WF Scenery Studio's Hong Kong VHHH: a real 2024 package built around a 2021 airport

Somewhere in the WF Scenery Studio office there is a decision nobody wrote down, and it is the most interesting thing about this product. On 10 December 2024, three weeks after Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 shipped, the studio put Hong Kong on the new simulator as a separate title — its own package, its own version number starting again at 1.0.0, its own store page, and a hard requirement of MSFS 2024 that will not let you install it into 2020. Then they gave it away. Anyone who already owned the 2020 version got the 2024 version for nothing, at simMarket, at Contrail and through Orbx Central, and the offer runs in both directions.

That is a developer telling you two things at once. The first is that this really is a 2024 package rather than a 2020 scenery limping along on backward compatibility — six products in this review series have been badged for the new simulator and turned out to be the old one, and this is not one of them. Contrail badges it "MSFS 2024 Native" and withholds that badge from five other WF titles in the same catalogue. The second is that WF did not think the new build was worth charging for. They were right about that too.

Because what is inside the 2024 wrapper is the airport WF modelled in 2021. It is a good airport. It was a very good airport in 2021. It has since acquired the third runway, by an update in August 2022 that arrived faster than anyone expected, and it has the Sky Bridge and the Midfield Concourse and the North Satellite and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. It does not have the rebuilt Terminal 2, which opened its departure hall on 27 May 2026, and we know it does not, because on 25 February 2026 WF announced a V2 that will — rebuilt models, "the new terminal, which is under construction in real life", and, tellingly, extensive performance optimisation.

Nine days after that announcement, iniBuilds released their own Chek Lap Kok. What followed on the official forum is the most useful evidence anywhere in this record, because several people owned both and said so on the same afternoon. It did not go WF's way.

This review reads 31 sources: three simMarket listings carrying 36 customer ratings between them, two Contrail listings, the Orbx catalogue page and its partner announcement, WF's own site and its tenth-anniversary post, five AVSIM threads, five threads on the official MSFS forums, two flightsim.to community fixes, six trade-press and tracker articles, the competitor's own store page, and three videos including the Chinese-language record on Bilibili — which, for a Hong Kong airport by a Chinese studio, turns out to be thinner than the English one. Reddit is structurally unavailable in this environment, so the usual sentiment-at-a-glance check is missing; on a product this quiet, that matters more than usual.

What you are actually buying

WF sell Chek Lap Kok three times. The names are nearly identical and the pages barely mention each other, so here is the whole catalogue in one place, priced at simMarket, which is where WF's own website sends you when you click Shop — the studio runs no store of its own.

SKU	Simulator	simMarket	Released	Current version
HONG KONG INTL AIRPORT VHHH P3D4-5	Prepar3D v4.5, v5	€23.90	7 August 2020	third runway added by update, August 2022
HONG KONG INTL VHHH MSFS20	MSFS 2020 only	€19.90	1 June 2021	1.5.5, 946.88 MB
HONG KONG INTL VHHH MSFS24	MSFS 2024 only	€19.90	12 December 2024	1.0.3, 1.36 GB (2.89 GB installed)

The upgrade lattice between them is the most generous thing WF do, and nobody talks about it. MSFS 2020 owners get the MSFS 2024 build free; MSFS 2024 owners get the MSFS 2020 build free; P3D owners can move to the MSFS 2020 build for €12.00; MSFS 2020 owners can move to P3D for €16.00. Contrail runs the same free swap under discount code VHHH-UP24, and Orbx's announcement of 10 December 2024 leads with it twice: "Customers who own the MSFS 2020 version can obtain the MSFS 2024 version for free via Orbx Central!"

Where to buy it

simMarket is the cheapest and it is also the developer's own channel, so there is no direct store to go hunting for. Read the €19.90 with the usual care: simMarket's terms say displayed prices include the applicable value added tax, which for a browsing session with no country resolved means 0%, so checkout can come out higher. Contrail asks $23.71. Orbx asks A$36.99, currently €22.55 — worth noting because Orbx launched it at A$29.99, about €18.18 on the day, so that SKU has gone up by roughly a quarter since December 2024 while simMarket has not moved.

Both MSFS builds install through a store app — simInstaller at simMarket, the Contrail app, Orbx Central. The 2020 version reached the in-sim Marketplace (owners were reporting v1.3.0 purchases there in March 2023); we found no evidence the 2024 version ever followed it there, and nothing suggesting Xbox. Treat this as a PC, third-party-store product.

What else covers VHHH on MSFS

iniBuilds released theirs on 6 March 2026 for MSFS 2024 only, at £19.99 with the Hong Kong Landmarks pack thrown in free — built on the 2024 SDK, with an on-site reference visit and former airport staff on the team. SamScene3D's Hong Kong City Times bundles a basic VHHH with its cityscape, which is exactly the kind of thing that fights with a payware airport; an AVSIM thread of 30 June 2022 traced doubled terminal roofs to precisely that, cured by deleting SamScene's samscene3D-sightseeing-hkvhhh folder. On the free side, flightsim.to carries a community VHHH airport, and two mods aimed squarely at WF's: cheungyik1976's Enhanced WF VHHH ground model (v2.2, 3 August 2025, 6,000 downloads, 5.0 from 11 ratings), which adds the Business Aircraft Centre jets, government flying service and maintenance ramp that WF left empty, and kychungdotcom's three-runway NavData fix, which exists for a reason we will come to.

What the community consistently praises

It sits in Hong Kong properly. This is the thing that survived the head-to-head. When LukG8843 reinstalled WF's version on 7 March 2026 to compare it against iniBuilds', he found one clear win for WF: the high-rise blocks south of the airport, which WF model and iniBuilds leave to autogen, and which are large and close and unmissable on approach. JakTrax78 made the same point differently the same day — WF's buildings "fit more naturally into the surroundings", a quality he says he has noticed across their catalogue. For an airport ringed by hills and water and Tung Chung, that is not a small thing.

The modelling itself has always been well liked. Asked in September 2024 which Hong Kong to buy, pzb85 on the official forum said WF's rendition of the airport was much the better one for layout, textures and modelling. simMarket's 2020-version reviewers say the same across four years: "Amazing Airport with detailed building and runways" (Yunyi, 2 August 2021), "simply spectacular. Not a single detail has been missed" (Rod, 6 September 2022), "A great rendition of a visually impressive and highly-trafficked airport" (Michael, 9 March 2024). On the 2024 listing, Alex wrote on 20 December 2025 that WF are "the Flightbeam of Asia if not better".

The third runway arrived early and free. The real north runway entered service in July 2022; WF's update adding it went out on 6 August 2022, to both the P3D and MSFS builds, at no cost, three and a half months before the official inauguration on 25 November 2022 and more than two years before the full three-runway system went live on 28 November 2024. A P3D owner who lives in Hong Kong called it out at the time: "Updated 3rd RWY patch was released this month… Wish other developers were like that" (Marian, 6 August 2022). Taxi2Gate never managed it in either of their builds.

Frame cost is defensible for the size of the place — with a caveat that gets its own section below. "Again a Top Quality airport designed by WF Scenery Studio with friendly Frame rate," wrote Manuel on 11 July 2021, and OnAirSim's Contrail review of version 1.0.2 on 24 May 2025 reads "no stutters, good performance, simple but good detail and good lightning."

The upgrade policy is close to unique. Free in both directions between the two MSFS SKUs, honoured at three separate stores, with no time limit stated. Compare that with the sim add-on norm, where a new simulator is a new invoice.

What keeps coming up as a problem

The airport file breaks Hong Kong's instrument procedures. Raised at launch, still open five years later. This is the single most repeated complaint in the record and it has never been fixed. It was flagged on day one: announcing the 2020 release on AVSIM on 31 May 2021, ljk811 told buyers that if SIDs and STARs go missing they must hand-edit content.xml to place the scenery between fs-base and navigraph-navdata. By 2 November 2023 kychungdotcom had published a freeware NavData package on flightsim.to specifically because, in his words, with the payware WFSS scenery the instrument procedures are largely broken as most terminal waypoints have been excluded; it is on version 0.4.2 as of 4 August 2025 with over 4,000 downloads. On 11 January 2025 a thread on the official forum documented VHHH SIDs and STARs resolving to waypoints six thousand miles away at 0°N 0°E — "The bug seem to only happen when there's an addon scenery (in this case, WFScenery's VHHH) enabled," wrote Speedmarque1. Users reported the developer's position was that the scenery does not touch navdata. Disabling the scenery makes it stop.

AI traffic will not depart. Still open. On 10 October 2025 an AVSIM member running FSLTL in MSFS 2024 reported aircraft taxiing normally at WF's VHHH, then sticking at the holding point and being despawned by the simulator — behaviour absent at default airports. The thread's conclusion was that the fault lies in the scenery's airport file. Same root, different symptom.

The rebuilt Terminal 2. Not modelled, and confirmed by the developer. Terminal 2's departure facilities opened on 27 May 2026 with fifteen airlines relocating their check-in through 10 June. The scenery's newest version, 1.0.3, dates from 2 February 2026. WF's V2 announcement of 25 February 2026 promises "the new terminal, which is under construction in real life" — which is the studio confirming, in its own marketing, what the current product does not contain.

Ground-texture and terrain faults, recurring. Mostly mitigated. In November 2021 AnkH described taxiways and runways popping in with grass bleeding through half the tarmac; deleting content.xml cured 80% of it and a patch near the cargo stands persisted. In March 2024 a simMarket reviewer reported the update had introduced bumps on taxiway Bravo and on 07R/25L severe enough to briefly launch his PMDG 737-600 off the runway mid-take-off roll. And between 25 March and 4 April 2023 the north runway sat underwater for Marketplace owners — that one was traced to a water-exclusion regression in sim update 1.31.18.0 rather than to WF, and WF had 1.3.1 in the Marketplace approval queue within days. Blame where it is due on that one.

Support is genuinely disputed, and the split runs by date. Up to 2022 the record is warm: "I have never had a problem with WF scenery support. They always reply quickly" (RW1, November 2021); "They usually react very quickly" (edpatino, June 2022); Marian's questions answered inside 24 hours in August 2022. From 2025 the P3D listing tells a different story. "I have downgraded my review since they do not support this scenery any longer. All three runways ILS freq are incorrect and they won't fix it," wrote Marc on 2 May 2025, and Raul on 20 September 2025 posted all six correct ILS frequencies alongside the words "The suport, no response." That is the legacy SKU rather than this one, but it is the same studio and the same year.

Small things, from the 2020-build reviews, never publicly resolved: jetway glass that does not light convincingly at night, non-functioning VDGS, runway designators painted 07C where the airport then said 07L, arrival procedures missing (Joseph, 5 January 2022); a hang at the loading screen when departing VHHH with a third-party aircraft, cleared by loading once with the default A320 (Kenneth, 9 October 2021).

Performance and stability

Here is the disagreement that decides this review, and both parties are credible.

On 7 March 2026 Sellie6131, running a 9800X3D, an RTX 5080 and 64 GB in VR, wrote that WF's VHHH was "by far the worst performing of any of my airports and I include Heathrow" — sixty frames at best with intermittent slide shows, bad enough that he had stopped flying out of Hong Kong altogether. He bought iniBuilds' version the next day and reported a solid eighty frames with no stutters in the same headset with the same aircraft. That is not a marginal difference. It is a different product category.

Against that: OnAirSim's "no stutters, good performance" on version 1.0.2 in May 2025, Manuel's "friendly Frame rate" in 2021, and LukG8843 — who owns the entire WF catalogue and likes all of it — reporting no performance objection to WF's build on a 7800X3D and a 4090 in 2D. Nobody on a strong desktop rig has complained about frame rate on flat screen. Everybody who has taken it into VR has.

The honest reading is that this is a 2021 scenery whose LOD and draw-call budget were set for a 2021 simulator and a 2D screen, recompiled for 2024 without being rebuilt for it, and that the headroom which used to be there has been spent by the newer simulator's own costs. The performance optimisation WF are promising for V2 is an admission of the same thing.

Stability itself is fine. No pattern of crashes attaches to this scenery in the current record — the CTD reports around the 2021 launch were traced to system language settings and to unrelated causes, and nothing similar has recurred.

Who should buy it

If you already own WF's MSFS 2020 Hong Kong: claim the 2024 version now, and do not think about it further. It costs nothing at any of the three stores. It is the same airport, compiled for the simulator you are actually running. There is no argument against doing this.

If you fly a 2D setup, want Chek Lap Kok, and £20 is £20: buy it, but buy it knowing what it is. At €19.90 it is the cheapest serious VHHH, it looks right in its landscape, it has all three runways and the Sky Bridge, and it will be enough for most people most of the time. Add kychungdotcom's free NavData fix on the same afternoon; without it your SIDs and STARs are a lottery.

If you fly in VR: do not buy this. The one detailed VR report in the record describes it as the worst-performing airport in a collection that includes iniBuilds' Heathrow, and the same simmer found the alternative ran thirty per cent faster. This is the clearest do-not-buy in the review and it is not close.

If you want Chek Lap Kok as it stands in 2026 — Terminal 2, interiors, current layout: do not buy this either, and do not buy it yet from WF at all. The current product predates the new terminal and WF have said their V2 will carry it. Either buy iniBuilds' now or wait for WF's V2 and hope for an owner discount, which the studio has offered historically but has not confirmed this time.

If you are an airport completist who wants both Hong Kong and its skyline: buy this one and SamScene3D's cityscape, not iniBuilds'. WF's high-rises south of the field are the one thing iniBuilds does not have, and WF's airport sits into the terrain in a way people who have compared them keep remarking on. Uninstall SamScene's bundled basic VHHH first.

Where it stands today

For most of its life this was the right answer to Hong Kong. It beat Taxi2Gate on P3D in 2020 by the plain testimony of buyers who owned both, it was the only serious VHHH on MSFS from June 2021, and it put the third runway in a month after the real one opened while its rival never did. When we recommended WF over Taxi2Gate in our review of the latter, that recommendation was about the P3D SKU and it holds: €23.90, 7 August 2020, Prepar3D v4.5 and v5, third runway added by update. Every part of it checks out against the store page and the buyers' reviews. On P3D it is still the Hong Kong to own — with the ILS frequencies wrong on all six approaches and the developer declining to fix them, which is a caveat we should have carried and did.

MSFS 2024 is a different question, and the answer changed in one week in March 2026. Nine days after WF announced a rebuild, iniBuilds shipped one. The people who bought both said the newer airport is better in every respect except the buildings south of the field, that its interiors and peripheral areas are on another level, and — decisively — that it runs very much faster. "You can easily see that the WF Scenery version is from 2021 and the Inibuilds from 2026," wrote one of them, and he owns every WF airport there is.

So the product on the page is now the value option rather than the best option, and its own developer has announced its replacement without naming a price or a date. That is an awkward place for a €19.90 airport to sit in August 2026: cheap, competent, free to anyone who already bought it once, and superseded twice over — by a rival that exists, and by a successor that does not yet. Buy it for what it does today, at the price it is today, or wait. Do not buy it expecting it to become the 2026 airport, because WF have already told you which product that will be.