I know there exists the fgphotoscenery project (which already has 3m/pixel sattelite images available under GPL) as well as some way to integrate FG with osgEarth but all of the current methods are either beyond the scope of capabilities for the average end-user or the guides for how to implement them are outdated, incomplete or not easy enough for the average end-user to implement on their own.
I also know that there exists a substantial portion of the community who have expressed multiple times over quite a few years now their desire for photoscenery in FG.
It is my personal belief that having a user-friendly way to implement real-world scenery in FlightGear would breathe new life into this community because as things stand right now, you can logon to the multiplayer servers at any given time and the most people you will ever see online worldwide is about 30.
There is literally ONE regular ATC who is able to work for two hours at a time at ONE airport on the days that he's able to do it (God bless him).
The FlightGear devs are doing a great job, I do truly love this simulator but I am really longing for a TRUE multiplayer experience like the ones I see on YouTube videos for other flight simulators, but out of the 187 users in my VA, four of us are FlightGear pilots and those numbers are similar at pretty much EVERY VA.
We can't fly with the other people in our VA because there is no FSHost support for FlightGear so we either have to coordinate with each other (which has been Hell so far) or get on the FG multiplayer servers and hope and pray that there is someone near us out of the 20-30 people who MIGHT be online who is interested in participating in a flight with us (which i have yet to happen as every time I get on multiplayer and attempt to get near someone to communicate with them, they either sign off or are ignoring their chat.
I have never had a multiplayer experience in FlightGear and it is certainly not for a lack of trying.
I'm not blaming the world scenery and I'm not saying that the only reason i want native, user-friendly support for photoscenery is to revive the community because that would be a lie, I definitely want the real-world textures for my own enjoyment but I firmly believe this community could use a revival and I firmly believe a simple, intuitive way for the average user to implement photoscenery could DEFINITELY do the trick because I for one would start streaming my flights and I bet the other people who used to do do FlightGear videos and streams would start doing them again too instead of the X-Plane and FSX videos they are doing now.
Just my two cents.
At any rate, I'm still going to continue to use FlightGear either way and I greatly appreciate the work of the devs and the time/effort they dedicate to this project as you guys have truly brought a childhood dream to life for someone who is physically and financially unable to pursue that dream in real life.