Orbx’s next Papua New Guinea pack puts aircraft wrecks in the scenery as a tribute to real bush pilots

In a preview announcement posted on the Orbx forums, Orbx and developer Ken Hall confirmed that the next entry in his Papua New Guinea series includes what they describe as crash and tribute scenes, with over 15 damaged aircraft models placed around the region. Hall says these are his own estimations of what can go wrong in PNG conditions and that they do not represent any real-life incident, adding that the scenes are meant as a tribute to the pilots who flew there.

When Hall started the PNG line back in October 2023 with Pack 1, what we got was mostly hand-carved strips, short runways and fast-changing weather. Six packs later, the scenery is telling a story about the cost of flying in that environment.

Seven new strips, heading west and downhill

Pack 6 covers seven locations: AYRM Maramuni, AYPB Paiela, Sumwari, Yatoam, Sisamin, Duranmin and Feramin. The route starts up in the highlands at Maramuni and heads west to Paiela, then continues west and gradually descends toward river valleys.

Those riverside strips are where the flying should get interesting. The developer advises simmers to plan the approach carefully, noting that following the river until a last-minute turn onto final is sometimes the safest way in. If you flew the Eastern Highlands strips in Pack 4, you already know the drill: uphill gradients, narrow clearings and terrain that hides what the wind is doing until you are committed.

The preview lists the following:

• Seven custom PNG airstrips (Maramuni, Paiela, Sumwari, Yatoam, Sisamin, Duranmin, Feramin)
• More than 15 damaged aircraft models forming the crash and tribute scenes
• Custom regional assets including handcrafted canoes, 25 indigenous hut styles, river bridges and abandoned truck relics
• Over 200 polygons that correct river paths, terrain elevations and valley approaches
• Over 200 hand-placed PBR models with LOD optimisation, which Orbx says keeps performance smooth

The pace of this series has been steady. Pack 1 arrived in October 2023 with three strips, followed by Pack 2 in April 2024 with seven more, Pack 3 that September, Pack 4 in July 2025 as the first entry built exclusively for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and Pack 5 in late 2025. With Pack 6, the series will sit at around 38 airstrips across the PNG highlands, all of them compatible with each other and close enough to link into longer routes.

It’s indeed a very substantial regional network at this point, and one that no other developer has matched in PNG for MSFS, or even anywhere in the world. Quite the playground!

Orbx has not announced a release date or a price for Pack 6 yet, so this is a preview announcement rather than a launch. Previous entries in the series have sold through OrbxDirect for roughly $12 to $13, so the pricing is unlikely to surprise anyone. As with the rest of the series, Pack 6 is being developed for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.