There are military airfields that show up in Microsoft Flight Simulator as a runway, a few grey boxes and not much else, and then there are the ones that deserve better. Naval Air Station North Island has firmly been in the first category despite being one of the busiest and most historically significant military fields on the US West Coast. SundownerSim has now set out to fix that, and the release goes a long way past the airfield perimeter.
KNZY sits at the tip of the Coronado peninsula in San Diego, and it carries a lot of aviation history with it. The developer points to North Island as the birthplace of American naval aviation, the field the Navy first set up camp on back in 1912, and the spot where a young Charles Lindbergh lifted off on the first leg of his run to Paris in 1927. In the present day it remains home to Helicopter Sea Combat Wing Pacific and Helicopter Maritime Strike Wing Pacific, which is to say the base sees near-constant MH-60S and MH-60R Seahawk activity. That naval helicopter focus is worth keeping in mind, because it shapes what this scenery is good for.
This is not the first US military field SundownerSim has put out under the Miltech Simulations banner. The team has been working through a run of military and period airfields, from their 1970s Berlin Tempelhof recreation in July to a late-1980s NAS Miramar just up the road. North Island continues that pattern, and with both Miramar and North Island now in the catalog, the developer has a decent chunk of San Diego’s naval aviation covered.
For the airfield itself, SundownerSim says the base has been rebuilt in full, with a custom ground polygon and buildings across the entire station. The major squadron hangars are custom-modelled, including HSC-3, HSC-85, HSM-41, HSM-49 and VR-57, along with the Fleet Readiness Center Southwest, the Coronado Air Terminal, the tower and admin buildings. To populate the ramps, the developer has placed more than 100 static aircraft in what it describes as accurate squadron liveries, and backed them up with the ground clutter that makes a military base read as active: GPUs, air-start carts, fuel trucks, fire apparatus, IFLOLS, tow gear and windblast barriers.
Where this release gets more interesting is beyond the fence line. SundownerSim has extended the work out across San Diego Bay, and the water is populated with a modelled fleet that the developer lists as including an Arleigh Burke destroyer, a Zumwalt, a Kidd, an Independence-class LCS, an LHA, a San Antonio-class LPD, an Ohio-class SSBN, a fleet oiler and a carrier in for repair, with recreational traffic mixed in. The USS Midway Museum has been recreated at Navy Pier, the US Customs and Border Protection San Diego air unit is present with its own facility and aircraft, and the Coronado township itself, the housing and waterfront that sit directly under the approach path, has been modelled too. All told, the developer counts more than 4,500 placed objects across the peninsula, the downtown waterfront and the South Bay.
That scope is the real story here. A lot of military scenery stops at the airfield boundary, so having the surrounding bay filled with recognisable warships turns North Island into something closer to a naval operations area than a standalone airport. For anyone flying rotorcraft, that pairing of a busy Seahawk base with a fleet sitting a short hop offshore is a natural fit, and it slots neatly alongside the growing helicopter library for MSFS 2024.
SundownerSim’s NAS North Island is available now through the Miltech Simulations store for $15.99, and the developer lists it as fully compatible with both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024. At that price, and with the amount of the surrounding bay included, it looks like a straightforward pick for anyone who spends time flying naval helicopters or wants a proper West Coast military field to operate out of.
