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Scenery Review : CYVR - Vancouver International Airport by GloballArt


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Scenery Review : CYVR - Vancouver International Airport by GloballArt

 

 

Vancouver is Canada's third biggest city, with the second busiest airport in the country. Often described as a trans-Pacific hub, it has more direct flights to China than any other North American airport. YVR is in being an important hub for Air Canada and WestJet, as well as a relevant operations base for Air Transat. This huge airport enplaned and deplaned more than 1.1 million passengers in March, with more than 17,650 aircraft runway movements in the same month. Vancouver airport also had more than 1,860 non-runway movements, which includes floatplanes, charters and helicopters. This incredible airport didn't have a payware version for X-Plane, until GloballArt released their version of Vancouver International Airport.

 

GloballArt is a well-known scenery designer for X-Plane, being Toronto Pearson International one of its most famous products. A few days ago they released their replica of Vancouver International Airport, a great addition for the X-Plane community.

 

Vancouver International

Airport    

IATA: YVR - ICAO: KFLL     

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08L/26R - 9,940ft (3,030m) Concrete

08R/26L - 11,500ft (3,505m) Asphalt/Concrete

13/31 - 7,300ft (2,225m) Asphalt/Concrete

Elevation AMSL 13 ft / 4m 

 

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The airport by itself almost occupies all the small island called "Sea Island". It is divided into three terminals, which are the Domestic, International and South terminals.  

 

Domestic Terminal

This is the first terminal we are going to talk about. Divided into three concourses, A B C, the terminal has 49 parking positions, most being equipped with jet bridges. All concourses will receive expansions, which will increase the terminal capacity.

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Concourse A

Concourse A is the smallest of the three. It has few jet bridges, so most of the aircraft parked there need to planed and deplaned outside the building. 

 

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Concourse B

Many airlines operate in concourse B, Westjet, Sunwing and Air North are some examples. Differently from concourse A, this one has jet bridges in almost all gates.  

 

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All airport jet bridges are very nice, very similar to the real ones, which also have "HSBC" wrote on them. GloballArt uses AutoGate plugin to animate the jetways, this means you have to install it if you want them to work properly. 

 

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Concourse C

Concourse C is the biggest concourse in the domestic terminal, with Air Canada being its main operator. It has more gates, with and without jet bridges, than the other concourses in the Domestic Terminal. As well as the others, Concourse C will receive a major expansion planned in the Master Plan 2037.

Even though the airport doesn't have interior modeling, the external details of the building are quite nice.

 

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International Terminal

Compared to the Domestic one, this terminal is quite bigger, and unlikely the other terminal, there are 2 concourses instead of three.

 

Concourse D

Used by all international flights from Vancouver, this concourse has 15 gates, all being able to handle wide-body aircraft. Seven of the gates are fitted with 2 jet bridges, two which can handle the enormous Airbus A380, operated seasonally by British Airways.

 

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As well as all the other concourses, Master Plan 2037 includes an expansion for concourse D, named Pier D, which will be the first expansion to be concluded. As you can see, the main structure of the new building is almost ready. GloballArt has modeled it, and a very nice construction site too.

 

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Concourse E

The last one is Concourse E, which is the US preclearance area and has 21 gates, 17 being equipped with jetways. The majority of US-bound flights operate from Concourse E; the only exceptions are flights from an international origin (Cathay Pacific's Hong Kong—Vancouver—New York and Philippine Airlines' Manila—Vancouver—New York flights), or flights that depart after 8:30 p.m. (e.g. Delta Air Lines' Vancouver—New York flight).

 

The gates E75 to E78 can accommodate smaller wide-body aircraft, and are swing gates which can be used for international departures, as gates D75 to D78. It is good to note that gate E95 accesses both the E95A and E95B stands.

 

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Differently from all other four concourses, the E one will receive two building expansions. The first one, Pier E, will give Concourse E more space for operations, while the Pier F/East Concourse will create a whole new wing for the airport. The of the Vancouver Airport Authority said that this expansion will start shortly after the conclusion of the Pier D.

 

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South Terminal

The South Terminal is a portion of the original pre-1968 terminal which is still in use. This includes the floatplane terminal. It also houses the corporate headquarters and main base of Pacific Coastal Airlines and Harbour Air. The South Terminal serves regional airlines that fly mostly within British Columbia, in addition to helicopters and chartered flights.

 

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Surrounding Areas

Here I will show all the buildings and features near the South Terminal, which mostly consist of General Aviation aprons and private hangars.

 

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As I said earlier, this area has the General Aviation aprons as one of its main characteristics, and GloballArt make sure to add them. There are many places to park your plane, helicopter and even sea-plane. 

 

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There are many hangars here too, and most of them are the same as the real ones. Million Air, Signature Air Support, London Aviation and Shell are some good examples. All hangars are custom built and very realistic.

 

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The surrounding areas of the South Terminal have a very unique thing, which isn't found in most airports. Noise management is one of the main focus of the YVR airport, and post-maintenance engine test produces a lot of noise. With that in mind, YVR airport constructed an Engine Testing Facility, which was modeled by GloballArt.

 

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East and Northeast Areas

These two areas of the airport majorly consist of cargo hangars and ramps. The airport most noticeable features in the East region are the Purolator and FedEx cargo facilities, as well as Air Canada and Jazz Hangars.

 

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In the NorthEast area of the airport, next to the runway 26R is the UPS building, very nice and detailed. A few meters from the UPS facility is located the huge Canada Post building.

 

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Main Terminal

There are many interesting things in the Main Terminal or very close to it. Starting with the control tower, which isn't incredible but has some details like the lights and antennas.

 

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Vancouver Airport has two, of many, characteristics features, the Skytrain and the Fairmont Hotel. The Skytrain station is pretty nice, very good modeling, and connects Vancouver to its Airport. The fact that GloballArt included a moveable train is very nice.

 

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The Fairmont Hotel is a very beautiful and iconic construction at the airport. Located on the East side of the building, in front of Concourse E, the hotel has 386 rooms, and if you be lucky, you may get a room facing the beautiful airport.

 

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De-icing zone

Vancouver airport has 10 communal de-icing bays and more than 20 de-icing trucks, which are extremely necessary during the cold weather. GloballArt has already implemented this feature in the Montreal Airport, and it worked with most aircraft. However, in this airport only the VDGS works, no de-icing trucks, this way you can only simulate the de-icing procedure with de-ice included aircraft, like the Zibo 738. Note that the VDGS shows the indications for all supported aircraft, so if you want, you can stay there for a few minutes and imagine that your plane is being de-iced.

 

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Mesh and Custom Buildings

The package also includes a mesh, even though the areas around the airport are mostly plain, and a few custom buildings. These buildings a nice, however they don't have winter textures, differently from the airport.

 

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Ground Textures

The ground textures are very good, during both day and night. There is a wide variety of surfaces, especially in the taxiways and runways, and they are all very detailed. The taxi lines textures are pretty nice too, with some showing usage cracks and others seem to be new. The runway textures are beautiful, which gives you the feeling of a used runway.

 

A very nice detail that GloballArt inserted in their product is the smooth and high-quality textures transition between taxiways and land, making the airport way more immersive. If I am not wrong, you can apply this by using the well-known decals in your Orthophotos.

 

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GloballArt also included a very nice feature related to ground textures in the airport, wet ground textures. These files add the wet appearance to the ground, which gives the airport extra realism. Even after the rain stopped, the ground remains wet and shows many puddles.

 

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The airport includes 3D grass, but just like the real one, it isn't present in most parts of the airport. This occurs, most of the time, because the snow covers the land for a considerable time during the year, killing it.

 

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Lighting

Probably one of the most important things in an X-Plane airport, the lighting in Vancouver airport is pretty nice. No lights are missing, runways, taxiways, roads, terminals, etc... Are all illuminated. 

 

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The lights around the gates are pretty good, making it very easy to see and maneuver your aircraft.

 

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The lighting at the South Terminal region is pretty good too, as well as in the main terminal and its surrounding areas.

 

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The only downside related to the airport lighting is the textures, especially the ones from the Main Terminal. They don't look as good as during the day.

 

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Summary

CYVR Vancouver International Airport by GloballArt is a solid airport, delivering what you would expect from it. This airport is the type you like and doesn't get disappointed at all, even though some things could be improved. 

 

The modeling is pretty good, especially in certain areas like Pier D. Ground textures are very nice as well, with a great variety of surfaces and beautiful textures, including wet ground textures. GloballArt included winter textures and custom mesh in the airport files, as two different folders. 

 

The fact that the airport doesn't have a modeled interior is one of the downsides. The addition of this feature would make the terminal way more beautiful for two reasons, being the first and most obvious, a modeled interior, and the second transparent windows. Having transparent windows would remove the current textures, which could be better, not just in the Main Terminal building, but in all objects around the airport, like jet bridges.

 

It is very important to note that the airport has Stop Bars, a light system located in the runway holding position. I couldn't show you this because it only works when you are connected to a server like IVAO and VATSIM. This system consists of red and green lights, controlled by the control tower, that show the pilots when they should enter or not the runway.

 

As I said earlier, one of the main features of the airport, when compared to others, is the de-icing system. Right now it only shows information in the VDGS, but we all expect it to be like CYUL, with the operational de-icing trucks Maybe in the next version. Probably many people didn't notice that the airport is already at version 1.1, which became available one week after the initial release. This update brought many improvements, such as lighting fixes and FPS gains.

 

If you always wanted to fly into Canada's second busiest airport, but never found an X-Plane version that was good enough for you, then this airport is the one you were looking for. I am sure that GloballArt gave their best at this airport and even though it is far away from perfection and has some downsides, it has many good qualities. If you are not sure if you should get this airport or not, trust me, you won't be disappointed with the solid airport.

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The CYVR - Vancouver International Airport by GloballArt is available at the X-Plane.Org Store.

 

CYVR - Vancouver International Airport

 

Price is US$24.95

 

Features

 

✓ Accurate replica os CTVR – Vancouver International Airport, updated 2020.
✓ Precise modeling based on original references, photos and others researchs.
✓ Customized runways, lines and taxiways, with ambiente occlusion included in the textures.
✓ Sun reflections effects on pavements.
✓ Fingers Auto Gate with VGDS 
            o By Marginal
✓ Static objects, vehicles and aircraft are present in this scenery.
✓ Avenues and streets with personalized and standard vehicle traffic.
✓ HDR lighting with custom night textures.
✓ Custom textures with ambient occlusion.
✓ Animated ground traffic and default aircraft traffic.
          o Plugin Ground Traffic by Marginal
✓ Custom Approach Lights (ALS) systems.
✓ Included taxi routes for aircraft, "taxi route"
✓ Taxi routes configured to WT3 plugin.
✓ Airliners configured Ramp Start.
✓ De-Ice Signboard best configured to ZIBO 738 (complete) an other aircrafts (Signboard).
           o Use Auto Gate plugin datarefs - by Marginal
✓ Winter texture - only the Airport area.
✓ Stop Bars lights.
          o Online flights only.
 
Included in scenery package
▪ CA-CYVR-A-Vancouver Intern Airport G1
▪ CA-CYVR-B-Vancouver Mesh G1
▪ CYVR Winter Textures
▪ Instruction Manual (English and portuguese BR)
 
Requirements
X-Plane 11
Windows. Mac or Linux
4 GB VRAM Minimum. 8 GB+  VRAM Recommended
Download Size: 1 GB
Current version: 1.1 (May 22nd 2020)
 
Installation
Download scenery file size is 1GB
 
Three folders are included+2 manuals
 
  • CA-CYVR-A-Vancouver Intern Airport
  • CA-CYVR-B-Mesh
  • YVR_Winter-Textures
 
Final scenery size is 3.5GB
 
AutoGate plugin - AutoGate is required for this scenery
 
Documents
One manual in two languages English and Portuguese(BR)
 
->Manual-CYVR-English
->Manual-CYVR-Portugues
_____________________________________________________________________
 

Scenery Review by Benardo Pierdoná Casa

27th May 2020

Copyright©2020 : X-Plane Reviews

 

Review System Specifications:
Computer System: Intel Core I5-9600K 4,30GHz / 2x8 Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200MHz - Gigabyte RTX 2070 - Z390 Aorus Master - Kingston A1000M.2 SSD 240GB

Software:   - Windows 10 - X-Plane  11.41

Addons: Logitech Pro Flight Yoke/Pedals/Throttle Quadrant - Logitech Extreme 3d Pro Joystick - Sound: Samsung Home Theater System J5500WK

Plugins:  Environment Engine v1.13 by xEnviro US$69,90 Traffic: Traffic Global by JustFlight US$52.99

Scenery or Aircraft

Boeing 737-800 by Zibo (X-Plane.Org)free

737-700U by Captain Kitten (Threshold)free

 

(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)

 

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