Stephen Posted June 14 Report Share Posted June 14 Scenery Review : FlyTampa Sydney Sydney Kingsford Smith SYD is an international airport serving Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. And the airport is located 8 km (5.0 mi) south of the Sydney central business district. YSSY is also known as "Mascot" for the suburb it is situated in. Situated next to Botany Bay, the airport has three runways, and Sydney Kingsford Int'l Airport covers an area of 907 hectares (2,241 acres) of land. SYD is the primary hub for Qantas, as well as a secondary hub for Virgin Australia and Jetstar, and a focus city for Rex Airlines. Being one of the most oldest and the main primary gateway into Australia, then any Sydney scenery is always going to be a main focus airport for any serious flight simmer, it is a long way by flying time to get here, so when you arrive, you want it to be worth all the effort. Sydney SYD is also part of the "Golden Triangle" a set of routes between the Eastern States of Australia in Brisbane - Sydney - Melbourne, and these crucial routes are some of the most lucrative in the world, with Sydney set as the central hub. I am a huge fan of FlyTampa's sceneries, so I will put that aspect out there early. The reason's will be noted again in this review, however they have produced classics like Las Vegas, Corfu, Athens, and my all time favorite in Copenhagen. Their last release however was "Amsterdam" not that it was a poor rendition of Schiphol airport, but the fact that Schiphol covers a really massive area with some intense autogen surrounding it. The scenery had frameweight issues, and is hard to use (all Schiphol's have the same problem). So it was not as popular as earlier FlyTampa releases. Now here released is YSSY Sydney, and certainly FlyTampa are back on form. This FlyTampa YSSY is not the most recent release of SYD. TaiModels released their version only in May 2022. As the review notes, in that I liked it immensely, but that was because there was so little good Sydney Airport scenery for the X-Plane Simulator at the time, but it also had some if a few limitations visually, the differences between them are noted in this review, and the reasons why the FlyTampa version is better, also on why FlyTampa scenery excels. Because if it's unique position sitting on the shore of Botany Bay, Sydney Airport is also in an constant consistent squabble with the area districts set around the airport. Night operational curfews are also usually always in the news, and most local residents want Mascot shutdown (They are currently building a second Sydney Airport out at "Baggerys Creek", in the Western Suburbs, due to open in 2026). But to be fair, Mascot has been here since 1911, and it is one of the first operational airports in the world, and it's position as only a short (but very slow traffic) ride from the city CBD, means SYD will always remain a major hub. Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport IATA: SYD - ICAO: YSSY - WMO: 94767 07/25 - 2,530m (8,301ft) Asphalt 16L/34R - 2,438m (7,999ft) Asphalt 16R/34L - 3,963m (13,002ft) Asphalt Elevation AMSL21 ft / 6 m Sydney Airport is split between the long 16R/34L runway, with the "International" terminal to the west, and the "Domestic" is set to the east. However there are plans to align by airlines and alliances (meaning Qantas) into one terminal and the rest into the other Terminals. The problems stem from the connection time between the separated terminal areas, but why really change something that already works very well. So the idea has gone quiet over the last few pandemic years, but does require a bus trip between the International and domestic terminals if you are transiting, there is a rail connection (5 Min), but it will cost you Aus$6.50. Terminal 1 - International Terminal 1 was opened on 3 May 1970, replacing the old Overseas Passenger Terminal (which was located where Terminal 3 stands now) and has been greatly expanded since then. Today it is known as the International Terminal, and it has 25 gates (thirteen in concourse B numbered 8–37, and twelve in concourse C numbered 50–63) served by aerobridges. Pier B is used by Qantas, all Oneworld members and all Skyteam members (except Delta Air Lines). Pier C is used by Virgin Australia and its partners (including Delta) as well as all Star Alliance members. The Terminal 1 layout is very similar to older Heathrow (now Terminal 3) in being higgledy-piggledy and an add on a pier here and there sort of development , going outwardly, and all here are hanging out from the central Y shaped main terminal. But having been there it sort of all works, like an Australian Heathrow. North is Pier A in an L shape, then Pier B and to the west the large Pier C. There are a lot of Cat 5 A380 gates here, because simply SYD accommodates more Airbus A380's than anywhere else, except for maybe Frankfurt, they are a feast for the eyes every time you come here, I counted 13 A380's once at SYD! The Taimodels terminal detail was very good, but the quality here is another significant set of levels higher in this scenery, it also comes with a more grungy feel and object detail... note excellent fire stairs in detail, and it shows you the finer and better detail of this scenery SAM (Scenery Animation Manager) has been abandoned by it's developer. But the gates here are all SAM animated? Into the saddle is OpenSAM 1.5, it's a basic tool, but at least it works, it also does not hang your computer when shutting down as SAM3 did. The only area where the interior is modeled is the International Terminal main departure hall. but very good it is with a McDonalds, the view out is first rate and very realistic as is the real view. Landside detail is again excellent, with the highlight the excellent latticework on the arrival hall awnings, again the detail is so much finer than that of TaiModels... the static car placement is excellent. It is important to note that FlyTampa's SYD also uses the newer LST (Living Scenery Technology) by xCodr, so that this plugin has to be installed. LST provides the "life" in the scenery with animated vehicles, both on the roads around and through the terminal areas, but also the movement of the service vehicles and equipment on the ramps. All ground service vehicles and equipment are branded, in fact all the branding and signage right through the airport is absolutely first rate here. Behind the arrival area is the main international carparks and Rydges Hotel, the Customs offices is also set behind. The quality of the buildings in design and feel-factor here is to be seen to be believed, they look and feel very real. Ground textures are however a bit Low-Res. There is the option included to use the Ortho4XP textures, the OSM data is in the folder provided. We are now getting into the area were FlyTampa exceeds. Further back west is the Sydney Novotel and CKS Hotel, further south is the Brighton Beach Novotel Hotel... this hotel sited on Botany Bay is a landmark when arriving at Sydney, as it is the main focus to look for on the 16L, and even the 16R approaches... it signals you are in Sydney. There are also a number of remote bays to the south which are heavily utilised during peak periods and for the parking of idle aircraft during the day. (for instance the British Airways flight BA15 arrives at SYD 6.10 a.m, but does not depart again until BA16 leaves at 3:50pm for LON). Then the "Air Services facility on the bay, both areas in detail are excellent, and really well reproduced. North of the International Terminal, but still on the western boundary is the SYD Cargo area. Qantas Freight dominates, but TOLL, a domestic cargo carrier is also well represented. Terminal 2 In reality T2 is the heart of the domestic SYD complex, and it is the main terminal that you would use in a transition on a domestic flight. Terminal 2, located in the airport's north-eastern section, it was originally the former home of Ansett Australia's domestic operations until 2001. It features 16 parking bays served by aerobridges and several remote bays for regional aircraft. It serves Jetstar, Regional Express Airlines (REX), FlyPelican and Virgin Australia. There are lounges for Regional Express Airlines and Virgin Australia. I have spent many an hour here in T2, even longer when the unions go strike, which they do often. Basically T2 has two main piers and the third area is basically stands for walkon/walkoff regional flights. Sydney Airport previously had a fourth passenger terminal, east of Terminal 2. This was formerly known as Domestic Express and was used by Regional Express Airlines, and the low-cost carriers Virgin Blue (now known as Virgin Australia) and the now-defunct Impulse Airlines, during the time LCC Terminal 2 was closed following the collapse of Ansett Australia. It is now used as an office building for Menzies. Gates (bays) are extremely good, and very lifelike to the real areas, glass is perfect in the colour and style. The grittiness of the age of the facility is all here, Sydney can be quite grubby in it's personality away from the harbour, and that feel is imprinted here. Landside is dominated by the central causeway with those four iconic support pylons. Really well done here with a perfect feel for this important separation zone. Landside T2 arrivals is well done, but a bit vacant, and just a few static vehicles would have made a huge difference, as it is an extremely busy area. Note the "Virgin Australia" lounge entrance. Unlike the TaiModels version, there are no internal T2 modeled areas by FlyTampa, one of the differences between the versions. Terminal 3 Terminal 3 is another domestic terminal, but here only serving Qantas, with QantasLink regional flights having also moved their operations from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 on 16 August 2013. Originally, it was home for Trans Australia Airlines (later named Australian Airlines). The current terminal building is largely the result of extensions designed by Hassell that were completed in 1999. This included construction of a 60-metre roof span above a new column-free check-in hall and resulted in extending the terminal footprint to 80,000 square metres. There are 14 parking bays served by aerobridges, including two served by dual aerobridges (A330). Terminal 3 features a large Qantas Club lounge, along with a dedicated Business Class and Chairman's lounge. Modeling by FlyTampa is impeccable, detail is astounding, and your not going to better this quality anywhere, okay Copenhagen, which is just as good in the sheer detailing. FlyTampa really "flies" where it counts. T3 arrival landside is again excellent with stupendous latticework, signage and even some static vehicles to fill out your view. Landside entrance has P1, P2 and P3 carparks, all are well designed and all come with signage. Notable is the small square building set between P2 and P3 carparks, it is the efficient UBER pickup area, fair walk, but very quick and handy when you get there. Qantas Engineering The very large Qantas Engineering "Jet" base is again very well detailed and covers the iconic site with distinction. Built like a lot of old legacy airport facilities it has a large assortment of buildings and hangers to make up the massive site, and all the distinctive hangars are covered here really well. With the "191" building were Qantas do their famous arrival or announcement media. The feel is slightly different here than the brighter textures of the TaiModels version, greyish, but more realistic... The engine test stands are far better done here as well, more detail and far more realistic, also no burnt in aircraft tails. The large iconic open sided canopy is also better modeled in realism detail. The trick to the area is melding the old 50's style buildings in with the later additions. The Qantas Head Offices and support buildings are represented, but not with the newer all glass facade that was the pride and joy of former CEO Alan Joyce. SYD Control Tower The terminals are set to the north, the runways to the south, and set between them in the centre is the unique and iconic Sydney Control Tower, set off taxiway C. It is a very distinctive shape that is the image of Sydney in Australia. Design of the SYD Tower is excellent by FlyTampa, more detail than you could imagine, it has been painstakingly reproduced with the lower glass cylinders, and the operations floor set above, the spiral staircase is also excellent. Only odd thing is that radar is static? an oversight? Note the well filled out carparks. There is a realism about it that blows your mind. Shep’s Mound is represented, and was named in honor of Bruce C. Shepherd, a passionate plane spotter who frequented the area until his passing in 2005. The mound provides an excellent vantage point for observing most of the aircraft movements at Sydney Airport. Set here as well is the Dnata Catering facility, and the X-Plane Tower view (T) is set perfectly. Hidden to the east of the tower on Ross Smith Drive is an excellent Helicopter facility with two major pads H1 and H2. Working from here is Black Ops, Sydney HeliTours, Austcopters and Blue Sky Helicopters. There is a very small General Aviation area, tucked away at the threshold of Runway 25, a few hangers and parking spaces are all that are over here. But it well done for GA use. Infrastructure We had a bit of infrastructure set in the western side. But it is excellent on the important airport approach eastern side. The fusion of the X-Plane Autogen and custom objects is excellent, and all the major hotels of Stamford Hotel (CoatesHire), Ibis (twice), Holiday Inn and Manta Hotel are all included. Entrance advertising hoardings are also excellent and highly detailed, leading all the way out to the off site Long-Term carpark. There are McDonald Restaurants all hidden in the scenery, three in fact, find them all! Port Botany One of the biggest disappointments of the TaiModels SYD scenery was the missing of Port Botany. This is the biggest port in Australia, and critical to the view on departure from 16L, as you bank straight out and over the port as you climb out of YSSY. Here FlyTampa have totally recreated the port in detail... .... where there is a massive hole in the TaiModel's YSSY scenery? however here you have all of this.... just brilliant. The detail here by FlyTampa does not miss any trick? Over Botany Bay is the massive Kurnell Refinery, and yes that is presented here as well! Important as it is seen on finals into both 34L and 34R. Textures You feel the excellent textures with their built in Burnt-in ambient occlusion effects, even in the full day light sun. Hard to do, but that shows the depth of the quality of the ground textures here, in that you don't need to use certain lighting conditions to see the that deep quality of the surfaces. Again one of the main reasons I love FlyTampa's Copenhagen. TaiModels surfaces were too knobbly, but these are simply perfect, even down to the repaired, resurfaced areas with gridded runways, and the worn rubberised in landing zones are perfect.... The runway promontories are well done, the concrete walls are excellent, but to be honest I've seen better rock work. But it is more than passable here with the better X-Plane 12.1.0 water surrounding the walls. Certainly far, far better from the bad old days of a green filled in Botany Bay. Note that Runway 34R/16L is all domestic operations, 34L/16R is for mainly mixed International and the odd domestic operations. Cross runway 07/25 is rarely used, except for GA and short regional services, sometimes for just parking aircraft.. There is 3d grass, but it is that blade style, that quite doesn't work closeup, but fine at a distance. The scenery uses the X-Plane 12 trees to great effect here in hiding the Lo-Res ground textures, but they also give a very realistic look to the landside scenery aspect. The X-Plane 12 weather effects are again excellent here. You would never get snow at SYD, but the heavy wet tropical storms are quite frequent. Lighting When if you look at the scenery lighting for the first time and you get the reaction of "oh WOW", then it is something special. A lot of scenery developers put night lighting to the rear of the experience. But to arrive at your destination and it then gives you this amazing experience, then that scenery is doing it's job... more so here as most flights are after a long time in the air, or even the dark. All runway and taxiway lighting is now set to the official ICAO standards in X-Plane 12, so it's bright, but very realistic. Both terminal areas are very well lit, and look nice to the eye.... the different tones of lighting work really well here. .... however like Copenhagen the terminal window lighting is a bit dull, you have to be in complete darkness to see any illumination, Internally in side it's a bit dark as well! but the gate numbers glow perfectly in the dark as per the real signs. Entrance concourse is very nicely lit. And all the branding and signage is well lit and distinctive. BP Service Station/McDonalds and a AMG dealership... and the details go on and on. "Welcome to "Kingsford Smith" Sydney Airport, shows both old and new signs. Infrastructure lighting is excellent, with the hotels all having realistic window lighting (no grey rectangles here). Port Botany is fantastic, a bright working port at night and it looks wholly realistic. LST cleverly working gives the General Holmes Drive a perfect motion filled look around the runway and taxiway underpass, highly realistic. Noted here in both twilight and darker conditions. Navigation signage is also first rate... nice textures and also ground reflections. Summary Pivotal primary city hubs are what connects the world together. None are more decisive than the Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport or as it is more commonly known as "Mascot", in Australia. It's an essential gateway, and that means it is an important scenery to have in the X-Plane 12 Simulator. There have been a few earlier Kingsford Smith's in the past, mostly awful. But TaiModel's did a fair version a few years ago... here is FlyTampa's redition, and it is one scenery to savour. The question abounds about price. You can spend an amount on a pay scenery and it will deliver the basics, the airport and it's contents. But the question your asking, then if I spend a little more, but get a quite substantial rendition of that scenery, like not only the actual airport, but the important local environs, in this case, Port Botany, Kurnell Refinery and a load of great hotel infrastructure, a few Mcdonalds are in there as well, then is it worth that extra investment? In this case the answer is overwhelmingly yes. Not only is the actual SYD airport reproduced in quality here, but so are the important environs surrounding tha airport are also extremely well done (a FlyTampa speciality)... all the buildings and terminal design are excellent, and SAM (OpenSAM) and LST (Living Scenery Technology) also creates movement in the scenery. Textures are first rate with excellent ambient occlusion effects bringing them to life, with 3d grass and excellent trees and fauna. Lighting overall is also top rate with great tones. Negatives, I don't look at anything here in a negative light, but refinements could be brighter terminal lighting, radar not rotating on the tower, and the ground textures are quite Lo-Res, but for a framerate reason. FlyTampa create very substantial quality sceneries... this YSSY Sydney International is certainly one of their very best, and it is a very comprehensively packed scenery, in that, it is what the X-Plane 12 Simulator is looking for in maximum simulation experience. This SYD should be in your portfolio, everyone's portfolio, as it is an amazing rendition of "Kingsford Smith, to almost perfection and certainly a five star investment purchase ***** Highly recommended! ___________________________________ Yes! the FlyTampa Sydney scenery is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : FlyTampa Sydney Price is US$28.00 Currently only US$23.00 You Save:$5.00(18%) Features Fully Custom rendition of the Kingsford Smith Airport Custom mesh Custom night lighting SAM and LST integration Custom Mesh (with patch for Ortho4XP users) Airport modeled with PBR materials Sloped airport terrain Dynamic lighting, animated Jetways Requirements X-Plane 12 (not for XP11) Windows or Mac or Linux 8GB VRAM Recommended Current version : 1.0 (May 20, 2024) Installation and documents: FlyTampa SYD is download of 676Mb download that is translated into a 1.61Gb install in your Custom Scenery folder. FlyTampa_Sydney_0_Airport (1.59Gb) FlyTampa_Sydney_1_Mesh (19.2Mb) The above two install folders must be put in the order of the "mesh" below the main "airport" scenery folder. The Sydney city scenery Sydney City CBD City Scene 2020 1.3 by haydo83 is highly recommended with the FlyTampa YSSY scenery, it fills out the skyline and the approaches nicely. Documents There are no documents provided ________________________________________ Scenery Review by Stephen Dutton 14th June 2024 Copyright©2024: 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: Windows - 12th Gen IS1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU - 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - PNY GeForce RTX 3080 10GB XLR8 - Samsung 970 EVO+ 2TB SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane v12.1.0b6 (checked in X-Plane v12.0.9rc5) Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick, Throttle & Rudder Pedals : Sound - Yamaha M200SP Powered Speakers Plugins: Traffic Global - JustFlight-Traffic (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$52.99 : Global SFD plugin US$30.00 Scenery or Aircraft - None- DrishalMAC2, skytitude, Busair and 1 other 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrishalMAC2 Posted June 14 Report Share Posted June 14 I certainly agree Stephen! When i checked this airport out on stream i was blown away! A very good rendition of Sydney airport! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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