Airport Scenery
Enhance Your Favorite Airports
Introduction
All flight simulators include a series of default airports that are relatively generic in nature. These base airports are reasonably accurate, as the layout of buildings, taxiways, and runways generally matches real life at time the simulator was built. However, as airports change over time, those updates won't be reflected in your simulator.
Even when a real-world airport hasn't changed significantly, you may still find issues with lighting, taxiways, or airport layouts in the base simulator that can be frustrating—especially if they affect an airport you fly to frequently.
And lastly, you might find that while an airport's layout is accurate, it lacks the visual detail you prefer.
If any of the above situations apply to you, airport scenery can help! Simply put, airport scenery is any add-on that helps make an airport look more true to life. A variety of options are available, all of which are discussed in this guide.
The left image shows KBOS as released in MSFS 2024. The image on the right shows KBOS after a payware update was installed. Can you spot the differences?!
Airport Scenery Options
Like with other Software Add-ons, there are free and paid options for airport scenery across all simulators.
Freeware
Freeware airport scenery tends to be minor in nature and often address small errors with an airport's layout. Thousands of these freeware updates are available, and they are a great place to start...you might even find that an update for your local airport exists! Some freeware scenery files (like this one for KBOS by MisterX) go well beyond minor updates, and instead offer something that looks like payware quality.
For freeware, we recommend starting your research with the following websites, based on your simulator of interest:
MSFS: FlightSim.to
X-Plane: X-Plane.org, X-Plane.to, and X-Plane's Airport Scenery Gateway
Other Legacy Simulators: AVSIM or FlightSim.com
Payware
Payware scenery tends to go beyond simply modifying airport layouts for accuracy. Instead, these products offer a complete overhaul of an airport that truly makes it look like the real thing, often including custom-built 3D terminals, moving jetways, custom ground textures, and more.
In addition to just updating taxiway layouts, payware scenery often adds custom models and textures. Compare the default KBOS on the top with the payware version from FlyTampa on the bottom.
Because each simulator is different, you'll find a variety of scenery options available for each sim. Some of the community's largest scenery developers create products for all sims, while others focus on just one or two. A great place to start your research is with the Scenery Partners listed at the bottom of this page.
Alternatively, if you're looking for an update for a specific airport, searching the popular news and reviews website FSElite can help. Use the URL https://fselite.net/discover/EDDN and change the last four characters to the ICAO code of the airport you want to search for.
Other Recommendations
Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS)
Because of the way it was designed, many smaller airports in MSFS have inaccurate taxiway signs or lighting that differs from the real-world airport. The website Flightsim.to is a great place to search for airports created by community members. In addition, MSFS' payware development community is active and vibrant.
As an alternative to finding and installing scenery updates for each airport you fly to, consider Just Flight's Real Taxiways. This add-on corrects taxiway sign placement and accuracy for thousands of airports in a single installation.
X-Plane
X-Plane is the only simulator to fully embrace crowd-sourced scenery updates. Laminar Research, creators of X-Plane, have made a program called WorldEditor (WED) available to the community. This allows any user of X-Plane to use the stock library objects in X-Plane to edit and submit airports for approval.
Using the X-Plane Airport Scenery Gateway, users can search approved updates and can download them. In addition, staff "recommend" specific airport updates for inclusion into future versions of X-Plane.
The X-Plane Airport Scenery Gateway features scenery with X-Plane's default object library. Beyond that, there are many other third-party sources offering great freeware scenery that make use of custom objects. X-Plane.org and X-Plane.to are great places to search custom scenery packages for X-Plane, which will generally be installed into the .../Custom Scenery/ folder of your simulator's installation. As you're searching, you'll come across various "libraries" that scenery packs will require. You only need to install these libraries once.
Prepar3D and FSX
Although legacy simulators like Prepar3D and FSX, don't see much in terms of new scenery development, previously released products remain available. If you fly in Prepar3D or FSX and have purchased any of Orbx's Global products, we recommend you install their Global Airport Pack. Available free to any Orbx Global customer, the Global Airport Pack contains hundreds of stunning airports with custom models, animated people and trees, static aircraft, and more. In general, the pack is focused on smaller, general aviation airports in unique settings.
Scenery Partners
To give you a sense of what's available, we've listed FSA Scenery Partners and their member discounts below.
