I have been planning a round the world flight recently, with one of the stops to be Luxor (HELX) in Egypt, of which there was quite a good looking version available for P3D, available on simmarket very recently. (link of a press release relating to it: https://www.simflight.com/2015/06/23/simdesigngroup-luxor-sp1-released-p3d-version-released/)

Today I opened Simmarket intending to buy it only to find it had vanished.

In fairness this may not just be a case of support discontinued for P3D as it seems the devs' website is no longer serviceable either. But it is disheartening to lose the opportunity to purchase good quality sceneries - particularly given I cannot stand the default option.

Anybody know of any serviceable HELX scenery I might be able to find as a substitute?

Edited July 26Jul 26 by SimeonWilbury

This freeware one might work.

https://library.avsim.net/file/199505-luxor-international-airport-helx-egypt

8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

This freeware one might work.

https://library.avsim.net/file/199505-luxor-international-airport-helx-egypt

Thanks, it does seem to have some custom modelling + an updated afcad so probably better than nothing.

Edited July 27Jul 27 by SimeonWilbury

Look at this message from Pilot Experience sim:

After more than 20 years of hosting thousands of flight simulation products, SimMarket has decided to remove older products that recorded no sales during 2026 in order to reduce server storage.

Unfortunately, our Saint-Tropez Airport (LFTZ) for Prepar3D v4 / v5 / v6 is among the products affected.

If you're still flying with Prepar3D and have been thinking about adding this scenery to your collection, this is your last opportunity to purchase it before it disappears from SimMarket.

So as probably the more affected files are going to be the P3D products, expect more to vanish soon :(

Edited July 27Jul 27 by sdirand

Thanks for the heads up, just bought LFTZ looks like a nice little airport 🙂

Edited July 27Jul 27 by Dazkent

Where does this decision leave those of us who bought many airports from SimMarket and haven’t stored them locally? There’s also the question of the product key being stored on their servers.

Will anyone who bought P3D airports etc. from them lose access to their purchases?

2 hours ago, sdirand said:

Look at this message from Pilot Experience sim:

After more than 20 years of hosting thousands of flight simulation products, SimMarket has decided to remove older products that recorded no sales during 2026 in order to reduce server storage.

Unfortunately, our Saint-Tropez Airport (LFTZ) for Prepar3D v4 / v5 / v6 is among the products affected.

If you're still flying with Prepar3D and have been thinking about adding this scenery to your collection, this is your last opportunity to purchase it before it disappears from SimMarket.

So as probably the more affected files are going to be the P3D products, expect more to vanish soon :(

That must explain it. 'During 2026' seems odd to be given we are only 7 months into the year - 2025 would have seemed fairer. I would have thought this would have been communicated more loudly and with more notice (to avoid people making my mistake).

I so nearly bought that Luxor scenery last month and I am kicking myself that I held off. I suppose I ought to grab a few others now while I am at it...

This must be what flying a 'legacy' sim will be like for the foreseeable future.

What I cannot at all support is removing even the option for prior purchasers to re-download their products. That would be straight-up anti-consumer (albeit sadly legal).

[Edit: I initially thought this had happened for a scenery I had previously purchased but after double checking the files are still available].

Edited July 27Jul 27 by SimeonWilbury
clarification

I sent an email to [email protected] and it’s not been delivered. Anyone know if they have a valid email address?

If not I’ll need to raise a ticket but it’s disappointing they’ve removed their email address.

Ticket raised with text of email used. What amazes me is if they’ve decided on this course of action why haven’t they notified customers? A statement on their website should be mandatory.

I’ll post their reply when received.

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Where does this decision leave those of us who bought many airports from SimMarket and haven’t stored them locally? There’s also the question of the product key being stored on their servers.

Will anyone who bought P3D airports etc. from them lose access to their purchases?

Disturbing.

I usually keep copies of the installers in my MS OneDrive, as that doesn’t take space in my local HD, but I haven’t been super detailed about it.

Now I’ve got to go back thru and double check!

Edited July 27Jul 27 by UrgentSiesta

Mmmmm ... I've historically kept ALL installer.exe's on my NAS drive just in case, however some of the simmarket installers do a round trip to their server to get the actual activation key, that would be a bummer if that stopped working so am thinking prolly best to archive the actual installed scenery/texture folders and add-on.xml and effects stuff etc instead of the installer itself????

@sdirand , what concerns me is you saw this info on a third party site. Where did they get the information from? There’s nothing on SimMarket site.

For something of this magnitude I would expect a major announcement.

21 minutes ago, deeknow said:

Mmmmm ... I've historically kept ALL installer.exe's on my NAS drive just in case, however some of the simmarket installers do a round trip to their server to get the actual activation key, that would be a bummer if that stopped working so am thinking prolly best to archive the actual installed scenery/texture folders and add-on.xml and effects stuff etc instead of the installer itself????

A full backup of a functional system is always best.

BUT that also depends on whatever Registry keys and other hidden files might be sprinkled around your drive. IOW you can’t just backup your P3D & Addons does and think you’re fully protected for a restoral

And, of course a Full Backup also takes the most space.

TBH, at this point, I’d rather just have other addons to replace them, combined with other sims for the times when things go kerflooey.

ETA: also, installer exe’s are frequently NOT the full install. Yes, they run, but they also pull down assets from the dev’s cloud repository.

There’s nothing nefarious, it’s generally just more efficient to keep things up to date, etc.

Edited July 27Jul 27 by UrgentSiesta

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@sdirand , what concerns me is you saw this info on a third party site. Where did they get the information from? There’s nothing on SimMarket site.

For something of this magnitude I would expect a major announcement.

I, for one, am very interested to hear their reply Ray.

Here is the reply from SimMarket…

“You will still be able to download your purchased products from your account.”

That’s a relief. I did find it odd that customers would be denied access to purchased products. That would open a can of worms.