NZA Simulations is widely known in the Microsoft Flight Simulator community and has released a wide range of airports from Australia and New Zealand. Rotorua features one of the first New Zealand sceneries released for MSFS.

Rotorua Airport is located in the suburbs of Rotokawa next to the famous lake of Rotorua. The airport connects Rotokawa to the main cities of the country, hosting Air New Zealand flights to Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Smaller airlines can be seen operating to a multitude of smaller airports. With a small runway of only 2100 meters in length, the airport mainly receives turboprop aircraft such as the widely known ATR 72 and the Bombardier Dash 8 - Q400.

Upon landing the Kodiak at Rotorua airport, I was impressed by the view as well as the surroundings. MSFS visuals combined with satellite imagery left me fascinated by the amazing views.

The main terminal is divided into two areas, one for boarding and the other for arrivals, both have a simple modeled interior, but thankfully it is there. The external textures are all in 4K and contain PBR material.

The scenery has several hangars and modeled buildings, such as the control tower, with a simple interior. The hangars also have 4K textures with PBR material and were well painted, containing the details and names of the companies that own them.

The textures on the taxiways, lane, and terminal are customized with rubber markings and broken taxiways in some areas and are less detailed than the other textures and look a bit like the default MSFS texture. Nevertheless, I am still enjoying the use of this beautiful scenery.

The high level of detail might seem heavy on FPS, but the simulator's typical performance remained undisturbed. Other features include custom CGL, custom 3D objects, Full PBR materials, detailed ground textures, detailed night lighting, and custom taxiway edge lighting.

Overall, the setting is magnificent, and the amount of detail cannot be described. Simply an airport with free payware quality. Texturing and modeling bring a set of fine arts. Some minor details are missing, but for free scenery, it's worth the download.

The installation process is simple: drop the scenery folder into your MSFS community folder.

NZRO Rotorua Airport is available for download on the NZA Simulations website where you can find several other paid and free airports in Oceania.