A couple of weeks ago, iniBuilds teased a new airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Whilst it wasn’t officially confirmed at the time, we had our suspicions that it was going to be UK’s Southampton Airport (EGHI). That hunch has been confirmed today by the official announcement from iniBuilds that Southampton Airport is indeed coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Southampton Airport opened in 1912 and like many other U.K. airfields served an important role during the war years when it became RAF Southampton. It saw a number of commercial ventures throughout the 20th century following the defeat of the axis powers and today it serves airlines including Aer Lingus, KLM and EasyJet.
When discussing the product over on their forums, iniBuilds said, “[we] have gone into extreme detail into this scenery and you can see that we have covered a lot of detail in all areas of the airport.” As for why Southampton Airport, they said that their team is global, with their Head of Scenery Development and some staff actually based in Southampton. Hence why they chose to visit their local airport and bring it to the simulator.
In terms of features, iniBuilds has implemented a range of modern tech into the UK regional airport. There are accurately modelled buildings (with interior), up-to-date signage, bespoke airport layouts and a range of fully modelled points of interest scattered around. The team has used the latest SDK techniques to ensure it is of good performance, which is further enhanced by the use of the iniManager. It’s also worth noting that the airport comes with the newly re-surfaced and extended runway that opened just last week.
iniBuilds confirmed that Southampton will be released on Friday 29th September for a price of £12.99 (excluding taxes).
Features
- Hand crafted ground poly, textures with crisp, bespoke texture sets (Runways, aprons, paths, roads)
- True-to-life airport land side recreation with custom ground decals, signposts, vegetation, parking barriers and more
- Accurately modelled and positioned dynamic airport lighting
- Highly detailed models of all airport buildings, objects and surroundings
- Bespoke taxi signage as it is in the real world
- Up to date airport layout reflecting the current, real-world location
- Fully modelled local POI’s and surrounding buildings including Mercedes Garage, HSBC building, Premier Inn & Southampton Station.
- Level of Detail (LOD) optimisation for every model to encourage the best performance possible
- Use of the latest MSFS SDK features to allow for the best optimisation and performance possible
- Full iniManager compatibility to configure your scenery for the best possible performance for your system
- Custom GSX profile included
- Latest airport configuration including newly re-surfaced and extended runway that opened just this week!
