This may get moved, because, maybe it does not belong here, but did we have payware airports in the '90's?I remember Mallard having many add on's but were there airports?

Initially said no but edited my post, now double thinking it... scenery packs I recall way back but those were "regions"?

Edited December 1, 2025Dec 1 by KERNEL32

The Google AI engine states that payware airport addons started being released around the mid 1990s with FS5.1.

Yes, there were, I started mid 90's, I remember 'photo-realistic' addons like for San Francisco back then. Lago produced i. e Venice for 5.1. There were Europe 1 and 2 addons incl. paper Jeppesen maps. Also, there was Kai-Tak airport available back then (on 3,5" floppy discs). 

For MSFS 4 (ie FS4) I created and published regional scenery (including every airport and even small airstrips) for the south east of Australia. 3 products, first Sydney, then Melbourne and finally Canberra. With the 3 products you could fly from the Hunter region all the way to King Island Tasmania, with every VOR, NDB and airfield. 
 

The software included a thick manual, charts etc and floppy disks. Available in stores. 
 

Ha, those were the days!

🙂

Edited December 1, 2025Dec 1 by mfahey
Typo

Enrico Schiratti and I created a lot of European freeware sceneries for MSFS in 1993 and later

Simflyers (aka Imaginesim), UK2000, Cloud9 ( now FSDT) all started back in 1990s. Alex Bashkatov from PMDG started with PSS at the end of 90s, maybe 2000.

3 hours ago, pemigris said:

 incl. paper Jeppesen maps. Also, there was Kai-Tak airport available back then (on 3,5" floppy discs). 

The good old days, where printed paper was still a thing! I remember "scenery italy" came in a box, with 2 or 3 floppy disks, and the book with jeppersen maps. Had to travel quite a lot to find a shop selling it, online shopping almost didnt exist yet.

Running with a 17 inches CRT screem, it felt so realistic!  I think it was on fs4.1 or 5.1 cant remember, must have been 1994 or something.

36 minutes ago, mfahey said:

The software included a thick manual, charts etc and floppy disks. Available in stores......

I miss those 3.5" floppy disks. Inserting them in the drive always produced a satisfying "thunk" sound 

My favourite scenery disks back in FS4 were easily the Mallard Software Hawaii and Tahiti products, although I remember having decent scenery (spread across multiple disks) of Great Britain from Gemini Software.

Edited December 1, 2025Dec 1 by Christopher Low

I seem to remember the UK2000 airports being on sale pretty early on. Maybe not as way back as the 90s but I certainly remember seeing boxed versions of their Extreme and VFR Airports products for FS2002/4 for sale on the shelves in Game and PC World in the early 2000s. I think they were sold through JustFlight if I remember rightly. Probably not as widespread as todays download era when boxed on disc was the main medium as they were expensive to produce.

Actually we could purchase scenery add-ons in the 1980’s. Granted they weren’t airport specific but, for example, you could buy the “STAR Scenery Disk: San Francisco & The Bay Area” which would include the airports in that region.

https://www.mobygames.com/group/314/sublogics-flight-simulator-scenery-add-ons/

i was pretty young but flew the heck out of my Apple IIe Flight Simulator 2.0 and asked for nothing but scenery disks for Christmas/birthday, etc.
It did its trick because now I fly professionally for a big Brown company out of SDF.

There were these titles for FS5.1. Came with books full of aerodrome charts.

Pretty sure I had a New York one as well.