Stephen Posted August 15, 2020 Report Posted August 15, 2020 Scenery Review : LICR - Reggio Calabria XP by Aerosoft I really like Italian Airports, they are colourful and quirky and you know you are landing in Italy and nowhere else on the planet. So any Italian Airport is welcome, even with the odd regional destination. This is Reggio Calabria which is situated on the toe of Italy and fronting the Strait of Messina and across from the island of Sicily, the Reggio di Calabria "Tito Minniti" Airport is named after Italian Royal Air Force war-hero Tito Minniti, who was born in Reggio Calabria, but LICR is also called Aeroporto dello Stretto (Airport of the Strait). First view of Reggio Calabria is highly impressive, not only for the position, but for the excellent views across the Strait of Messina (note make sure you have your reflections settings on). There are two runways 15/33 - 2,000m (6,549ft) Asphalt and 11/29 - 1,700m (5,574ft) Asphalt, but they look closed by the X on the approach to each runway, but no they are actually open for use and 15/33 is the main runway for the terminal use, and 11/29 for General Aviation movements Reggio di Calabria Airport Aeroporto di Reggio di Calabria IATA: REG - ICAO: LICR 15/33 - 2,000m (6,549ft) Asphalt 11/29 - 1,700m (5,574ft) Asphalt Elevation AMSL- 29.26 m / 95.99 ft The main apron has nine parking stands (walk-on/walk-off) numbered 1 to 9. So there are no airbridges at LICR. Obviously the scenery is a crossover from FSX/P3D, as the modeling and texture design is noticeably quite dated... It shouldn't work, but the detailing and excellent gradients surrounding the terminal lift the scenery into a nice visual reproduction. Fauna is excellent and the detailing hides (covers) a lot of the older elements... oddly both the well done Airside with local branded clutter and the landside is very well done including the crane. Control Tower area has also nice Fire Station set to the south. The Control Tower lifts the scenery in quality, but again don't expect too much if you look really closely, the tower view is set totally off and buried somewhere in the north apron... the Fire Station is really good in detail and comes with four installed fire engines. There is a smaller field tower across the runways, but it is not denoted as the active tower. It is a more modern design and well done. Northwest of the main apron is the General Aviation area with a terminal and two parking aprons. There is parking for four aircraft (only 10 to 12 stands are noted) of which I would guess would be regional and tour operator services, and a smaller apron with parking for five aircraft (Stands 13 to 17). Set between the aprons is a very well done ground equipment storage area and fuel depot... ... the General Aviation terminal is very basic (flat textures) but works if you don't look too closely for details. Environs One notable feature of the scenery is the full representation of Reggio Calabria, and it is all very good for VFR flying, also highly notable is the seemless intergration of the whole scenery into the X-Plane mesh, it is all very well done and very fluid. All buildings are very Italianate is design and very if highly realistic, but there are no churches to be seen, there are always churches in Italy? I am also using the (ShortFinal) SFD Global autogen in this review, and the Italian reference works in SFD blends in very well here, and so does the standard X-Plane industrial urban autogen to give the whole area a perfect coverage... the Reggio Calabria Football (Soccer) "Stadio Granillo" stadium is also well represented. There is also a beachside tourist area opposite the airport that is also recreated and there are a few boats bobbing up and down in the swell as well. Ground Textures The asphalt and concrete textures are good, not brilliant but more than passable, wear and tear detail is good in the linage, but overall they are say workmanlike. metal drainage grids joining the surfaces are well done... ... and there is 3d grass with overall only minimal coverage but enough grass to make it realistic. Hard straight texture edges are very easy to do, but not very realistic? There is burnt-in ambient occlusion on the textures, but you have to get very extreme lighting to get them to reflect, PBR reflective is in there (mostly in the lineage) but overall the PBR work feels a little dull. Lighting Overall the lighting is good, but there a few very disconcerting missing and old fashioned areas. Approach lighting is very good on RWY 15/33 but there is no lighting in either approach or any runway lighting on RWY 11/29... ... RWY 15/33 has centreline lighting but no runway boundary lighting? worse is that there is no taxiway side guidance lights and even the navigation displays are in darkness.. but only lit from below? so movements on the ground at night are quite a nightmare in finding the taxiway exits or the edges of the runways, and you have to turn around here at each end to takeoff or when landed? Apron lighting and Landside lighting is very good, great tones and contrast. Terminal and Tower lit textures are very dated and old fashioned... .... another dated aspect is the burnt in ground texture bright spots, and it is horrible stuff to look at.... ... Football Stadium looks good at night, and once the burnt in lighting textures cease and it returns to X-Plane ortho textures and the lighting it is not bad. Overall the lighting is old fashioned.... with very good X-Plane bits. The view of Sicily is however breathtaking! __________________ Summary Reggio Calabria is situated on the toe of Italy and fronting the Strait of Messina is the place for the latest release of an Italian Airport from Aerosoft. Obviously this is an Aerosoft conversion of the same FSX/P3D version of the LICR scenery and in many areas it shows to be quite dated. This is in the modeling and the textures and in a lot of the areas of the lighting. That noted it is quite an attractive scenery to use and visit, the surrounding Strait of Messina and Sicily is quite picturesque and the quantity and even the quality of the detail provided including some nice gradient work fills in and even hides the worse of the aging scenery, add in a huge amount of environ city buildings and infrastructure and somehow the whole scenery works in a respectable way. Ground textures are passable and there is some nice 3d grass and the aprons and signage are all quite well done, clutter is local branded and Airside and Landside areas are also well covered. Night textures are obviously old, but worse is the missing runway boundary lights, taxiway lights and missing navigation lighting, ageist burnt in night texture lighting is awful. My first reaction to Aerosoft's Reggio Calabria scenery was it looked impressive and in many areas it still does look very good, but on closer examination does show the age of the original scenery... a worthy buy, to a point oddly yes, as Reggio Calabria is a lovely place to visit and would fit in well with your Italian regional routes, it does look good and great to fly into and out of... so would I use LICR, certainly yes and so that is a recommendation _____________________________________ Yes! LICR - Reggio Calabria XP by Aerosoft is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : Reggio Calabria XP Price is US$24.95 Features: PBR Ground Poly Accurate approach lighting system with animated rabbit lights Custom Terrain mesh Surrounding cityscape with customized autogen Airport buildings with latest layout done in PBR 3D cars Custom trees and 3D grass Fully reproduced LICR aeroclub Major buildings around airport reproduced in 3D 3D approach custom lights 3D elevated parking lot 3D apron vehicles with animation Main city buildings such as “Stadio Granillo” WT3: WorldTraffic GroundRoutes are not provided and a generation is required, and overall the airport generation functions perfectly. Requirements: X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 850 MB Current and Review version: 1.0 (August 12th 2020) Installation Download scenery file size is 806Mb with the full installation of two folders is installed in order in your custom scenery folder. 01_Aerosoft - LICR RC1.2 02_Aerosoft - LICR Mesh Total scenery installation is 2.43Gb Documents One manual in English with notes (8 pages) but no charts Manual_ReggioCalabria.pdf _____________________________________________________________________ Scenery Review by Stephen Dutton 15th August 2020 Copyright©2020 : 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) Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo 1Tb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.41 and tested in v11.50b17 (really good!) Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini Plugins: JustFlight-Traffic (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$52.99 - SFD Global autogen US$30.00 Scenery or Aircraft - Default Boeing 737-800 by Laminar Research Quote
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