2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Since you own it, is it worth getting? I.e., would you buy it again?

 Its worth it, the developer put a lot of work into it. He also has a lot of helipads as well. 

It very nice.

Edited March 6Mar 6 by BobFS88

Not necessarily a suggestion, but I don't buy any 3rd party scenery.  X-Plane version updates often render such scenery obsolete as LR changes and updates their own scenery display parameters.  Default scenery is getting better and better as new library assets are released for Gateway artists.  And unlike many, I fly random airports so seldom see one more than once or twice.  JMHO

2026 XP12 and Scenery revisit.

This thread came up when I was on a Windows OS and XPlane. Changed over to a Linux OS and Linux XP. By this stage we are at XP12.4. Decided to leave default scenery as is first up. Came to the conclusion that Laminar had been subtely adding to scenery and airports (Lot of changes to objects) Marine traffic has been boosted significantly as well. Traffic on roads is orderly and believable with complete field of view coverage. Real weather depiction is significantly better and light management is being handled well as it is seems anti-aliasing, Only scenery addons i have added are the Grand Artic/Antartica And Northern Russian packages (Payware) to give me the North and South Polar regions which are not provided currently in XPlane. Added in a Pacific Package for Tahiti and Society Islands - that also gives excellent reef rendition and quite a few Pacific Islands and airports that do the same thing and are more authentic than the Gateway. Few quirky places with nice airports (Alas Greenland and Iceland) and by the way only XP12 versions with few libraries, some off course are almost works of art like Cami De Bellis airport scenery - outstanding. I find the current default airports all over the world to be very very well done now. There are of course what I call the mega-airports that are about which are down to the tins and rubbish level of airport authenticity only put in one Sydney Australia (Tampa Sydney) simply because the Gateway rendition is dated and needs work and the container bay on Botany Bay is missing in the default scenery which is odd. No SimHeaven, waiting for the Pro version to come. I am sure there are lots of areas where there are non default airport or small area geographical packages available like Alaska and Northern Canada and some parts of South America that would spruce it up but as I rarely go there the default does fine looks good to me! Default textures, trees and forest and water. Change nothing is very respectable. 

Do Gateway airports automatically come in XPlane 12 updates or do I have to download them myself from the Gateway website?

3 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

Do Gateway airports automatically come in XPlane 12 updates or do I have to download them myself from the Gateway website?

Gateway airports are updated in the sim as far as I am aware on a 3 monthly cycle. Laminar advise of any new additions that are shall we say new or major changes. The gateway updates are generally so small in file size that you just don't notice them when the XP updater does its thing. Lot of changes small and incremental and you only notice them now and then. Like the balloons (hate em myself)- starting to see a lot more of them for some reason!

1 hour ago, coastaldriver said:

Gateway airports are updated in the sim as far as I am aware on a 3 monthly cycle. Laminar advise of any new additions that are shall we say new or major changes. The gateway updates are generally so small in file size that you just don't notice them when the XP updater does its thing. Lot of changes small and incremental and you only notice them now and then. Like the balloons (hate em myself)- starting to see a lot more of them for some reason!

Thanks coastaldriver. The ballon’s I can ignore, what I hate is the fuel and service trucks slicing through my aircraft when parked on a GA ramp. Anyway, thanks for the answer.

11 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

Thanks coastaldriver. The ballon’s I can ignore, what I hate is the fuel and service trucks slicing through my aircraft when parked on a GA ramp. Anyway, thanks for the answer.

This should normally not happen (the Gateway moderator checks for truck paths cutting through parked aircraft and buildings)...but it WILL happen anytime you select to have AI aircraft flying along with you. They will fly around, land, taxi and park - and then call for the ground trucks to service them. The ground trucks will adhere to the marked paths until they get close enough to the aircraft, then they will try to maneuver to get to the "docking ports" of that aircraft, ignoring everything in their path to get there.

The solution: Don´t use AI aircraft. If it STILL happens after that, you can report the airport at the Gateway Scenery Bug report site: https://gateway.x-plane.com/bug_reports  Note that you must be registered and logged in to do that.

With a few exceptions (larger commercial airports,) virtually ALL smaller airports (municipals, regionals, airfields, etc.) are updated by volunteer artists of which there are hundreds -- a really dedicated group of simmers who give up some flying time to update things.  Although there is some standardization filtering by the moderators who approve Gateway submissions, each airport is a more of less personal interpretation of how the airport looks in available satellite images.  Older airports (original automated WEDbots and later XP11 vintages) often have incorrect taxiways, buildings, and incorrect aircraft and ground traffic.  These things are gradually being updated and improved.

But there are over 38,000 airports/airfields in X-Plane, and it takes time to fix all of them.  Many are small, almost obscure airports, even private airstrips that come and go and escape attention from all but local flyers.  It takes me hours if not days to update a single regional airport to XP12 levels, so updating large commercial airports are usually done by a single artist over months.

Finally, the rate at which updated Gateway airports are included in XP updates has increased.  Once approved and "recommended" by the moderator, they are incrementally included in virtually every XP update.  If you fly smaller GA aircraft into randomly selected airports, you will be surprised to find many of them up to date and very accurately rendered.

9 hours ago, mldavis2 said:

With a few exceptions (larger commercial airports,) virtually ALL smaller airports (municipals, regionals, airfields, etc.) are updated by volunteer artists of which there are hundreds -- a really dedicated group of simmers who give up some flying time to update things.  Although there is some standardization filtering by the moderators who approve Gateway submissions, each airport is a more of less personal interpretation of how the airport looks in available satellite images.  Older airports (original automated WEDbots and later XP11 vintages) often have incorrect taxiways, buildings, and incorrect aircraft and ground traffic.  These things are gradually being updated and improved.

But there are over 38,000 airports/airfields in X-Plane, and it takes time to fix all of them.  Many are small, almost obscure airports, even private airstrips that come and go and escape attention from all but local flyers.  It takes me hours if not days to update a single regional airport to XP12 levels, so updating large commercial airports are usually done by a single artist over months.

Finally, the rate at which updated Gateway airports are included in XP updates has increased.  Once approved and "recommended" by the moderator, they are incrementally included in virtually every XP update.  If you fly smaller GA aircraft into randomly selected airports, you will be surprised to find many of them up to date and very accurately rendered.

Well said was going to say that myself. Keeps the perspective on this. 38,000 airports is not something you can assign to a batch process. I agree completely the changes are happening continuously - I see them all the time  but then I tend to do a lot of out of the way sim aviating. The improvement is significant and impressive. I might be a bit different to some sim users who have their favourite patch or area, I am all over the globe from Africa to Asia and the Pacific etc etc. Recently as an example was in Western Africa environs (Angola, Namibia and South Africa) I was impressed by how good the default airports and scenery was - sure in some places may not have had the rubbish or oil stains but you did have to stand back and say - well why get an addon for here - nothing to change from a sim point of view. I guess the real addons I look at and use (less than a 100 in 38000) are because the scenery builder has done the hard yards creating the 3D objects of extravagant terminal architecture that is about in the RW, That takes time and dedication but even then the default in most cases in word not allowed close. 

Gateway and the community involved - amazing and appreciated. 

Some scenery releases stress that this is a Gateway airport updated and released until such time as this stuff gets incorporated - others well they have done the work to build it so and probably the models and libraries used are not easily incorporated into the general gateway and WED process (for instance the size of the data files supporting the airport complex) 

The vehicles running into you on the ground thing - yes saw that a lot once but as they get the airport environs cleaned up (taxyways etc) and corrected, do not see that at some but now and then at others - not a biggy for me. 

Few thoughts anyway

Yes, I've updated many out of the way airports and airstrips that perhaps no one will ever visit.  I track aviation "incidents" and let those "assign" my flights and aircraft.  So I end up in some really out-of-the-way places.  So while no one may ever land there, you never know.  And how nice it is to land at some obscure airport or airfield and find it up to date and accurate according to the charts -- if it even has charts.  But even with no charts available, there are often things that just aren't right.  Like diagonal taxiway and tarmac seams, new buildings missing, excessive traffic, oversized aircraft, etc.  Things are in constant change, and there are still those older airports that were AI generated solely from CIFP runway dimensions by WEDbots that need either removal (private airstrips no longer there) or updating.

Others fly for VA's which are stationed at one airport, and most all of their flights are out of that one airport.  Good excuse to add that one to the list of commercial purchases.

So it depends on how you fly.  When I land at a "new" airport, I look it over from the pilot's perspective.  If it needs updating, I add it to my work list, update it and send it to Gateway.

Thanks for the comments.