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Review: Off to Down Under – Adelaide Airport for MSFS 2020 & 2024

The airport of Adelaide has now established a permanent place in the flight simulator community. AUScene first presented the airport back in 2013 for FSX and Prepar3D (P3D) v2, and today compatibility extends to P3D v5. In 2021, the first MSFS 2020 scenery was released by Impulse Simulations, and in July 2025, MK Studios (MKS) finally released its long-awaited add-on for MSFS 2020 & 2024. The developer studio MKS has gained experience with 44 airports worldwide – including destinations in Europe, Japan, the USA, and recently Australia.

Now come with me on a virtual exploration of the new airport in Adelaide. But first, a look at the…

Reality

Adelaide is a city with 1.5 million inhabitants in the southwest of the Australian state of South Australia on the Gulf of Saint Vincent. The area’s settlement began in the early 19th century by the British. Adelaide is home to Flinders University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of South Australia. The city is also the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese and the Anglican Archdiocese.

Currently, money is mainly earned through the defense industry: BAe Systems, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Saab produce locally. Additionally, the seaport, Coopers Brewery, and Santos, the largest oil and gas producer in Australia, are significant. Not to forget the Adelaide Casino, which, with over 1,000 employees, is the tenth-largest employer in the city.

Adelaide Airport

The current airport https://adelaideairport.com.au with IATA and ICAO codes ADL and YPAD was opened in 1955 in the West Beach district about six kilometers southwest of the city center. It replaced the first two airfields from 1921 and 1927, which quickly became too small.

There are two asphalt runways: 05/23 measuring 3,100 by 45 meters and 12/30 measuring 1,652 by 45 meters. All runways can be approached using RNP procedures. Only runway 23 has an Instrument Landing System (ILS) of Bad Weather Category I (CAT I). To the west of the site stands the Doppler VOR/DME ADELAIDE AD 116.40 MHz, which can also assist in the approach to all runways. The directional beacon serves as a hub for several upper and lower airways in the region.

For a long time, a hangar served as the terminal building. The first international terminal was commissioned in 1982. The new terminal opened on October 7, 2005. The 850-meter long building could only be fully utilized from February 17, 2006, as construction defects needed to be addressed first. There are 27 parking positions for passenger aircraft, 14 of which have glass jetways. In the maintenance and hangar area, there are an additional 45 parking positions. The “Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia” https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au shares a common apron in the southwest of the airport with Pilatus https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com, which services their Pilatus PC-12 and PC-24 aircraft.

The airport can only be reached by road. There is a fast bus connection to the city center. The plan to build a subway line to the airport was abandoned due to cost reasons.

The operator, Adelaide Airport Ltd., reports for 2024 the transport of 8,537,830 passengers and 6,500 tons of air freight with 105,676 flights. Currently, 17 passenger and five cargo airlines operate, serving about 40 destinations mainly in Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Arabia, China, Malaysia, and Singapore.

  • Further information:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flughafen_Adelaide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide_Airport

Simulation

The scenery from MK Studios is available for about 20 euros; the download size is 2.05 GB and grows to 2.91 GB after installation. Particularly positive is that the scenery is harmoniously and seamlessly integrated into the environment.

MK Studios showcases the current state of development of the airport. The older scenery from Impulse Simulations from 2021 is significantly less detailed, and MK Studios clearly shines in execution and richness of detail. Moving radar screens, handcrafted approach lighting for runway 23, a realistic training ground for the airport fire department with artificially aged aircraft fuselage – the eye can hardly get enough. The terminal is fully furnished, with static passengers and visible interiors.

Autonomous vehicles and correctly docked jetways are present, as is the new Visual Docking Guidance System (VDGS) of the type Safegate FleX for the first time – just like in the real airport, including LED displays and laser measurement systems.

In addition to the airside area, various iconic buildings have been implemented, such as a Swedish furniture store, the airport hotel, parking garages, and the sector for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

GSX Pro Profile & VDGS Alternatives

“DeeKz97” has posted the official profile of MK Studios for GSX Pro from FSDreamTeam (FSDT) at flightsim.to:

https://flightsim.to/file/95475/mkstudios-adelaide-airport-ypad-official-gsx-pro-profile

It can also be downloaded from the MK Studios Discord page at:

https://discord.com/channels/1155509648678461471/1398182320288301147/1398190325079605319

Anyone using this profile, which utilizes the VDGS from FSDT, must delete the folder “noolaero VDGS YPAD” in the scenery folder under …\Community\mkstudios-airport-ypad-adelaide\simobjects\Landmarks.

Those who want to use the alternative profile for the VDGS from Nool https://vdgs.nool.ee can download it from the same link above. The Nool VDGS freeware must also be installed in this case:

https://fs.nool.ee/MSFS/VDGS/Releases/FS2020
https://fs.nool.ee/MSFS/VDGS/Releases/FS2024

Performance Check

During testing, the throughput speed was good to very good in both simulators even with the system-heavy 777 models from PMDG https://pmdg.com as “heavyweights” and the AI traffic from FSLiveTrafficLiveries (FSLTL).

Sources
The new scenery is available at simMarket – click.

Conclusion

MK Studios has risen to the top league with its recent projects. The implementation for Adelaide stands on par with the top sceneries for MSFS like Dublin v2, LaGuardia and Düsseldorf Those who value realistic and detail-oriented airports will get genuine gold for their money here.

My verdict: Unrestricted recommendation – and the virtual gold medal for Down Under!

Bert Groner, July 2025
Those who wish can feel free to: paypal.me/bert.groner

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