Areyonga — known officially as Utju — is a small Aboriginal community nestled in the Finke Gorge region of the Northern Territory, roughly 200 kilometres southwest of Alice Springs. The settlement sits within a landscape of dramatic red escarpments, dry creek beds, and spinifex plains that make it one of the more visually compelling corners of central Australia. Areyonga is the airfield featured in the opening trailer for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, where a Pilatus PC-12 in flying doctor livery touches down for a dramatised medevac sequence. That promotional footage brought the location to the attention of many simmers worldwide, though the sim itself has not always done it justice — the default aerial imagery was updated to reflect the strip's real-world asphalt surface upgrade from around 2015, but the surrounding environment suffers from the broader autogen vegetation issues that have long affected central Australia in both MSFS 2020 and 2024. Australian scenery developer gunther has now released a dedicated standalone scenery package for the airfield under the YARN series.
It is worth noting that YARN Areyonga was previously included as part of gunther's broader Western Desert Pack. The decision to publish it as a standalone release came after the scale of work required to bring it into compatibility with Sim Update 16, World Update 21, and MSFS 2024 amounted to what the developer describes as an almost total rebuild. Existing users of the Western Desert Pack are advised to remove the Areyonga scenery from that package before installing this one, to avoid object conflicts. The scenery improves upon the default representation of the airstrip and its immediate surroundings, addressing the most visible shortcomings that the simulator's autogen systems introduce in this part of Australia. The package is built primarily around MSFS 2020 but has been tested in MSFS 2024 and is confirmed functional in both.
Users running 2024 should be aware of a handful of platform-specific quirks: the newer simulator has a tendency to place procedural rock objects in unexpected locations, and its on-the-fly vegetation autogen can introduce foliage that does not belong. Those using the Displacement Mapping setting in 2024 may also notice minor terrain irregularities near fenced areas and apron objects, a known limitation of how that feature interacts with custom-placed scenery geometry.
The add-on carries several dependencies, and a number of Microsoft's World Update airports will need to be installed or streamed to avoid missing objects and textures. Beyond the listed dependencies, gunther recommends a few companion packages for the best experience. The Australian Salt Lakes Fix addresses the default sim's habit of filling the region's dry lakebeds with water — there are several large examples close to Areyonga that benefit noticeably from the correction.
Whether you want to recreate the iconic trailer approach in your own PC-12 or simply explore one of Australia's more remote and scenic corners, Areyonga offers a more grounded and carefully considered rendition of the airstrip than the simulator provides by default. If you find it enhances your flying, please consider making a donation to gunther through the add-on page — it goes a long way toward supporting continued development of quality scenery for the region. You can find 🔗 YARN Areyonga on Flightsim.to.