancy. I have to say, I was quite disappointed at the quality of some of their airports. Some are quite good, many are several rungs below some of the great freeware airports available on flightsim.to. 

Overall, my sense is that Orbx just isn't delivering the quality stuff anymore. 

For example, I was interested in purchasing Rome-Fiumicino, but the MK version looks terrible. DD's Salzburg, OTOH, which I bought, looks decent. 

I tend to agree.  The days of beautiful orbx scenery have come to an end.  Two of my early msfs sceneries, KBUR and KSBA look like p3d ports.  

There are still a few airports sold by them that appear pretty nice though.

[BrammyH 447]

On 3/19/2023 at 10:52 AM, RobJC said:

Of course the add-on airports look great, but wow does the cost add up over time, not to mention storage space requirements.

It does add up. It also doesn't help that on average, the default airports stink. What I have done is at least buy a lot of major hubs. It doesn't help I buy a lot of European airports but fly a lot of American routes. 

[slicker55 24]

On 3/19/2023 at 1:21 AM, Konterhalbe said:

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...

Thanks you for taking the time to share your criteria - a man after my own heart... I bet you have a spreadsheet too!

Applying the information you have provided will go a long way to avoiding disappointment.

I am a member of two virtual airlines and only fly IFR (A320, B737-800) in Europe.

Therefore, when considering any new purchase one of the first things I do is to check the availability of flights in the VA's.

Many of my purchases have been influenced by FilbertFlies and VirtualAirlinePilot excellent YouTube reviews but aviation forums often provide additional user experiences, comments and opinions.

Lately, I also check the availability of a GSX Pro Profile which can sometimes tip the scales in a neck and neck situation!

I find the most difficult decisions tend to occur when there is more than one rendition of the scenery available especially if one of them is currently on sale.