UK VFR Airfields - Volumes 1
Contents
1. For the VFR pilot this aS e results in a much higher level of immersion and found it ae SS much easier to actually see the airfields from a distance within the cockpit The level of detail shown on the ground Ground details EGNS Isle Of Man adds to the fun with each airfield displaying individual objects that add a distinct flavor unique to wherever you choose to fly even found myself startled at times as flocks of animated birds appeared Too bad FSX does not simulate bird strikes Flying the Pattern Around Croft Farm http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 5 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number Site Ground Details EGHU Eaglescott As the screen shots detail the flight experience is dramatically altered for the better from baseline FSX This is just a small sample of what to expect given this treatment has been applied to more than 200 airfields within the UK http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 6 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site Discovering Bigger Britain Swimming pools in Britain have very strict rules no bombing no petting no ducking and no fondue parties Tom Baker Little Britain narrator Pilots that prefer to fly larger aircraft into the big airports will find FSX given a similar makeover with pleasing visual improvements accurately aligned runways and tax2. If you wish to print this review or read it offline at your leisure right click on the link below and select save as UK VER Sceneries Volumes 1 3 adobe acrobat required Comments Standard Disclaimer The review above is a subjective assessment of the product by the author There is no connection between the product producer and the reviewer and we feel this review is unbiased and truly reflects the performance of the product in the simming environment as experienced by the reviewer This disclaimer is posted here in order to provide you with background information on the reviewer and any presumed connections that may exist between him her and the contributing party Tell A Friend About this Review 2011 AVSIM Online All Rights Reserved http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 12 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM
3. and FlyUK virtual airlines recently celebrated 10 year and 7 year anniversaries respectively and have significant operations within the United Kingdom Gary Simmons is actually a sponsor of the FlyUK monthly screenshot competition and as he says d m more than happy to help VA s do the same for several other VA s and groups so far think the count is around 9 used to have my own VA and is how started in this FS business UK Direct VA was Started in 1998 by me with 2 BAC1 11 flying from Bournemouth but gave it up in 2001 due the lack of time think it s still going but run by others now I am at heart a FS fan and nota pure business person like users some think am For more information regarding the VA s above please click the relevant link and join me in wishing them many more years of enjoyment and service to the simulator community Also for UK charts you can find them at this website What I Like About VER Airfields e Incredible value for money with over 200 airfields included Minimal FPS hit except as noted Amazing visual and airfield accuracy improvements Easy installation and documentation d e Continual and enthusiastic support What I Don t Like About VFR Airfields e There is absolutely nothing to dislike about this package Printing http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 11 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site
4. objects Heathrow Xtreme does NOT use any default objects To speed up Heathrow you really must disable FSX airport vehicles this is also a major killer and http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 8 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site again because its default objects popping up at every AFCAD stand and as there s 200 stand that s a lot of objects Some users also choose to turn off the airfields around Heathrow that they don t use It must be said that people who use VFR Airfields want to use the smaller airfields the inclusion of the larger airports was just to complete it in a geographical way Not many users actually use the big airoort and prefer my Xtreme free version of Heathrow m EGLL London Heathro After reading Gary s helpful explanation simply disabled the VFR Airfields Heathrow and turned the free Xtreme version back on and frame rates reverted back to the expected mid teens While realize this is a lot of time spent on just one airport out of a couple hundred felt it was an important issue to cover given the popularity of Heathrow in the flight sim community Challenging London City Airport 5 Degree GS is Scary http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 9 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site pa E d i i r E if a i i T 1 f F j F a Before and After Sou
5. AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site AVSIM Commercial FSX Scenery Review UK VFR Airfields Volumes I 3 Product I nformation Publishers UK2000 Scenery Description Multiple airfield scenery add ons Download Size Format Simulation Type CD FSX Reviewed by Ted Gold AVSIM Staff Reviewer May 23 2011 http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 1 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number Site Introduction The United Kingdom is a wonderful flight location with something for every virtual pilot to enjoy within the confines of some of the world s busiest and compact airspace Airfields abound ranging from the odd farmer s strip to historical WWII aerodromes right on up to the major airports serving millions of passengers annually Oh yes that fabulous weather can make things fairly interesting as well For the online flyer VATSIM and IVAO ATC have the airspace routinely covered allowing for positive and more realistic control whether one flies heavies from Heathrow or VFR circuits around Little Snoring So where does UK2000 VFR Airfield scenery come in As one may note FSX is rather good about providing a baseline generic airfield to fly from however the source material is visually dated incomplete and in the case of the typical grass aerodrome non existent and difficult to even see when trying to land This detracts significantly from the immersion fa
6. ctor and in the case of pilots using photoreal or other ground terrain enhancements for flight would imagine downright frustrating as well Never mind that Heathrow has a new terminal T5 and Gatwick has the world s largest sky bridge in place between terminals and other anomalies large and small izm m ep D From Blah To Bling EGKK Gatwick Before And After To overcome these sorts of issues and provide enhancement for the photoreal crowd and pure immersive pleasure and airfield accuracy for the rest of us Gary Simmons and UK2000 VFR Airfields Volumes 1 3 upgrade something like 225 airfields covering virtually all of England and Wales south of a line roughly running from the western Hadrian s Wall up to Newcastle These packages not only include corrected taxiways and aprons but also airfield specific models flying birds VFR traffic custom objects and loads more designed specifically for FSX All three packages are advertised as frame rate friendly and designed to work in conjunction with Horizon Generation X VFR scenery packages as well as default FSX installs with or without UTX GEX add ons Reviewer Note In exploring the UK2000 VFR Airfields effects have chosen a combination of before after images in conjunction with some VFR flights to illustrate the changes made to the pilots eye within the FSX world A base FSX scenery install is used with REX Overdrive and Ultimate Traffic 2 in order to provide a good look a
7. est The Options Page Perrone After installing each volume an options program is presented that allows the user to further customize the experience including Al airfield traffic static aircraft models and a special module handling explorer flights that gives a pilot 3 GA virtual wingmen to fly a group flight visiting the various airfields Also installed are a series of saved flights with the default Cessna to ensure the user can explore every included airfield at a handy start point was pleasantly surprised when on a whim loaded up at RAF Lakenheath and found myself inside an aircraft shelter with fighter jets parked outside Starting up a saved flight and over flying RAF Lakenheath I hope am too slow for those jets to nab me violating the airspace Discovering Little Britain VFR http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 3 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site Britain Britain Britain We ve had running water for over ten years we have a tunnel connecting us to Peru and we invented the cat Tom Baker Little Britain narrator When lived in the Brighton area Hove actually one of my favorite airfields is located just to the west EGKA Shoreham Walking my dog along the river Adur was directly under the approach path and was frequently treated to low flying GA planes of all sorts the odd rare Spitfire and other small commercial aircraft that serv
8. ice the region It is also home to the Shoreham Airshow which is one of the best have attended The transformation from the default FSX by the UK2000 scenery is astonishing BERI p Ty P B g Along the Adur Shoreham Airport How exactly do Gary Simmons and his team manage to provide such a dramatic improvement Some answers from Gary regarding the process first have to get hold of the ground photo image for the airfields Horizon simulations kindly allowed me to reuse the images from their Gen X product for this task Horizon also released these products on CD The image is displayed as a photo base image for the airport within FSX then got my team of AFCAD designers to create the taxiways runways and apron layout They also made the airfield terrain files so you don t get any cliffs around the airfield then added other 2D ground lines polygons to the http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 4 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site scenery and added the 3D structures and some of the airfield clutter objects and signage Then back to my AFCAD team who then add other generic FSX library objects to the scene Some ILS s had to be adjusted as many default FSX runways are not correctly aligned Even with the default FSX terrain the UK2000 airfields blend in nicely relieving the generic tan bordered outlines a ie and blends well with the surroundings
9. iways and corrected ILS feathers covering all of the major airfields including Heathrow Gatwick Manchester Liverpool basically all of the majors within the coverage area Night lighting is also featured and appears improved always important given the challenging weather conditions found when flying IFR in UK airspace For online network pilots having accurate layouts is a bonus when trying to maneuver around on the ground without getting lost enroute to the stand Final Approach EGNM Leeds Bradford asked Gary Simmons about the differences that could be expected between the VFR Airfields and his range of Xtreme Airfields that each concentrate on a specific major airport Well you have to install one of the Xtreme airports to see that It is far more detailed with more buildings more accuracy more higher res images animation service fleet night effects 1000s of objects purpose made jetways purpose made taxiway textures hi res ground images ect it is miles ahead in every possible way http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 7 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number Site Jn arg s U 2 O O OO E M ee W M n Before and After EGNM Leeds Bradford p Before and After Departing East Midlands EGNX During my testing of the VFR airfields soent some time at EGLL Heathrow possibly the worst offending frame rate hog i
10. n the FSX world Prior to installing the UK2000 volumes had been using a free version of Gary s Xtreme Heathrow It was an improvement over the default and could maintain mid teens frames hence being a bit surprised to find the VFR Airfields version dropping my FPS to single digits A response from Gary regarding Heathrow and the VFR Airfields package Yes you can get poor FPS at Heathrow several reasons for this apart from normal FPS hit due to Al weather settings ect The LHR area is a poor FPS area due to objects in London being processed and displayed even if you removed the entire airport it s not good I ve done this myself while testing Having so many add on airfields in one area is also a factor designers can t tell FSX to stop displaying airfields so it is processing a lot of airfields within 80KM but you can t see them VFR Airfields uses the Official MS way to make scenery which means AFCAD taxiway aprons etc and uses the FSX library of objects It was done like this for speed reasons and to help eliminate possible problems with purpose made ground textures Sounds a good idea in theory but most FSX objects are made with multiple textures like bump maps and reflection maps that all add up together to slow the sim You may be surprised by this but my Heathrow Xtreme with 10X the detail and quality runs faster than this basic Heathrow this is mainly due to the fact the basic version uses FSX default
11. t what the tube flyers and especially the GA VFR pilot groups can expect to see http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 2 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number Site Installation and Documentation The installation process consisted of 3 separate downloads ranging from 300 500Mb per volume All three volumes are available in CD ROM format for those that prefer a hard copy The auto installer worked perfectly and in addition to each scenery package a full user manual for each volume Is included covering recommended FSX settings detailed installation procedures and a listing of all airfields covered within each volume featuring a short history of each plus ICAO codes and basic runway communication frequencies this is a great touch Reviewer Note Be aware that with a middle of the road system like mine my FSX settings were 50 spot on to recommended and 50 one tick below in the case of Mesh Resolution and Texture Resolution While my system was fine with basic VFR aircraft at full recommended settings did dial it back as noted above when switching to complex aircraft at the larger airports Your experience may vary depending on PC spec add ons etc should also note that during installation restarted my PC after each volume in order to set any registry entries and after all three volumes were in place performed a full system defrag always a good practice to ensure b
12. thampton EGHI With regard to the balance of the major airfields featured within the three volumes experienced only minor if any FPS hits and as can be seen from the various screen shots the transformations achieved are outstanding and closely match the real world System Performance System Performance As detailed within the review with the exception of Heathrow experienced only minor FPS hits and virtually OO a ASUS P5P41TD board none when flying GA type aircraft 4Gb DDR3 RAM nVidia GT 430 1Gb Summary WINXP Home SP3 FSX Gold Notable add ons include The UK2000 UK VFR Airfields Volumes 1 3 offer a massive REX and Ultimate Traffic 2 change for the better for any FSX pilot that flies in and around the United Kingdom Where some packages offer Flying Time detailed examination of simply one airfield Gary and his 15 hours team present a transformation on a grand scale covering hundreds of airfields suitable for both VFR and airline pilots thus encouraging exploration and enjoyment of places that might ordinarily be missed while hugely improving the graphics and accuracy of the airfields 4 r r jk Climbing Out Of Southampton EGHI http www avsim com pages 0511 UK2000 VFR html 10 of 12 23 05 2011 10 34 00 AM AVSIM Online Flight Simulation s Number 1 Site Final Reviewers Note The sharp eyed reader of this piece may have noticed my sneaking in a couple of VA specific liveries Both the EuroHarmony
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