I don't need fancy addon airports for the most part - many of them are solid. I only purchased payware KPHL and KBOS because I'm so familiar with the real airports.

Addon aircraft, in the other hand... I don't need pretty visuals with every single wiring harness in the wheel wells modeled, but as long as the systems at least appear to act correctly, I'm good. It doesn't even need to be so detailed that the circuit breakers for the galley coffee maker are modeled - just that the FMS and autopilot function and that the handling feels right.

On 8/24/2026 at 8:57 AM, ryanbatc said:

There's only 3 or maybe 4 aircraft that are solid.

Which ones?

Everyone has tbere realism thing and airports are one of them especially if ypu know the airport.

If ypu know Second Life you can see where simming could go.

dd

Edited August 26Aug 26 by Sky_Pilot071

I do not have to be familiar with an airport to instantly get my immersion ruined by most default airports in MSFS. If you then get a nice addon airport (like those from VBazillo), the difference is so huge I am currently not flying in and out of any default airport. I rather spend the first 15 Minutes from my simming session on flightsim.to to download the freeware versions of the airports I want to fly to or from than using a default airport. With so many extremely good freeware airports, there is also little to no need to fly in and out a default airport anyway... But that is just me, I am an eyecandy simmer since FS5.1 and it is impressive, how far we have come...

Upvoted, although my own personal opinion is that FS5.1 was nowhere near "eye candy" 🙂

Back then it was Eye Candy in comparison to the predecessor with the "photoreal" 2D cockpits ;-) If you compare it with other games, flightsims always lag behind, this is still the case in 2026.

On 8/26/2026 at 8:58 AM, Matt Sdeel said:

Which ones?

I know this question was for Ryan, but I'll take this moment to disagree with him on the 3-4 number. Depends on your MSFS edition, but off the top of my head:

172
SR22
Vision Jet
Longitude
PC-12
TBM 930
free Dakota (the famous flyer they gave away)
free Huey (Taog's Hanger chopper they gave away)
All the Got Friends bush planes
Even the default Caravan is pretty nice

I'm sure there are others that I've never flown that are also worth mentioning. Are the above planes Black Square quality with failures and every circuit breaker modeled? No... but they are all at least Carenado quality.

On 8/24/2026 at 3:24 PM, JYW said:

and the wonderful default DV-20.

Don't often hear people mentioning the DV-20 at all. I see you look to have extensive irl experience of a variety of light aircraft. Do you rate the DV-20 on that basis? What do you think of the bigger Diamonds?

I liked what FSW di in adopting the Diamonds as there default training aircraft as they were more modern and was disappointed when 2020 and 2024 went back to old Cessnas.

1 hour ago, bailout said:

Don't often hear people mentioning the DV-20 at all. I see you look to have extensive irl experience of a variety of light aircraft. Do you rate the DV-20 on that basis? What do you think of the bigger Diamonds?

I liked what FSW di in adopting the Diamonds as there default training aircraft as they were more modern and was disappointed when 2020 and 2024 went back to old Cessnas.

I don't have a lot of experience in the DV-20; more in the DA-40. But my experience of Diamond aircraft is that they are incredibly well-balanced to fly. The DV-20 is a lot of fun to fly (don't have any experience of the North American DA-20 with the AVGAS engine). The DV-20 is quite an oddball - an ab initio trainer (GA not Ultralight/LSA) with a 80hp Rotax engine and constant speed prop. That's a strange combination! They're modern and well made but the downside is the cost of entry. Acquisition is very expensive (especially for a private pilot, where the aircraft won't be involved in revenue generation) and used examples hold their values remarkably well.

The default DV-20 is MSFS 2024 is very well-modelled and the flight dynamics are very convincing. Engine sounds are perfect too!

The default airport building textures are immersion killers for sure. It’s odd, I would think that would be relatively easy for Asobo to improve on. They can be generic, be could be a much more feasible generic that would suit most GA airfields at least.

I do remember running msfs2020 all generic in the early days before we had addons and was so blown away by it that I could look past the deficiencies. I was also flying almost only GA then, exploring this new wonderful virtual world while waiting for Airliners and their airports to develop.

24 minutes ago, regis9 said:

The default airport building textures are immersion killers for sure. It’s odd, I would think that would be relatively easy for Asobo to improve on. They can be generic, be could be a much more feasible generic that would suit most GA airfields at least.

Too bad that, unlike FS9 and FSX/P3D, there isn't an add-on that enhances default airport building textures... even after 6 years!

1 hour ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Too bad that, unlike FS9 and FSX/P3D, there isn't an add-on that enhances default airport building textures... even after 6 years!

Wouldn't matter to me, as it's not the textures that bug me so much (though they're not great) as it is the completely inappropriate types of buildings on so many fields. Buildings that often make no logical sense for an airport.

Scott