Stephen Posted November 22, 2022 Report Share Posted November 22, 2022 Scenery Review : LROP - Bucharest Otopeni International Airport by Chudoba Designs LROP Bucharest Airport is an interesting scenery for me. It was the start of the exploration of the eastern European countries in X-Plane. I had already moved on past my United Kingdom hubs, and wanted to fly to more and different destinations. This aspect was helped by the release of scenery by DAI-Media, I think gone now. But DAI-Media who was Romanian who had created some great sceneries back in the day. Two highlights were LEVC - Valencia Manises and of course LROP-Bucharest. For both I hubbed out of Austrian X-Plane Design Group's (AXDG) LOWW-WIEN, still available but now dated (this was eight years ago). But I flew to LROP quite a lot in that period, until the developer stopped delivering updates and I had problems intergrating Traffic into the scenery. Here is an update review that reflected that period. So I got quite excited when Chudoba Designs released an X-Plane 12 version of LROP, or to give the airport it's full title of; Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport. I'm going back to Romania. Install Downloading the LROP scenery is a bit fickle. When you purchase the scenery you are given a Authorisation key and then are directed to the Chudorba Design website. You paste in the authorisation code, then select the LROP-Bucharest scenery, and then press "Download". But this is when it goes all a bit strange? The Download will download in sequence both the required Chodoba Library files (1.5Gb), then follows this automatically with the LROP Scenery download (714.70Mb). Only it didn't? as I only got the Library download everytime. I admit Chodoba Design were a great help and the problem was traced to a permission. But confusion is easy in that there are two download buttons and one says "Download" and the other "Library Only", so you expect the Download to be for the scenery and the other the selection for just the library... it's confusing? Why can't they just put the required files up on the X-Plane.OrgStore and then you download them, possibly too easy to do it that way. LROP - Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport by Chodoba Design First views is that LROP is very nicely intergrated into the surrounding X-Plane default textures, but the join markings are a bit stiff and noticeable from height, that said it is nicely done. Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport Aeroportul Internațional Henri Coandă București IATA: OTP - ICAO: LROP 08R/26L - 3,500m (11,484ft) - Concrete 08L/26R - 3,500m (11,484ft) - Concrete Elevation AMSL314 ft / 96 m Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport is Romania's busiest international airport, located in Otopeni, 16.5 km (10.3 mi) north of Bucharest's city centre. It is currently one of the two airports serving Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The other is Aurel Vlaicu Airport, which no longer serves scheduled passenger traffic. During World War II, the airport in Otopeni was used as an airbase by the German Air Force. Until 1965, it was a major airfield for the Romanian Air Force, with Băneasa Airport serving as Bucharest's commercial airport. In 1965, with the growth of air traffic, the Otopeni airbase was converted to a commercial airport. The runway was modernized and extended to 3,500 metres (11,500 ft) from the previous 1,200 metres (3,900 ft), making it one of the longest in Europe at that time. A new passenger terminal (designed by Cezar Lăzărescu) with a capacity of 1,200,000 passengers per year, was opened on 13 April 1970, for both domestic and international flights. An improvement program added a second runway in 1986, expanding capacity to 35 aircraft movements per hour. The second phase (labeled Phase II/IIe) of the plan led to the construction of a terminal dedicated to domestic flights and of a multi-story car park (2003), the complete overhaul of the control tower (between 2005 and 2007) as well as the transformation of the old terminal building in a dedicated arrivals hall (in 2000). During the same phase, two high-speed taxiways (Victor and Whiskey) were constructed. Phase II was completed in 2007. Main terminals and infrastructure at OTP is all combined far into the west of the airport, that means departures from 26R or 26L demands a long taxi journey to the takeoff points, 26L also has a turnaround zone at the end, so you will need to taxi up the runway, and is a fair way as well from the entrance at taxiway D. But you are allowed a fast taxi speed here as well to cover the distance. Terminals The very distinctive concrete arch 70's terminal is well represented, I don't think it is as well modeled or as detailed as the DAI-Media LROP? but it is very good. As you know, I love old detailed terminals were you can see the past in a modern day setting. And that aspect is certainly evident here. Note the large ramp lighting arrays which are a nice detail. The airport's facilities consist of only a single terminal with three main facilities (colloquially referred to as "Terminals"): the Departures Hall/Terminal, the Arrivals Hall/Terminal, and the Finger Terminal (the airside concourse). A walkway with shops connects the departures and arrivals buildings. The airside concourse is organized in two (domestic and international) passengers flows. The entire terminal has 104 check-in desks, 38 gates (of which 14 are equipped with jetways), and a total floor area of 86,000 square metres (930,000 sq ft). The art facade TAROM (Transporturi Aeriene Române, Romanian Air Transport) Terminal is well done and highly visible here, an important one to get right, but actually the landside detail is wrong, the lower section of the art Terminal is a fully detailed arrival area and not the full slab of windows. The OTP Control Tower is layered and an odd iconic, but looks good here as set above the middle terminal zone. Notable is that the X-Plane "Tower View" is not set, but your positioned somewhere down on stand 102? "The Finger" (concourse) The airside concourse extension, designed by Studio Capelli Architettura & Associati, measures 17,000 square metres (200,000 sq ft), the concourse was inaugurated on 29 March 2011. The main feature of the scenery in the "Finger" is excellent, nice design work and very good transparent glass. It is a hard building in shape and detail to get it right, but this has been done well. The internal areas can be seen, but they are sadly for external viewing only, as there is only a minimal amount of internal detail done with blank passengers. The view internally looking external is very good over the ramps and field, so it is shame the areas here are not detailed to cater for that aspect. Connection between the old and new terminals is well done, as is the ramp detail and feel. Clutter is very good, but not TAROM or local Romanian branded, which is a shame. There is a lot of active ground traffic that is just about right, it is X-Plane 12 default, but the airport does feel very dynamic in all areas. SAM is used on all gates, but oddly on stands 107 to 109, the airbridges go to the wrong aircraft on the wrong stand and break the bridges into three sections? Airbridge detail however is very good and all the bridges are glass and not solid. Landside... hummm "Hide your eyes, its not at all pretty".... Landside in front of the Terminals is quite dire, the worst I have seen for years, and then some? Note the differences from an airport photo. This sort of work takes me back to X-Plane 10, basically there is nothing there, except for a disjointed rail station and the marooned TAROM offices? Worse is the fact there is not a lot of infrastructure here, and so it should have been an easy area to fill out in detail, even an orthophoto would have helped, anything please!. High points or marks for the scenery is ruined by the non-effort, worse is the area is highly viewable from both 08L and 08R approaches.... its bad, just plain bad for a custom X-Plane 12 scenery, and I am not at all impressed. One Cargo facility is set besides the main apron, but there are no aircraft stands set around this cargo facility as used by AS World Cargo, so it looks like it is for hold cargo only. Infrastructure Central to Bucharest Henri Coandă is the infrastructure spine area. Forward is the Uplift Airport Services SRL building, with the (blue) Menzies Aviation set behind... The TAROM maintenance hanger is quite impressive and well done, and has two static TAROM branded 737s set outside. Far east there are two more Cargo facilities, the main one (south) for TAROM Cargo with parking stands (201 to 205) opposite over Taxiway C And a DHL Cargo area off Taxiway P (Apron 3), that is also used for Private Jets and GA arrivals with the GA Terminal set behind... .... last major building is the Elitte World Transport headquarters and the field Fire Station is set here as well. North Field is the Fuel Depot, South Field are the military hardstands Textures Overall the textures are average. There are signs that they actually could be very good with good concrete choices, but no effort to create a more realistic feel and depth to the textures is obvious. Linage is odd, worn in areas, hard solid and not realistic in others. So it all comes across as slightly unrealistic. Worse is all the extremely hard line runway edges, totally unbelievable and false, seriously this is again X-Plane 10 stuff (even X-Plane 9) and Chudoba is not a first time developer, so why here in making such a classic visual mistake. Some verges are quite good, with very nice 3d flowers (only around the edges) filling the in-field. This LROP is X-Plane 12 scenery, so you have the excellent built-in weather effects. Water pools nicely, but the verges are separated from the Runway textures, so again you get that hard line between a wet and totally dry areas, not very convincing or even realistic. Ramps and aprons look pretty good, but "Oh Lord", those over laid hard taxiway (runway) textures don't match the apron wet areas. OTP is however highly usable in winter conditions, but you feel it could have been better. Lighting Overall like the textures the lighting at LROP is adequate, but not very awe-inspiring. Approach lighting is X-Plane 12 ICAO coded and feels very good. Main apron areas are nicely lit, and the old "Henri Coanda" terminal is nicely lit. The "Finger" Terminal looks very nice, but the naked interior is highly visible, and that makes the building look and feel deserted at night... hummm. I expected those huge panel light arrays to be realistic as well, they feel rather dullish than bright, DAi-Media, even all those years ago made them far better. Disappointing again is Landside. There is no lighting on the Terminal frontages (DAI-Media LROP had a nice blue tinge), so there is no terminal feel or activity in the area, it's just dull or dark? In the central infrastructure spine, there is only minimal (mostly down-spot) lighting, and in most areas no lighting at all on any of the buildings. However the TAROM Maintenance build looks nice, better if it is wet on the ground. Navigation signage is poor, very poor and the worst I have seen for a fair while (or is it not finished?). There are only a few pointer signs, worse there is no Taxiway signage at all at crucial intersections, ever worse again on major intersections (Taxiway D-Runway 08R-26L) there are no hold lights, in fact there is nothing out here in the dark at all. There are the odd hold lights, but not at the important runway entrance points, very dismal. ______________ Summary LROP - Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport is the main port into Romania and servicing the capitol city of Bucharest. Not the first X-Plane custom scenery for LROP as that accolade went to a DAI-Media release back in 2013. Before we get into the summary of the scenery. It is important to note the price of Chudoba's version... it is a low if great value US$16.99. This price has to kept in mind with what value you get here and with the scenery's weaknesses. Your not going to get a $25.00+ airport for $16.99 and that perspective needs to kept in mind, however I would rather pay the $25+ and get a better scenery, quality counts to me. Overall this a good LROP-Bucharest, modeling is good and in areas very good, and the detail (in most areas) is again very well done. SAM intergation is also included (but a few of the gates are wayward). The scenery is also X-Plane 12 compatible with wet/ice/snow effects and lighting. A few areas here I feel are not completed. Landside in front of the terminals is quite diabolical, worse it is very visible on the western approaches, I don't want to go back to a X-Plane 9 look in a X-Plane 12 scenery, lighting on this same area and buildings is also quite if completely poor. Many runway textures are overlaid with hard line edges (worse in snowy conditions) and in context textures are average. "Finger" terminal is not completed inside and naked at night, and navigation lighting (important) is also extremely poor. Lighting is fine in the central area, but non-existent to poor in most areas. Tower View is not set either... it's a big list? For the price this Chudoba LROP is a great if a very good destination filler, but I would rather pay more to get a better developed scenery for my routes into Romania. The basics are all here present for this to be that quality scenery, I hope it will be, but for now it will still stay and be on my network to fly into, so overall it is very good value at that low price. _______________________________ The LROP - Bucharest Otopeni International Airport by Chudoba Design is NOW available! from the X-Plane.Org Store LROP - Bucharest Otopeni International Airport Priced at US$16.99 Features: PBR Textures Custom buildings with PBR textures -ccurate custom PBR ground-poly (supporting weather from X-Plane 12) -Custom 3D vegetation Scenery Animation Manager integration Well Optimized for best performance Custom buildings and objects Custom jetways Accurate night lightning Compatible with X-Plane 11 & X-Plane 12 Compatible with SAM vehicles / SAM follow-me Requirements X-Plane 12 or X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB VRAM Recommended Current Version : 1.0 (November 11th 2022) Installation and documents: LROP is downloaded from the Chudoba Design site of 714.70Mb a download. The Chuboba "Library" is also required for download at 1.5GB. Authorsation Key is required to download the scenery. ChudobaDesign_LROP ChudobaDesign_Library 2.29Gb full install in your Custom Scenery folder. SAM3 Plugin - Scenery Animation Manager - Suite 3.0 is required for this scenery, Documents There is a 1 page "Instruction" page for installation and requirements and links to the Chudoba Design site; here link: https://antileak.it/key?c=deaba33308 BucharestOtopeniAirport.pdf ___________________________ Review by Stephen Dutton 24th November 2022 Copyright©2022: X-Plane Reviews Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Right Reserved Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - IS1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU / 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo 1TB SSD Software: - Windows 11 - X-Plane v12.00b14 (note this review was done in the beta revision period) Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick, Throttle & Rudder Pedals : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini Plugins: Traffic Global - JustFlight-Traffic (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$52.99 : Global SFD plugin US$30.00 Scenery or Aircraft - None- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChudobaDesign_Filip Posted November 29, 2022 Report Share Posted November 29, 2022 Hello Stephen, I would like to express how greatful I am for these reviews! Thanks a lot! Just to clarify some things for readers. Antileak is a platform developed by us, and is mainly used for easier file managament (one upload for us - update for every vendor) and for security, as we watermark some files (glad we did this, as we were able to catch many naughty customers). We are still improving it, and some bug caused, that instead of product it downloaded the library first. However in the email, we've been able to sort it our, pretty quickly. In terms of tower, terminals, I didn't know we have issues like this and we will definitely fix that! In terms of landsite, that was a biggest suprise for me, as I see completely something else, and we will DEFINITELY do something with it, as it can't be like this All other comments are taken (groundpoly, lightning), and we might take a look at it as well! Thanks for a great review and we are looking forward to serve you again, soon! Filip - Chudoba Design Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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