Sitting on the Eastern end of the Isle of Wight, Sandown Airport has a rich past. Sandown was originally opened as Lea Farm Airport in 1935 with a focus on general aviation and air services. During World War II, it served as a training airfield, playing a vital role in preparing pilots for air combat. Post-war, Sandown transitioned into a hub for general aviation under the name ‘The Isle of Wight Airport’. By the early 1970’s, unfortunately, general aviation operations declined over the next few years and the airfield sadly closed. In 1976 it was acquired by new owners who reopened Sandown airport with the goal of it being a more attractive general aviation hub, and it has since flourished.
Today Sandown Airport is a hive of activity. It hosts numerous fly-ins, events, skydiving and gatherings that draw aviation enthusiasts from across the UK and beyond. The Wight Aviation Museum also sits onsite and helps visitors learn about the the Isle of Wight’s extensive aviation history. Sandown airport also prides itself with regular live music and a wide variety of food offerings which all contribute to why in the 2021 Sky Demon pilot’s survey, Sandown was ranked as the UK’s favourite airfield.
Sandown has been faithfully recreated by Burning Blue Design, undertaking on-site visits to ensure the highest levels of accuracy. It features:
- Over 90 custom 3D objects each with full Physical Based Rendering (PBR) textures.
- Based on March 2024 layout.
- Full custom night lighting.
- Animated hangar doors which close at night.
- Animated Black Arrow rocket which lowers at night.
- Completely custom windsock.
- Animated spectators who leave at night.
- Real-life Surrounding scenery has been added as visual reference points:
- The industrial estate to the North-West of the Airport which includes the businesses ICRTouch, Airframe Assemblies, A M Structures.
- Cheverton Copse Holiday Park
- High resolution colour corrected ground textures taken from Bing maps and manipulated for consistency and realism.
Image Gallery
MSFS stock vs Burning Blue Design
Once you have purchased and downloaded the product, double click on the zip file to open it. You should see the airport’s folder inside, this will need to be extracted and placed into your Microsoft Flight Simulator Community folder, if you don’t know where the community folder is, we have a full guide on how to install our packages here.
If you still have trouble locating your community folder this easy to follow video will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSkMzWLFR0
There is also a community tool called ModmanFX which makes installing and removing Microsoft Flight Simulator packages incredibly easy, you can get it here: https://www.msfsaddons.org/freeware/modmanfx
Known Bugs
- Transparent and translucent glass panes can appear very dark when subject to particle effects such as rain, snow and fog. This is a known bug that Asobo/Microsoft are aware of and will hopefully fix in the near future.
- When multiple sceneries are installed in the same area a bug showing the underlying stock photogrammetry can occur. This is a known bug which was introduced in SU11, Asobo/Microsoft are aware of it and will hopefully fixed in the near future.
Requirements:
Minimum
Recommended
Further Information and Licensing:
A number of the static vehicles used within the scenery were 3D models used under the Creative Commons Attribution License. The models were reskinned to match their real life contemporaries. For further information and full attribution on any of the individual models please contact us here: https://burningbluedesign.com/contact/
Adam Taylor (verified owner) –
A excellent rendition of Sandown airfield. True to life features such as the murals on the blue hangar, rocket and parking area. All items and details are spot on!!!