Atelic has recently released their rendition of Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport (LPMA) for Microsoft Flight Simulator, serving Madeira, in Portugal, with a yearly average of 4.8 million passengers, making it the 4th busiest in the Country.

Opened in 1964 with a single, 1600-meter-long runway, which was relatively short for safe operation due to the airport's tricky nature, considered by many as the "European Kai Tak." 

Traffic demand kept on growing, which led to the construction of a new passenger terminal in the early 1970s. The figures by then were nearing the half a million mark (yearly).

In the late 1970s, a TAP Air Portugal 727 overran the runway, crashing shortly after and killing 131 of the 164 passengers onboard. The accident led to an urge to extend the runway, which was carried on in the early 1980s, adding 200 meters of total extension. 

Twenty years later, a much more significant extension project was carried on, which involved drilling 180 pillars deep into the bedrock to ensure maximum stability. It was considered as one of the world's most difficult engineering projects at the time due to the terrain at hand. Such a feat earned the airport an Outstanding Structure Award in 2004 by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering.

It recently underwent a modernization project by its operator, bringing its infrastructure up to modern standards and allowing the handling of 1,400 passengers per hour. The runway's pillared structure was also strengthened, just in case.

It's a focus city for TAP Air Portugal and an operating base for Ryanair. Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Condor, easyJet, Eurowings, Finnair, Iberia, Lufthansa, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Scandinavian Airlines, Smartwings, Transavia, TUI (UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany), United Airlines, and Wizz Air also serve it.

The scenery features an accurate rendition of the airport, with high-definition terrain, an up-to-date ground layout, custom runway slope matching real figures, a full terminal interior, custom vegetation, and more.

It's available on SimMarket for roughly $22.44, requiring at least 1.60 GB of free hard disk space to install.

Stay tuned to Threshold for more flight simulation news!

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