To blend perfectly with VLC, an addon airport really needs to be designed on top of VLC -- the Real NZ Tauranga FSX update was done with this in mind, although only using a very early beta of VLC, so just disabling the Tauranga photo scenery (not the airport image!) gives a very good result. I'd tweak things a little if I was redoing this now, to fix some little issues around the edge of the airport bounds, but it does work without any real problems.
The Tauranga update was a example of what I'd like to see in the future -- a high resolution airport aerial, which blends out to either a buffer photo scenery, or VLC.
Wanaka works fine (screenshot attached), as well, despite being released long before VLC was on the scene. However for me, and a lot of others, the photo scenery defines the character of Wanaka, despite the resolution. But the ability to drop it out by disabling it in other seasons is good to have.
Remember that what we see as the modern way to build airports -- on a very high resolution blended aerial image, without the limitations of having to use the FS2002 'gamepack' technique, only really became possible with FSX SP1. Real New Zealand Paraparaumu was one of the first releases to work this way.
So VLC certainly doesn't mean the end of photo scenery, but it does give a much more accurate base to build on. This image and the Tongariro one illustrate the advantage of having a reasonably matching photo foreground and VLC background.
