12 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

With each World Update (and the original sim) Asobo includes 'enhanced' airports. There is a reason for this. They look much nicer and add to the realism. Ditto payware and good freeware airports.Those who have no interest in the way the sim looks could save a fortune by re installing FSX.

How can you compare the airports in FSX to MSFS default?. A bare runway on a brown slab of dirt in the middle of nowhere, is a typical FSX default. 

15 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

Those who have no interest in the way the sim looks could save a fortune by re installing FSX.

LOL Airports occupy around 0,0000000000000001% of the entire world (just a wild guess, it could also be 0,00000000000000000000000000000000001%) so even if you don't really care about airports that doesn't mean you apparently don't care about how the sim looks and there is nothing left to enjoy anymore. Suggesting that people who are happy with default airports might as well go back to FSX is of course utter nonsense. 😉 I am TOTALLY into beautiful graphics and MSFS does deliver the goods in spades: I enjoy what I see in MSFS every day and I am still in awe that this all is happening during my lifetime, just as I was the first day I flew in MSFS. Despite my lack of interest in addon airports. It's all a matter of personal preference. 😉

There is also a distinction between default and MSFS handcrafted. I consider a default airport one untouched by human hands. The sim did its best guess on what it should be.

The bespoke, handcrafted, etc. by Asobo released as part of the WUs, I track on my sheet with the WU it came from. Overly technical, but the Vlookup I run on my flght planning/logging records an N/A result off my handcrafted list as "Default."

So, yeah, the bespoke airports are orders of magnitude better than the straight default.

Initially I've only bought sceneries for airports from the cities I've lived in and know deeply (this means SKBG, SKMD and SACO), but then I extended my requirement to main hubs I use (SKBO, SABE, MPTO), which I also know deeply. I know I'm visiting all these airports so much, and they will be paid for (i.e., time enjoying them is more than time earning them).

1 hour ago, Noel said:

Here are a few default airports to illustrate:

I think Rio de Janeiro is one of the default hand-crafted airports in MSFS (so, it may count as an add-on one instead), but definitely Rionegro is as default as it gets. I've been there several times IRL, and I can say Asobo's rendition is pretty close to reality. A bit of night lighting and it's done.

4 hours ago, BrammyH said:

I have a running Excel sheet that has all the handcrafted airports in my library, their ICAO code, and if i own it, or it's from FSTO. I do some YouTube stuff so I like to be able to easily see if the addon is free for my video notes. I also log my flights in the same Excel workbook so I have an entry for "Paid-don't have" so I can track how often I fly into an area to see if it's worth buying the airport.

Personally, I prefer dropping pins in Google Earth of which payware airports I own, good quality freeware from fs.to and the handcrafted 'default' airports.
Using GE allows me to visually see what I have downloaded and allows me to also name the developer, plus list which of the three stores that I regularly use for the payware scenery.

Despite the improvements made, 'default-default', rather than 'handcrafted-default' airports are a no-go for me.

 

4 hours ago, micstatic said:

I refuse to fly to any default airports.

4 hours ago, tup61 said:

I absolutely don't get that. I would feel extremely limited.

Two ends of the scale. What's great is that there's so many options to choose.
A lot of the 'superfluous' options in airport scenery can be either be turned off completely or reduced to a less performance harming level.
There are hundreds of airport sceneries in my MSFS on all continents, so I won't run out of new routes to fly any time soon.

I recently returned to another flight sim platform for a couple of flights.
Aside from the very highest quality payware scenery (e.g. Flightbeam / Jo Sund's EDDK), it was very noticeable that in MSFS there has been a huge improvement in texture quality, modelling and number of objects to really bring a scenery to life. What's even better is that in MSFS, this amount of detail performs beautifully 99% of the time.

2 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Personally, I prefer dropping pins in Google Earth of which payware airports I own, good quality freeware from fs.to and the handcrafted 'default' airports.
Using GE allows me to visually see what I have downloaded and allows me to also name the developer, plus list which of the three stores that I regularly use for the payware scenery

Yeah, I do that too. The Excel sheet, and lookups, are when I research a real world flight, I can enter the information and it can tell me if I have a non-default version.

I also use Volanta's scenery tracker, but it won't differentiate free or paid, obviously.

Addon linker is what I use. It has a map display tool. 

Thanks to all. This was exactly what I was looking for. I will buy a couple and hope that I don’t go wild. Lol

 

Like others have said, the default and hand-crafted Asobo airport are different animals.

Unless there's a much better payware rendition of a hand-crafted one (KDEN, for example), I generally leave the hand-crafted ones. The true default, autogen only ones though, are completely lifeless and boring to me. Sure, the runway might look fine and the buildings vaguely resemble the hangar areas of a big airport, but they don't look at all appealing. No immersion whatsoever.

That said, when the scenery looks overly computer generated (no dirt, lines are too bright, colors look brand new and everything looks kind of cartoony), as with lots of freeware, it makes me keep the default instead.

I buy payware from top developers that looks good and weathered, that I will fly to/from a few or more times, and I look for payware that has editable features (interiors on/off, ground clutter on/off, statics on/off, etc.).

So, I much, much, much prefer to fly into/out of my payware airports and generally avoid default ones as well. I won't install freeware that looks computer generated, but I will often fly whatever if I'm trying to see a particular part of the world.

In P3D the default airports were an eyesore, an abomination, a sharp stab in the eyes, with a dagger dipped in acid and poison. 

Not so in MSFS.

The default airports mostly look okish, the handcrafted ones are quite good, and there are a ton of freeware airports available, many of which are superior in quality to payware ones. 

 

Handcrafted airports, while surely quite good on a visual level, are usually severely lacking in small things like taxi signs or parking spot paintings etc. This makes using them on Vatsim almost impossible. I swear premium EDDF on Vatsim was a nightmare, even though I know that airport like my living room! I am using the freeware VirtualFra EDDF now instead; much better...
 

16 hours ago, prdant said:

Thanks to all. This was exactly what I was looking for. I will buy a couple and hope that I don’t go wild. Lol

 

Remember to check flightsim.to first for freeware versions.   There is a lot of high quality addon airports there that wont cost you a penny that are just as good if not better than a lot of payware, and if not that good, far better than default!  A few scenery designers there that are absolutely killing it when if comes to freeware are Littlekrg and Troglodytus (mostly Austrian)  Superspud (mostly UK) sbworks and str1kestudioz for all those smaller NZ strips,  Bindook and sltcreations for AUS,  to name but a few.  

In the early days i went on a payware spree for months but rarely purchase them these days. The freeware scene is massive for MSFS, so take advantage of it

in terms of handcrafted.  The Handcrafted atlanta is better than the payware one  (Imaginesim).  

On 5/9/2023 at 2:28 PM, Bobsk8 said:

I spend very little time looking around airports when I fly. Departure, I am setting up aircraft for the flight, taxi out and take off. Landing, I land, taxi to gate, shut down, and that's it. To me that is not worth the price of an airport, and since I fly all over the world in MSFS, that has almost 40,000 airports, even if they were $1 each, way too much money. Default airports look fine to me. 

I totally agree on this one! (Finally we agree 🙂) Also you can add Zinertek airport graphics (or REX), and GSX Pro to pimp the default airports a little further and then add some AI traffic software which adds local traffic.

For me the general rule is also how more you add to a sim, how bigger the chance is you have to pay with your performance and stuttering etc.

The only downside is that the Navigraph charts not showing the same taxiways and parking positions a lot of times.

 

Edited May 11, 20233 yr by rob0203