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Quick Impression : LIMC - Milano Malpensa XP by Aerosoft


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LIMC_Milan Header.jpg

 

Quick Impression : LIMC - Milano Malpensa XP by Aerosoft

 

What is it about Milano Malpensa in Italy? this nothing to do with the scenery or even X-Plane. I have been looking to do a quick overview of this new scenery release from Aerosoft (via a conversion with Windsock Simulations) and I have had not ONE single day of good weather? It's rained, its been so foggy you can't even see the tails of the aircraft, its always dull, dark and it is still raining and raining? wet, wet, wet says it all...

 

My routing takes me to Italy a lot, I go to mostly LIRF - Rome and for Milan it has always been LIML - Linate, but very rarely do I fly to LIMC-Malpensa. There are several reasons for this, one the LIMC-Malpensa (freeware) that had some really weird green (sickly looking) ground textures, and had bumps in the runway that threw the aircraft off in odd directions, but overall I was not that really endeared to the place unlike Linate of where I have actually been to and truly love. So here is a new LIMC version if still only another FSX conversion that is worth looking at, and even to a point in now using.

 

Milan Malpensa Airport

Aeroporto di Milano Malpensa
"Città di Milano"

IATA: MXP - ICAO: LIMC

 

My very first impression of LIMC-Malpensa was literally a grey fog, with a few airline tails sticking out of the murk. But with a CAVOK clear and you could finally and actually see the airport...  and yes it looked far better than the freeware LIMC version, a big step up, but the devil is as usual in the details.

 

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My reference towards LIMC-Milan is from the earlier in the year release of Aerosoft's Rome XP. When that scenery was released I thought it was a great disappointment, and a poor conversion of an old FSX/P3D release. But use and time have brought this Rome-LIRF into my routing quite considerably and I now enjoy the scenery quite a lot, and to a point I can see the same form and pattern happening here at LIMC...  in similarities they are very much the same in feel and detail, but this LIMC has a slightly more modern feel as we shall see.

 

The dated design of the terminals in the modeling and low-res textures is highly evident, but the detail is in there, but you really miss that HDR realism. The bonus of course is that these airports will run on a lower-res graphic card, but a 6Gb card is still required.

 

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There are two terminals or the old one T2 and the new larger International T1. T2 is positioned a fair way from the main terminal and is set out between the 17R-17L thresholds and is now mainly used for the LCC (Low Cost Carrier) services.

 

There are some strange yellow areas which I think is actually grass, again it is all a flashback to old Aerosoft FS design, very odd and they are also poor quality textures?

 

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You would have had the same low quality of all the converted buildings including the three main satellite terminals...

 

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....  except they were saved by the expert use of the SAM - Scenery Animation Manager plugin (Plugin Required)... custom and branded they are all really well done here at LIMC....  more so because they hide the poor textures.

 

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Highlight is the LIMC Control Tower, which is nicely modeled but with some average glass, it is very striking and highly visible...

 

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....   tower view is well set and highly usable.

 

WT3 generation from the noted completed ATC ground routes is available, but it is all very average. No flows and only B737/A320 aircraft are visible, no heavies, cargo or regional aircraft are seen. Runway pop-offs are frequent, but a few ground routes work...  a poor effort considering the scale of the airport but the ATC routes have been updated in v1.1...  however GentlePilot has created a full set of ground routes, flows and stands WT3 Ground Routes LIMC and they are thankfully perfect, I really do wish developers would put more attention into this ATC area, most products this year have been seriously dismal.

 

With aged original photo ground textures, there has been an effort to try to cover them over or fix them...   the joins to the default mesh are a bit average with no blending and mostly straight hard angle lines, and all with different style textures, sadly most joins are under the approach paths to each of the runways and that makes them highly noticeable (a note that I am running the misterx6 SFD Global autogen and his new textures)....

 

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....  some areas have been just covered with a basic facade texture like the landside the cargo area, and for a payware this is a pretty cheap way to fix an issue and it looks crappy as well. The added east side industrial area has the same (this time grass) facade textures, it is not good over there either.

 

Visually landside it is very good. Yes there are the low-res photo textures and very poor low-res buildings but the ground areas are mostly covered up by 3d vehicles and objects, and good gradient changes and 3d elevation stops it all being a totally flat surface, but the photo textures show up here and there...  but overall the areas landside are not to bad.

 

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Ground Textures

Runway/Taxiway textures are good, but you will need a very high to max texture setting to get the best out of them.

 

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.....  landing at LIMC is a good experience overall, but the ground textures do look a bit flat and with no 3d grass that doesn't help either....

 

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Textures are PBR (Physically Based Rendering) active (wet, rain and reflective), but don't have that full wet feel or more a shiny look... they do however bring out the nice texture feel of the asphalt and concrete.

 

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Lighting

The lighting at LIMC is overall quite sensational... the airport looks excellent from the air.

 

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Runway and taxiway lighting is very good, and the apron and landside areas are lit to perfection.... again it is only the really older FSX textures that are the limitations. Bland (blue) and no texture PBR makes them flat, and put a nice shiny aircraft next to them and they look really dull...

 

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....  but that is not to take away the experience of landing at LIMC - Malpensa at night, it is a great place to arrive at or to depart from.

 

Feature list is very good, with a lot of dynamic X-Plane11 features provided including the SAM Plugin.

 

Features:
  • Accurate models of all buildings, the tower, and terminals 1 and 2
  • Apron with exact ground markings
  • Detailed 0.5 m/px ground textures
  • Orthophoto of the airport with the adjacent industrial area
  • Custom vegetation in the surroundings
  • Realistic static aircraft
  • Animated jetways (SAM Plug-in required)
  • Animated docking systems (SAM Plug-in required)

 

First Impressions

Finally a decent LIMC-Malpensa for use in X-Plane, and a great companion for the Aerosoft Rome XP scenery. Obviously an older FSX conversion, but the X-Plane11 dynamics have been expertly used here by Windsock to cover most of them up, and in many way successfully, but you still can't hide a decade or more old style modeling and their low-res textures. Great SAM and lighting lifts the experience and overall I know I will use this Italian airport frequently, but I will probably bring an umbrella and raincoat.

 

Contrary are those ancient building modeling and low-res textures, night building textures are also (seriously out of date) and no glass PBR, covering up ground photo or matching it into the default textures is in areas quite average and the ATC routes are not refined but there is a fix for WT3 users. Animation is minimal and non-existent landside (where it is badly needed).

 

Three out of Five stars ☀️☀️☀️

 

LIMC - Milano Malpensa XP by Aerosoft is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore here:
 

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Milano Malpensa XP

 

Price is US$29.99

 

Requirements are:

X-Plane 11

Windows, Mac or Linux
4GB VRAM Minimum - 8Gb+ VRAM Recommended
Download Size: 1.6 GB
Current and Review version : 1.0 (October 24th 2019)
 
Note version v1.1 fixes: Ortho4xp patch is now included, World Traffic routes added and Extra Animation has been added
 

________________________________________

 

Quick Impression by Stephen Dutton

21st November 2019

Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews

 

(Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview 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)

 

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