Airports missing?

[Rocky 128]

They say MSFS has 37,000 real-world airports whereas FSX had "only" 24,000, so at least I was expecting to find all the airports from FSX with 13,000 new ones.
During my last flight, I was surprised to see that LFOT (Tours Val de Loire in France) was simply not there... It is not a major airport but it is not a small one. How could they forget it?
It exists in real life and in FSX.

It is not the first time I notice an airport is missing. I don't believe there are more airports than in FSX.

What do you think? Did you also notice missing airports in your area?

[desbean 357]

The only two airports that I've missed so far are PASY and PAWD in Alaska, but there are nice freeware addons of each at flightsim.to. I don't remember if they were in FSX or not. In Bing you can hardly even see that there are airports there, so maybe that's why those two are missing.

Edited December 20, 2020 by desbean

[fppilot 4,397]

Hope those 37K airports are not counting my local, KESN.  It's there, but isn't there....

 

[Tuskin38 6,635]

Tours Val de Loire is censored on Bing Maps which is why it isn't in the sim, does it have a military connection? A lot of military connected airports in Europe are censored on Bing.

If an airport isn't visible on Bing maps, it won't be in the sim. Though that's not always the case, some clearly visible airports are also missing.

  

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

I don't believe there are more airports than in FSX.

The 37k number is also counting dirt airstrips and all small ones like that. It's not just big airports. Basically anything a plane is meant to land on.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Tuskin38

[Tuskin38 6,635]

17 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Hope those 37K airports are not counting my local, KESN.  It's there, but isn't there....

Was it working before?

[fppilot 4,397]

Just now, Tuskin38 said:

Was it working before?

No. Been like that since first release.  Other nearby airports are fine, so it is not an issue with my settings.  Have found three or four other such airports.  KCTJ, Carrolton, Georgia, (Atlanta area) is one that comes to mind.

[Tuskin38 6,635]

4 minutes ago, fppilot said:

No. Been like that since first release.  Other nearby airports are fine, so it is not an issue with my settings.  Have found three or four other such airports.  KCTJ, Carrolton, Georgia, (Atlanta area) is one that comes to mind.

Hm, might be because no one put any buildings there in Open Street map. If I look at OSM, the tower is there, and a building labelled terminal is there, but nothing else. Those two buildings are also the only 2 buildings in the sim.

MSFS uses (outdated) OSM data to supplement their other data.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Tuskin38

[fppilot 4,397]

3 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

MSFS uses (outdated) OSM data to supplement their other data.

Buildings surrounding the airport are rendered....

[Tuskin38 6,635]

2 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Buildings surrounding the airport are rendered....

Yeah and OSM has those buildings. OSM doesn't have any airport buildings other than the ATC Tower and the terminal.

The ones not on OSM were probably generated by the Blackshark AI.

I'm guessing they didn't use blackshark for airports.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Tuskin38

[Rocky 128]

7 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

Tours Val de Loire is censored on Bing Maps which is why it isn't in the sim, does it have a military connection? A lot of military connected airports in Europe are censored on Bing.

If an airport isn't visible on Bing maps, it won't be in the sim. Though that's not always the case, some clearly visible airports are also missing.

  

The 37k number is also counting dirt airstrips and all small ones like that. It's not just big airports. Basically anything a plane is meant to land on.

Good point, indeed LFOT is an air force base. Even if it is dedicated to training, it is military. There is nothing confidential here but as you say, if it is censored in Bing, we won't have it, that's the way it is... Maybe an add-on developer will do it one day. 

You're right about the airport type, I don't really think they lied on the 37,000 airports, it is just because they added small airports like landing strips, but on the other hand some "important" ones are missing

[Rocky 128]

A few years ago, I flew from USA to Europe with a Piper Malibu Mirage in FSX. I wanted to know how it feels to cross the Atlantic ocean with a light aircraft, flying a Northern route through Canada and Greenland. I found the story of a pilot who did this for real and shared his route through the following airports:

CYZV Sept-Iles - FSX - Bing - MSFS

CYKL Sheferville - FSX - Bing - MSFS

CYVP Kuujjuaq - FSX - Bing (cloudy image)

CYLA Aupaluk - FSX - Bing

CYFB Iqaluit - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BGGH Nuuk - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BGKK Kulusuk - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BIIS Isafjordur - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BIRK Reykjavik - FSX - Bing - MSFS

[...]

 

I wanted to do it again in MSFS, taking advantage of the great scenery, but some north Canada airports don't exist in the sim: CYVP and CYLA. I had a quick look in Bing and CYVP aerial image is full of clouds (unusable for airport modeling) and CYLA is not there, so they are not in MSFS.

I regret they couldn't re-use what has been done in FSX, it is hard to understand this new version of the sim has missing features compared to the older one. that's my point.

 

 

[Tuskin38 6,635]

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

A few years ago, I flew from USA to Europe with a Piper Malibu Mirage in FSX. I wanted to know how it feels to cross the Atlantic ocean with a light aircraft, flying a Northern route through Canada and Greenland. I found the story of a pilot who did this for real and shared his route through the following airports:

CYZV Sept-Iles - FSX - Bing - MSFS

CYKL Sheferville - FSX - Bing - MSFS

CYVP Kuujjuaq - FSX - Bing (cloudy image)

CYLA Aupaluk - FSX - Bing

CYFB Iqaluit - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BGGH Nuuk - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BGKK Kulusuk - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BIIS Isafjordur - FSX - Bing - MSFS

BIRK Reykjavik - FSX - Bing - MSFS

[...]

 

I wanted to do it again in MSFS, taking advantage of the great scenery, but some north Canada airports don't exist in the sim: CYVP and CYLA. I had a quick look in Bing and CYVP aerial image is full of clouds (unusable for airport modeling) and CYLA is not there, so they are not in MSFS.

I regret they couldn't re-use what has been done in FSX, it is hard to understand this new version of the sim has missing features compared to the older one. that's my point.

 

 

CYVP
https://flightsim.to/file/2718/cyvp-kuujjuaq-canada

No one has done CYLA yet.

[Rocky 128]

Good to know, thank you 🙂