FWAviation

Great insights, @F737MAX and @honanhal - thank you for sharing them! If I hadn't known better from your comments, I would have probably bought one or two FSDG airports (most probably HKJK and FACT), but now I will stay away from them unless they get updated and improved at a later stage. It is really a bummer to read that their MSFS sceneries (besides probably recently released EDDW) are so underwhelming and outdated in their quality. Back in the day, FSDG truly was one of the best developers/publishers out there and even if you bought one of their Lite airports for P3D, you could rest assured that you get at least very decent quality for a very decent price. Now they come across as overpriced, ill-prepared for the MSFS era and that they don't do any sales on their own website anymore (unless they plan to change that for the upcoming Christmas holidays) also shows that there is something wrong about their approach towards the flight-simming community. I'll keep my fingers crossed that from now on, starting with the recent release of EDDW, they get back on track and show their true potential.

I can definitely recommend their LEMD, it is a very nice upgrade compared to the default Asobo version. It also contains lots of landmarks in Madrid, so it is really a steal for the discounted price and you can do some nice sightseeing after taking off from the airport.

All of their products apart from the recently released MSFS version of Toulouse are discounted - the other new products are only very moderately discounted, but there are bigger discounts on the older products. You can check out all their products and discounts here: https://shop.flightbeam.net/collections/frontpage?page=1

Thanks for the advice, @Nemo. Since the older version of EHAM runs fine on my system, I guess I will keep it as it is for the moment. But I'll keep that tool in mind.

I scrawled my computer and also the internet for that Amsterdam_Alt.bgl file, but I couldn't find any reference to it besides in your post here. So my Scenery/World/Scenery folder doesn't contain that file either. Where do I get it? Or could it be that it's only a file for P3Dv5 users? I'm still on P3Dv4. And regarding the overall problem, @shamrockflyer, @mdreyer, @fio and all the other users who had it: I noticed the same problem yesterday in my sim, but I chose @Christopher Low's approach and re-installed the older 1.1 version from 2019 which I had backed up, luckily. With that, all elevation problems are fixed and the scenery still runs like a charm, even if it is slightly outdated. It's really a shame that there's hardly any support offered anymore over on the FlyTampa forum. Let's hope that they still have the P3Dv4 users in mind and roll out Amsterdam v2 with proper elevation settings for users of all P3D versions. By the way, I decided against the inibuilds GSX config file because it provides only an AFCAD for the "East" setting at EHAM. I think it's always nice to adapt the AFCAD to the actual wind direction at the time, and not to stick with one wind direction all the time. That's particularly important if one decides to use the FlyTampa scenery configurator and switches to another setting accidentally. If I have overlooked something and if there are AFCADs from inibuilds (or from users) also for the other wind directions, I'd be very grateful about a heads-up from you guys.

I think this has escalated too far already, and in accordance with @Wolkenschreck's suggestion, I think we should stay fair, on both sides. Wolkenschreck's initial post read as if he had repeatedly tried to contact you via e-mail but without success. Thanks for clearing this up, Wolkenschreck. And I admit that in this context, I found your "please e-mail our support" reply particularly provocative and showed that in the harshness of my reaction. I'd like to apologise for that. Still, I find it regrettable (and I think it is my good right to point that out) that I never got a reaction from you on the forum post you asked me about in February. I will contact your support regarding the lighting issue, but as a customer, you cannot expect me to condone the tone that you just struck.

Funny that you say that, since @Wolkenschreck apparently couldn't reach you via e-mail several times and just in February, you asked me on this very forum to give you further feedback on the night problems in Incheon, which I provided to you, but then you vanished. Who tells me that I can expect an answer from you or your colleagues when I send you a support e-mail?

I have to agree with you, the behaviour of PacSim doesn't create trust and confidence at all. I must say that I was surprised to see @Toktok re-appearing in this forum just in order to promote their sales and then disappearing without even trying to counter the criticism posted by you, me and other users regarding their lack of support and quality. I must say that this creates more and more of a "Taxi2Gate feel" for me: Just like Taxi2Gate, PacSim was or even still is praised by many simmers for their sceneries, but at closer inspection, there is a serious lack of quality (at the very least at night) and even more so, a serious lack of customer support and acknowledgment of those flaws. This only re-inforces my decision to never buy a PacSim scenery again. And if this is what PacSim wants to achieve by making their sale announcements every once in a while in this forum and then disappearing from the face of earth, this is a very puzzling business decision of theirs.

@Wolkenschreck @Fludo I can only agree: Night lighting is a huge weak spot in PacSim's version of Incheon, as I pointed out in this post in April. I never received a reply to it either, so I sadly have to agree with the notion that their customer support gives one an unwelcoming feeling. And every customer is entitled to make her or his own decision, but after spending way too much money for that kind of quality and lack of customer support, I personally decided to never buy a PacSim scenery again. Incheon looks decent at day time, but if a scenery leaves a huge feeling of disappointment every time you fly there at night and this is not even being acknowledged by the developers, something is seriously wrong.

If you provided a link, it would be helpful. I guess it's these ones? https://www.feelthere.com/shop/p3d/embraer-v3-175-and-195-p3d4/ https://www.feelthere.com/shop/p3d/embraer-e-jets170-and-190-v3/

@Canine Crew Just to put it into perspective: JustSim had 20% sales regularly already before the Corona crisis. So it's rather "back to normal" than a special Corona-related generosity at this time.

You should maybe mention (because the linked web page doesn't mention the discount) that HD Trees customers only have to pay 9.95 Australian Dollars.

The giveaway product for today (April 29) is this one: https://secure.simmarket.com/nxgn-simulations-citation-cj4x-fsx-p3d.phtml So, judging by the user reviews for this jet, the giveaways are really losing steam in the final days of this month, as @kiki pointed out. But we sure saw some great giveaways, so no bad feelings here either.

Just a correction: The other freebie (Korhogo Airport) is located in northern Côte d'Ivoire, far away from Abidjan. I guess the "serving Abidjan" is a translation error on the product page and actually means that Korhogo's only regular passenger flights go to Abidjan. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korhogo_Airport

Since Drzewiecki will include Haneda and regularly has very good discounts (up to 50 %), I guess you can't go wrong if you buy their version of Tokyo and then add the ZIM Scenery version of Narita on top (if the two are compatible - but usually, in Drzewiecki sceneries you can de-activate individual airports).

It should be 5 PM Central Daylight Time, because that's midnight Central European Time. And simMarket is located in Germany.

@Canine Crew And there's also a very impressive version of Narita Airport in the making (by a user named ZIM Scenery): https://fselite.net/previews/zim-scenery-previews-tokyo-narita/ You can see the latest progress (and equally stunning screenshots) here: https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/the-rjaa-p3dv4-narita-airport-im-developing-share-some-pictures.446233/page-3 I will wait for that version and probably for Drzewiecki's version as well (in order to get Haneda, too). Wing Creations' and Technobrain's sceneries have their flaws that make them unattractive to me even at a discount price.

@Richardfox You can write other members direct messages if you have an off-topic question or want to contact them personally. That's always better than posting it publicly in completely unrelated threads. Obrigado!

Tough choice indeed. MK-Studio's version contains the entire island (just like Aerosoft's/sim-wings' version, just to mention all three sceneries available 😄) and offers you also the possiblity to include their recently released Tenerife North scenery. DD's version includes only the surroundings of the airport, but I'm not sure how compatible it is with the available Canary Island/Tenerife freeware photoreal scenery by Alberto Sánchez (part 1 and part 2). I guess you can't commit a serious mistake with any of the three sceneries.

Just in order to confirm, today's freebie is Ironsim's Vadsø scenery: For FSX and P3Dv2-3: https://secure.simmarket.com/ironsim-vadso-airport-fsxp3d.phtml For P3Dv4: https://secure.simmarket.com/ironsim-vadso-airport-p3d4.phtml For all early adopters, please note that there's also a P3Dv5 version available, but it's not included in the giveaway: https://secure.simmarket.com/ironsim-vadso-airport-p3d5.phtml You could "buy" the FSX or P3Dv4 version though and then get the P3Dv5 version for an upgrade price of 5 euros (excluding VAT).

While I'm usually not that quick updating my add-ons, I sadly ran the installer already last night before the first warnings were posted here. And yes, I got the same virus warning but ran the installer nevertheless a second time because I deemed the warning a false positive, since I ran the installer immediately after unzipping the file and thought that it hadn't been unzipped properly yet. The virus warning did not re-appear during the second run and installation went smoothly. I have no svchost.exe file in my Windows root folder and a Windows Defender scan produced no results. So I can confirm what other users reported - the virus does not seem to have infected my system, but in order to spare yourself from any trouble or confusion, I would recommend anyone not to run the Calvi installer until the developer has released a new, clean one. Thank you to all users here who informed about the problem and offered their advice!

That's true, but I would still count that as "sale" and not as "giveaway". There are some rather ancient sceneries on Aerosoft's shelves where it would probably not have hurt if they had offered them for free or at least at a comparably large discount. But this also applies to some products from other developers. I also forgot to mention FSDG which has a large portfolio and until now, has not offered any kind of discount during this crisis.

It would be nice, but since this all is a business, I look at it a bit a more matter-of-factly. 😉

And it's the second giveaway product by Digital Design within just a few days, after St. Petersburg Pulkovo, and if one wants to include JustSim's Vnukovo (which, I believe, was developed in cooperation with Digital Design), it's even the third time. Very generous indeed. That makes me wonder what the thinking behind this is - does Digital Design have such great sales numbers that they can dare to be so generous? Or is it some kind of marketing strategy? It's particularly interesting because other (especially bigger) developers like FlyTampa or FSDreamTeam have no giveaways or even sales at all in this crisis. Aerosoft also only has sales, but no giveaway right now - and I would think that it would hurt them the least if they gave away at least one of their older sceneries for free.

@vc10man I guess it's difficult to give you a clear recommendation here - everybody probably has her or his personal preferences. And as someone already pointed out here, there will probably be no user at this early stage who owns both JustSim's and MK's version of Palma and who can really judge which version is better. And I add another opinion: Just like you, I own the sim-wings version, and I am still perfectly happy with it. Yes, tastes differ - but because I don't fly to Palma on a daily basis and because I actually like that sim-wings' version includes the whole island, I don't see any sense in deleting it from my system and replacing it by any of the two newer versions. Additionally, Palma Airport hasn't changed so much in the past few years that a switch to the newer versions is really necessary. But these are only my two cents worth...