Announcing Providence (KPVD) Premium for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

[mattY]

Back in January, George - the lead 3D artist at iniBuilds and Matt - from the internal team, set off on a research trip. We tried to keep things subtle on Instagram, but as always, many of you were way too quick with it. Before we’d even finished our visit, the guesses started coming in, and quite a few of you had it straight away.

So it’s time to confirm what some of you figured out almost instantly - the airport we visited was Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport (KPVD). Firstly, a huge thank you goes out to the incredible staff at the airport for helping to coordinate our visit, and to the FSExpo team for putting us in touch. With FSExpo just around the corner, it made perfect sense to work on a project that ties in so well with the event, and with so many of you flying into Providence this year, this one felt like the perfect fit!

These site visits are extremely important to our workflow. They give us access to an abundance of resources, from close reference shots to unique behind the scenes areas that bring each airport to life in sim. George, a 6 year veteran in the industry, who has recently overseen the likes of London Heathrow Premium and Doha Hamad Premium found the whole experience of a site visit extremely beneficial. To have the ability to see the entirety of the airport up close - it really provided an overall feel for the airport and provided us with a rare opportunity to capture high-resolution photos and videos of the terminal, jetways, hangars, runways, GSE and all other elements that complete any airport. When collecting reference, we captured subjects from multiple angles, in different lighting conditions to cover all bases.

Despite being the largest airport in Rhode Island, T.F. Green is impressively easy to navigate and offers a solid range of domestic destinations. It’s a great hub for simming, especially if you’re looking for some short-to-medium hauls across the US.

We were met in the terminal by one of the airport operations staff who got us signed in for the tour. From the start, the ops team were brilliant, giving us a full walkthrough of the terminal layout, some fascinating history, and even insight into future development plans. We began in the check-in area, a compact, but efficient area, where over 4 million passengers were processed in 2024 alone. After gathering our shots there, we moved through security and into the terminal to start gathering more images of key areas like gate zones, advertising displays, stores and more!

It’s always interesting to see the common design styles between US airports, but each one has its own unique character. At Providence, that’s immediately obvious in the art spread throughout the terminal. One standout piece is ‘Interval’ by Barbara Cooper, an 82 foot long, hand painted glass tile mosaic that adds some colour to the terminal. We’ve made sure to bring details like this into the scenery, because it’s those little things that really enhance the immersion.

After documenting the terminal, we headed airside to continue the visit from the apron. ‘OPS 4’ was waiting for us, and we spent the next couple of hours exploring virtually every corner of the airfield. During the morning departures rush, the ramp was buzzing with activity. At one point it felt more like Heathrow than Providence, with aircraft pushing back all around us. We had to pause frequently to allow aircraft to push back, however whilst doing this it allowed us to get some great photos of the gate areas, ground service equipment and more! Throughout this airside drive around, we took pretty much every taxiway, saw most of the hangars, the fire station, the FedEx centre, the air traffic control tower and more! If it was accessible, we captured photos of it!

With these references at hand, our incredibly talented team of 3D artists were able to recreate each subject with precision in both modelling and texturing. Aspects such as; the exact height of doors/windows, the amount of dirt, the amount of clutter, the colours, depth and roughness of each material, and the intensity of lighting. All factors which were all faithfully reproduced with the help of these references. Ensuring the scenery closely reflects the real-world airport, enhancing immersion.
From the knowledge and experience of the airport operations team, we were able to include unique features of the airport which could have been missed. Some of these features include the graveyard to the south of R5, the painted lines testing strip to the west of R5, and the stripped down A220 that Breeze uses for spare parts.

In these examples below, you can see how the reference images help the artists understand the smaller details that are required to correctly reflect the real-world counterpart. Such as; the departure screens and posters, the missing ‘I’ in the AVIS logo, the warning labels on fuel tankers, the glowing border of the TSA machines, the patterns of the floor and ceiling in the Sky Bridge, and the various amounts of art installations. There are dozens of examples in which the references had a direct impact on the output of the models, without the help of the team at KPVD, we would never have been able to achieve this level of accuracy!

So for that, we want to give another big thank you to the team at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport for being so accommodating and making this visit possible. Also, a huge shoutout to the team of FSExpo for the support in organising the trip. These visits are a critical part of what we do, and it’s always a privilege to meet the people behind the scenes who keep these airports running every day. 

Here's some more screenshots to showcase how impressive the work from the team has been after utilising this trip and gaining such invaluable reference images!

We also want to extend a thank you to the teams over at Go Providence, Rhode Island Convention Center and the Rhode Island Airport Corporation for helping various arrangements from the site visit, being the hosting venue of this years FSExpo and allowing us to house the event in their city this year!

WATCH THE TRAILER

We’re really excited to bring this one to life in sim, and we hope you enjoy flying in and out of Providence just as much as we enjoyed visiting it.

iniBuilds Team ❤️