Joe

  X-PlaneReviews - Yearly Review 2015   “So this is Xmas, And what have you done, Another year over, And a new one just begun, And so this is Xmas, I hope you have fun, The near and the dear one, The old and the young…  A very Merry Xmas, And a happy New Year, Let's hope it's a good one, Without any fear (Happy Xmas “War is Over” John Lennon).
How many years since that recording was made? 44 years believe it or not and it feels that not much has changed with the world, so how would have John Lennon felt today, maybe like then it is simply a fruitless campaign, there is just too much hate around us that it still overwhelms the love.
But thankfully that hate does not spill over into our X-Plane world (except on some forums), but there is certainly a lot of love around here for all of us in creation, cooperation and the love of sharing shows that it can be done when you focus and love something as much as we do with our digital and online flying, we get it right so why can’t everyone else…
 Overall it was another standout year for the simulator, there was no real highpoints or low points, but just a steady stream of releases and great ideas. Cohesion is certainly covering the simulator and it feels now more solid than ever, but that also depends on the huge amount of add-ons in plugins that you can hang off X-Plane now, personally myself I don’t throw everything into the box, as the main reason is I need a pretty solid platform for reviews, so when thoroughly tested and proven and mostly if it can add in a real benefit and then and only then does it go into the plugin folder.
One major annoyance that I have found this year is the growing amount of developers that will only create “Windows” only applications (they say they will do Mac/Linux version but never do). One issue is that this treatment means they won’t get any exposure from this site (meaning sales) but X-Plane is a multi-platform simulator and not FS based windows sim, noting I should use “windows” is defeating the idea as Mac/Linux users still don’t have access…  the total reality of this approach is the losers are the developers themselves as their sometimes brilliant work is usually mostly not taken up as a global application in the simulator and is usually then left sidelined and waysided in the process, it is not easy I admit to convert Windows code to Mac/Linux based code, but that is what the simulator is built on and more Macs than ever are being sold today as desktop systems, it is your loss dev’s not mine.
Laminar Research
As usual the beta run from Laminar Research is usually the high point in changes to the simulator. This year it was the v10.40 run that was very successful in being very solid in it’s underlying foundations.
The highlight was of course the extended scenery and the option to load area in 4×3 DSFs (tiles) for less blurry long distance viewing. LR at the same time provided a new way of loading the DSF’s and with more multicore processing to get faster load times for more area being loaded. The result was a transformation of your X-Plane landscape that was wonderful to behold (if ages in coming) and certainly made the simulator far more competitive.
The global airport domination carried on with now thousands (2,306) of 3-D default airports in situ ready and waiting for your personal use. However my original fears came back in receptive horror that every airport I landed at then had double objects and nothing looked anything like normal, so “Global Airports” are now always out of my custom scenery folder more than being actually in it (usually in there just for beta upgrades) so it is of simply no use to me? Laminar Research notes that it is the responsibility of the add-on developers to make sure there is no conflict, but I always thought that was a huge big ask from the first off anyway and that is certainly turning out to be so, the fix needs to come internally.
There was some nice changes in v10.40 and some really backward steps in the lighting, before you had small tight lights but now huge blobs of lights all over aircraft and airports. If there is one area I hate it is in the lighting, awful stuff, I understand that with the change of view the light definition source becomes larger or smaller, but the overall lighting look is a severe backward step in mostly very few are adjusting their lighting to the new format.
Touches were made to the weather (winds aloft and METERS, GPS, new failures, views and multi-core AVI based Video was restored and certainly a lot of great bug fixes were addressed and overall the X-Plane simulator runs far more smoother and more cohesive, and in context 10.40 was a very good clean upgrade.
But, but  and more but’s in the main context 10.40 didn’t really deliver in the other areas that are well overdue for attention, Clouds are still a major feature of the X-Plane 10 launch feature list, but are still as we start to pass the middle section of the beta run an area that has had the least amount of focus and is causing the most anguish to simulator users. Light clouds are fine but when they get grey or go darker you are hit with a total wall of framerate pain. No one is immune and users have been drove to desperation in creating lighter textures, adding weather add-ons and mostly screaming at their computers in frustration as aircraft will not fly in these conditions, why have all these glorious weather options when you can’t use any of them? And the moon (that jagged piece of crap in the sky), and the stars are still, still reflecting on the ground as you fly? Water and certainly your tropical waters are basically still in the X-Plane stone-age and not to mention the poor ATC (ATC is finally getting attention in v10.45) but as a warning to Laminar Research in that if these areas are not addressed soon, then users will get more and more vocal and certainly their patience will certainly finally wear out in waiting for any relief from the cloud pain… ditto for night textures as well.
Plugin Add-ons
Again the creative of you all brought out some great ideas and refined older ones, there was hundreds of great ideas but like mentioned not many actually came through to the mainstream (see “Windows only” above) Lots of Soundsets, Planners, Checklists, Cloud and Water options (see above) FMC helpers, Ebags and a great selection of library management tools.
A few did stand out. Headshake and Expansion Packs from SimCoders were great and realistic additions, in Headshake it needed to be finely tuned to your needs, but when done was a great advantage to flying.
FSFlightSchool created far more interesting tutorials, and are certainly worthy for getting your flying skills just right
JARDesign brought out a great plugin that created animated “Ground Support” called “Ground Handling Deluxe”, certainly a plugin in its infancy, but its potential is enormous in the X-Plane landscape.
The standout plugin application was not one that was released in 2015, but certainly matured in mid-year and that was “WorldTraffic” from Classic Jet Simulations (Greg Hofer). I started out the year in 2015 in wanting to conquer the WorldTraffic world, and even I admit it was tough going in setting it up and creating the ground and air routes, but suddenly with the v2.0 release in September it all fell finally into place and the airports were also suddenly groaning under the weight of movement and traffic. WT sits there in the background buzzing away and now I can’t get enough of it.
Scenery
Freeware Scenery
In Freeware MisterX6 dominated all with his excellent KSFO - San Fran City, KSAN (San Diego), KLAX - Los Angeles (upgraded), KPHX - Phoenix and KPDX – Portland International. tdg went awol in the middle of the year, but still delivered some stunning and efficient scenery. And the usual suspects kept the home fires burning brightly… overall it was a very good year for good quality freeware scenery, in this area X-Plane still delivers really great work, so a slap on the back and lots of accolades to all those who put in the hours is always certainly a worthy cause.
An annoying trend developing in 2015 was developers now creating many versions of the same airport in various degrees of quality, to a point it is waste of time and lots of work done for nothing, If you can design a better version than the current version then fine, but why create an inferior one? I like the approach of LIRF - Roma in that the earlier original version by Wehrlipub was passed on to Seaman and he added and kept the scenery moving and improving ever on upwards with updates, and this approach this creates great progressive scenery instead of the hundreds of stalled projects that litter the downloads section.
Freddy De Pues decided enough was enough and noted that 2015 was his last year in creating scenery, so the whole kit and caboodle was handed over to Nicolas of X-Plane.Org fame to relist and host in the saving of a great legacy of work for future generations, thanks Fred, we will miss your input.
 
Payware Scenery
The United Kingdom got the best of the payware  scenery this year with EGCC - Manchester from Icarus first out of the box in 2015 which was excellent and so was a big hole filler in EGLL-Heathrow from Aerosoft. PilotPlus delivered huge in EGHI - Southampton and EGGD - Bristol and the quirky EGTR - Elstree, the lighting in all was sensational, but overall all were good quality solid scenery releases. Tom Curtis recovered from cancer to deliver upgrades to Glitter Gulch (Las Vegas) and a cityscape for his huge San Fransisco “Golden Gate+South Bay” sets.
Southern American State airports were in vogue in 2015 with KAUS - Austin (great first scenery from Airportech), KTUS - Tuscon, KDAL - Dallas Love Field (last two are actually freeware), KRSW - South Florida (Aerosoft), KATL - Atlanta (Butnaru) all delivering great destinations. Overall Butnaru was quieter this year with the fore mentioned KATL and KFLL Fort Lauderdale as his only two releases with a new rejigged updated ORD (O’Hare) just released with also new name in “Nimbus Simulation Studios.
MB Sceneries (formerly SkyHighSim) delivered an outstanding LYBE - Belgrade, and DAI - Media revised all their main sceneries and debuted LEBL - Barcelona.
Newcomer Richard G Nunes provided some interesting scenery in the first set out in the central country area of Brazil with SBDN - Presidente Prudente Airport then the Brazilian Monolith of SBGL - Rio De Janeiro with a presiding Jesus Statue (Christ The Redeemer) in October.
Drzewiecki Design created some really great (and needed) scenery for X-Plane in 2015, but it was all let down by poor and difficult installation design and on my Mac sceneries there was bad pink staining on all the water boundary edges (Windows is supposed to be okay).
Overall the quality of scenery is still improving with the now required inclusion of animated vehicle traffic as a default and rather than a feature, lighting design was one of the real advances as developers really created some amazing effects with little or no framerate penalty, textures were very good as well. The only area that had issues is still night glass transparency in just being grey or not in reflecting real glass well.
So any payware that did not deliver animated vehicles, good lighting, perfect textured runways and taxiways and great building textures are now the default and required to be considered as payware quality, thankfully very few actually under delivered in these quality areas.
Notable this year was that as these complex highly detailed object sceneries are still going higher in quality, they are also reaching a border line in framerate. Remember that the processing is not just there to deal with the actual scenery, but surrounding the scenery is not only filled with heavy autogen (and usually other airports) but also usually a very heavy complex (payware) aircraft. This is not now the light processing scenery of X-Plane Christmas past, but the really heavy X-Plane processing effort that is required for today’s Christmas present and yes you can buy a computer that can process this lot, but not everyone can afford that upgrading cost on a yearly basis, certainly if you are an Apple devotee in their high cost and lower performance yields.
X-Plane is certainly more efficient (clouds aside) and aircraft developers have certainly done a major effort in scaling back errant frame weight (some like the new FlightFactor Boeing 763ER is amazingly light in performance), so that leaves the Scenery Developers to make sure that not only should the scenery be the best you can provide in objects and high-resolution textures, but take more into account that the scenery has to be highly efficient as well. Many do the works as Aerosoft’s EGLL - Heathrow was excellent for the amount of objects that is in the product, and it shows how far they have come since their EHAM - Schiphol that is still a ram crusher of immense proportions. It is not now that the problem exists, but in the Christmas future and non-efficient scenery will be sidelined which means no sales if users can’t access it.
A final note on scenery in 2015 was the explosion of object libraries are all welcome of course but two things became really annoying. One was the constant updates (some even days apart) that usually crashed the installed scenery and you had to totally redownload the latest library version to get it all to work again, yes we love your enthusiasm and certainly your contribution to the cause, but just package less and more importantly note the new upgrade of the library. Which brings to the second note on object libraries, certainly a cull is needed and place to have them all accessed from one area and listed in categories. Too many now have only a few objects in them, and I would prefer less with better quality objects certainly with aircraft. (OpenSceneryX is sadly now the worst offender for poor resolution aircraft textures)
Aircraft
Freeware Aircraft
It was noticeable this year the growing gap between freeware and payware aircraft, with their full on bangs and whistles even cheap payware aircraft were overall a better download. That is not to say there was no good freeware because there was like Beber’s Rafale C, and the AN225 by rihardstuka. The line though now is a 3-D cockpit… personally if there isn’t one in there now I will pass.
Notable in freeware was ex-payware which was usually old but there was some good stuff if you liked that sort of design or aircraft, highlights of course in this vein was Mr3d’s Zero which is a masterpiece, and the Yak55. One aircraft in all it different versions was the Pilatus PC6 Turbo Porter of which I like to fly around mountainous areas and DDen’s Shavrov Sh-2. Overlooked I think is the Eclipse 400 from XPFR.
Payware Aircraft
It was again a full busy year in 2015 for excellent add-on aircraft, detailing and quality again went up a notch, features abounded as well but mostly notably in the areas of G-Effects and deep menus with full maintenance procedures (we will have to outsource soon. Overall it is the sheer quality of product and range that is available to you now, just think only a few years ago and how we squealed over even the smallest release (bigger than a new Star Wars movie!).
Special feature of the year was the Holy Grail of Shiny Objects and Chrome for X-Plane. Dden brought out an early version for the Challenger 300, but FlightFactor created perfection with the Boeing 767-300ER, that was so realistic you were totally blown away by the detail.
Lightsports
Lightsports or ultralight aircraft were very abundant this year, The Cruz PiperSport from Alabeo was a cool small aircraft and Alabeo threw in the excellent DiamondStar DA40 as well. The Tecnam P2002 from DMAX was a fun machine. The Cirrus SR20 will appear in two categories it is small but “light” enough? We will move that one to the GA section. And finally the double act of the Aquila 210 and A211G that was an impressive debut from PicusX.
General Aviation
No category is more crowded and more competitive than the General Aviation (GA) area (yes even more than Airliners which there are less but far bigger releases), and 2015 was a bumper year in GA releases, all good and all very top quality.
Overall Carenado had a quieter year than they usually do with the full range of their aircraft having an v3.0 upgrade at the start of the year, and another to close the year off with v3.1 (to cover the X-Plane 10.40 upgrade). Most of the main Carenado GA releases are now Alabeo brand releases, but in reality there is nothing to separate them now from the usual Carenado releases of only a few years ago in quality and price. I have noted the PiperSport and DA40, but I really liked (far more than I thought I would) Alabeo’s C404 Titan, a simply great cruiser and a lovely aircraft, and the lovely Alabeo C207 Skywagon was a blast from the past
Carenado’s 2015 focus was on creating a viable advanced Garmin G1000 system and that system debuted on the CT182T Skylane G1000 HD Series in September, it is a complicated self focusing system but it has huge potential. VFlyteAir also released a G1000 system in the Cirrus SR20 Perspective® G1000 which was a very good and interesting machine.
RW Designs Beechcraft Duke was different from the usual GA standard and Aerobask’s ViperJet was really out there in design and speed, but still a GA in everyday use.
The standout GA however came from nowhere in AirfoilLab’s amazing Cessna 172SP Skyhawk. This aircraft shook the establishment to the core, as it was full of clever features and special effects. Not all of them worked mind you out of the box but in the basics as a great trainer it really totally delivered. On a side note it was as already noted the extension of these ideas to SimCoders in their Reality Expansion Packs for the Carenado CT210 and the F33A…  no doubt both AirfoilLab’s and SimCoders will be interesting areas  to watch in 2016.
Helicopters
2015 was a poor year for our rotary right seat pilots, well nothing was released all year after a very productive 2014. Only X-Trident gave us some great updates to their excellent AB412…  otherwise an empty basket, 2016 has to be better.
Classic and Utility Aircraft
RW Designs did a release in February and a nice upgrade in November to their DH6 Twin Otter, a better aircraft than it looks on the surface. Shade Tree Micro Aviation updated their DHC-2T Beaver Turbo and a good clever upgrade that was. STMA also took over Heinz Dzuirowitz’s Beech 18 after his surprising passing in May and updated that classic aircraft in November.
The highlight of releases this year in Classic Aircraft was the excellent SoulMade Simulations  DHC-2 Beaver, and what an exquisite aircraft that was and a really top notch simulation of a great old timer, one of the very best of the year.
Regional Aircraft
Airliners are now THE releases of the year, but they are releasing so many that they needed to be broken into different categories, “Regional” aircraft are so popular that we will note now them apart from the heavy, heavies…
STMA started off the year with the Pilatus PC12/47G update, but hot on its heels was another Pilatus PC12-HD from Carenado. The Carenado PC12’s version’s reception was lukewarm, and that was a bewildering and perplexing train of thought?  The aircraft was one of the best from Carenado in quality, sheer brilliant design (a cockpit to die for) and even a great special effect in a working stick shaker. Later in the year users finally started to warm to the aircraft and that was one of the big head shakers of the year. Dreamfoil Creations then surprised everyone with their release of the amazing EMB-110 Bandeirante. Better known for helicopters this was Dreamfoil Creations doing a fixed-wing aircraft? Well the situation was not what it seemed as it was not created by Conex but Lidimar Santos under the Dreamfoil banner, the surprise was not that the aircraft was coming as it was in the development pages for ages, but how brilliant it actually was when it landed, and how hard it is to fly really well, one of the other standouts of the year.
Airliners
The “Heavy” category in X-Plane is always the battle royal of effects, FMC’s, systems, quality textures and the sheer bloody “mine is better than yours” boasting rights. In effect there was no clear winner in 2016, as three contenders battled it out for the top honours, another in the IXEG Boeing 737 Classic is still in release limbo on this yearly summary posting, but I don’t think it would change the final outcome anyway.
We will cover the smaller contenders first. Peter Hager released the Airbus A319 mid-year, but it didn’t have much of an impact, personally I have flown Peter Hager’s Airbuses more this year than ever and don’t miss the extensive set up time that you need in JARDesign’s Airbus A320neo. It is accessibility more than absolute functionality that wins here, time is short when you need to be in the air and flying a route for a review, and Peter’s Airbus is usually the best way to do that, in saying that a more better set up in the 3-D cockpit would not go astray, and his A380 Series is certainly really feeling its age now.
Two developers that made a big impact on the Airliner scene in 2014, came back a little less green and far more experienced in 2015 was DW Design and X-Crafts. No doubt both these talented developers grew at phenomenal rates to deliver aircraft more mature and far better than both their debut aircraft. DW Design was even more ruthless in re-starting his A330-300 v2 from almost total scratch and delivering a really nice clean aircraft that is far better than it looks on the surface. X-Crafts also totally recreated his original E-195ER to release the smaller E-175 and did not fall into the trap of just merging everything over (keeping the best bits) and making a smaller aircraft from the original E-195ER version which was good anyway. In view the E-175 looks absolutely the same as the E-195ER, but it isn’t and it is a really nice good little aircraft when you spend the flying hours in that aircraft, quality is outstanding and the new FMC is a brave start into the complex and hardest section of all in FMC programming…  both parties have learnt that the developer game is certainly not an easy one, users only see the end results, but it is a very hard game to do from scratch and the learning curve is absolutely straight up vertical, but both have certainly delivered and deserve the plaudits they deserve.
The third of the top honours goes to Rotate’s McDonnell Douglas MD-88. In all honesty it would have never been the aircraft of the year as a first developer release was never going to achieve that, but third is no slouch either given the competition. This is a glorious machine, it provides every area of sensual satisfaction of flying on a computer. Before you start a comments war in “are you really kidding me!” there are here several points to be made.
First the MD-88 is a completely new initiation for the developer and for what it delivers, it is not in the now but in the future that can its real impact be totally accessed. No new developer is going to deliver totally top absolutely pitch perfect product out of the box, as that is not possible anyway (just ask DW Design and X-Crafts on that issue), and to a point as a purchaser you are putting a bit of faith into a developer to deliver the full context of to fulfill the full goal of an aircraft’s full potential. The developers that have achieved this (coming next) are the ones that sit at the top of heap and they deserve to be there.
So that brings us to the next thrown around question of “is the Rotate MD-88 worth $US60?” many (most) say “no” and many say “yes”, I am firmly in the “yes” camp. It is worth the investment, because that is what you are buying is an investment…  and this is certainly not an aircraft for a quick flight around the block and to then announce to the world “this is rubbish” and give another throw of an aircraft into their already discarded list of so called “rubbish” into their broken toybox. I got totally angry at this comment on the X-Plane.Org because it shows the users absolute incompetence and ineptitude in understanding of what simulation flying is really about, and that incompetence can hurt a developers sales through just pure ineptitude of their own flying and assessment skills, in other words they are an “Idiot”.
It took me three days just to basically access the MD-88 and never mind a few clips around the paddock. And still I have not fully accessed the aircraft to its full capabilities (note I did a preview not a review of the MD-88), these aircraft need a long period of accumulation and a deep understanding of their complex systems, just like the real aircraft do in the real world. No doubt at this release point is Rotate’s MD-88 not absolutely perfect, it is far from that point, but it can’t be anyway.
No matter how much beta testing is done, things are very different in the actual open world in X-Plane with thousands of users and three different platforms and computer systems and the sheer amount of work required to deliver that in context. But still many still squawk at the top of their high pitch screams that they want their money back…  The deal is here now on the developer to close the gaps and fill in the blanks, yes the MD-88 is worth US$60, but only after a few updates and changes that in most cases that usually takes about three to six months, and even twelve months is acceptable and then you can ask for your refund. But you won’t do that because the aircraft will be what you wanted in the first place and usually better, that is part and parcel of what simulation is about. And absolutely no doubt some aircraft are total dogs straight out of the box and you have every right to get a refund. But for the pro’s then let them do their job, as it is their reputation that is on the line here. If they don’t deliver or walk away leaving a totally unfinished product then they can’t ask for your investment the next time around, it is a two way deal.
Two of the top releases for 2015 were JARDesigns Airbus A330-243 and FlightFactors Boeing 767-300ER (IXEG’s Boeing 737Classic is still a no show to date, even if it was released right on Christmas it would probably be pushed into 2016 as we will be by then all be drunk around the Christmas Tree anyway).
In reality it is a classic Airbus v Boeing aircraft choice of personal preferences. It is a sliver of margins on which aircraft is better and both deserve the accolades of the sheer complexity and features they both provide and both certainly highlight of the level of skill and complexity that the new heights that X-Plane simulation has achieved.
Both come out of former great products that shows both developers are so willing to push the boundaries and make the next one better and bigger than the last. In JARDesign’s case it was the A320neo that is an airbus aircraft through and through, and in FlightFactor’s case it was a hard step up from their Boeing 757 series that was the best aircraft in X-Plane for two years running. But both developers did push the envelope even way past those already huge successes, and that to a point is why they are both so good. The guys at the top keep on pushing the boundaries and keep on improving even the small stuff, as they say…  “It is not getting to the top, as that part was easy the hard part, it is just staying there”. And not only do they keep improving with new aircraft but also keep your older investments up to date and current with X-Plane that is what you pay for in your US$60 investment at this level.
If pushed I would declare the FlightFactor Boeing 767-300ER the winner by a slice, but it is a draw in reality.
Some developers where very quiet this year. FlyJSim was notably absent, and we miss their excellent aircraft. Khamsin only had his Pacific Island release and Dawson Designs has sorta of slipped off the radar, at least Ddenn is back with the Bombardier Global 6000 in development, but PMDG is still deep in beta testing with its DC-6B (come on guys the water is not that hot over here).
Overall it was a another masterful year in 2015, so busy now and a lot of changes to the better. X-Plane is still growing, still delivering great simulation and giving us a lot of great moments and satisfaction. We all want more out of the simulator…  of course we do, but I see the journey and not the destination of part of why we are all in here together and no doubt again 2016 will deliver even more in great aircraft, scenery and add-ons to keep us more than happy with our deepest love of aircraft and aviation.
This is the last post of the 2015 year and X-PlaneReview’s will be back on the 5th January 2016 with a special review to really kick off 2016 with a blast. And thankfully my computer survived the onslaught better this year without popping off or totally destroying its internals.
I have to thank Joe Charman again for his huge contribution this past year and his contribution to X-Plane, thanks Joe and to all the many people behind the scenes that usually get a frantic email for help and support. The incredible developers that provide me with their amazing work and the valuable information to make these reviews work and happen. I am as always in awe in what they do. Finally to Nicolas Taureau and the backing of the guys of the X-Plane.Org that keeps the site running smoothly (a lot of changes were done this year) and give me great advice and assistance.
To wrap up this review of 2015 and the year, I will now list my Best of the Year 2015:
Best Aircraft (any Category): FlightFactor Boeing 767-300ER and JARDesign A330-243
Not a whisker between them, both great aircraft for X-Plane 2015
Honourable Mention : None (split between the two winners)
Best Regional (new Category) : Embraer EMB -110 Bandeirante by Dreamfoil Creations
Great design and a great aircraft to fly, The EMB-110 really delivered
Honourable Mention : Embraer E175 by X-Crafts
A huge step forward and a lovely flying aircraft
Best Classic Aircraft : SoulMade Simulations DHC-2 Beaver
Just a beautiful aircraft and worthy aircraft of its heritage.
Honourable Mention : DHC-2T Beaver Turbo by Shade Tree Micro Aviation
STMA just keep flying on…
Best General Aviation Aircraft : Cessna 172SP Skyhawk by AirfoilLabs
Moved the line forward in design and ideas.
Honourable Mention : CT210 Centurion II with G1000 avionics by Carenado
Pushing the envelop in avionics, the future.
Best Helicopter : Sadly none
Honourable Mention : AB412 by X-Trident for great updates and features
Best Scenery Payware : EGCC - Manchester by Icarus
EIDW- Dublin was a great debut for Icarus and Manchester was a greater sequel
Honourable Mentions : EGLL - Heathrow by Aerosoft for payware, in a great scenery desperately needed in the X-Plane universe and PilotPlus in EGHI - Southampton and EGGD - Bristol and EGTR - Elstree which was great solid quality scenery.
Best Scenery Freeware :  KSFO, KSAN (San Diego), KLAX, KPHX (Phoenix) and KPDX (Portland International) by MisterX6
All masterpieces, thank god he only does freeware.
Best Plugin : Ground Handling Plus by JARDesign
The potential of Ground Handling Plus is stratospheric, basics are all in there to totally change the look of your ramps.
Honourable Mention : WorldTraffic by Classic Jet Simulations
WT came of age in 2015, amazing plugin when running full throttle…  get with WT in 2016
Best Moment of the year 2015 : Realising that the Rotate MD-88 would actually run on my computer without actually crashing it.
Worst Moment of the Year 2015 : Heinz Dzuirowitz’s passing, one of the great X-Plane originals
Biggest distraction of 2015 : Reloading crashing library scenery and editing poor photo underlay textures.
Person of the Year 2015 : Eugeny Romanov JARDesign
Delivered huge in 2015, a masterpiece aircraft in the A330-243 and a great clever addon in the Ground Handling Plus plugin
Honourable Mentions : Roman Berezin and Daniel Klaue
Roman Berezin and the FlightFactor Group deliver great consistent professional product for X-Plane and Daniel Klaue is the grand wizard who is always helping others and leading us on the way to X-Plane nirvana, like every other year you don’t see what Dan does, but you fly it all the time.
Personal Favourites of 2015 : The X-Trident Bell AB412, Carenado F33A Bonanza, Dreamfoil Embraer EMB -110, Carenado C208B Caravan, Avro RJ100, FlyJSim Boeing 727 Series, JARDesign A330-243, Ddenn Challenger 300 and FlightFactor Boeing 757 and 777 series aircraft (Boeing 767 and MD-88 are too late in the year to be considered for 2015)

So to all the X-Plane flyers, thank you for your constant support for X-Plane Reviews and have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year 2016!… 
…   more to come in 2016!

“ And so a very Merry Xmas, And a happy New Year, Let's hope it's a good one, Without any fear….  War is over, if you want it, War is over, if you want it….   Yeah! Merry Christmas!”
Yearly Review by Stephen Dutton   22nd December 2015   Copyright©2015: X-PlaneReviews

Aircraft Review - Embraer EMB -110 Bandeirante by Dreamfoil Creations
 
Dreamfoil Creations are better known for their excellent Helicopters than a Twin-Engined commuter aircraft but here you have one in the Embraer EMB -110 Bandeirante (Pioneer), but in respect the aircraft was created by Lidimar Santos and not Conex but he was still expertly part of the team in adding the Dreamfoil Creations Plugins, SmartMenu and DreamEngine. Also in another aspect you could follow the development of the aircraft on the X-Plane.Org development page since early 2014. In most cases you would usually drop into the Dev page every now and again and see the latest work, but it was a sudden and total surprise when it was suddenly released early June 2015. The first thought was that...  "Is it Ready?"
 
It was and an even bigger surprise was how very complete it was, more so is that how good it actually is as well. So surprise here comes in many different forms, adding to the fact on how quickly the aircraft became an X-Plane favorite of one of the really (really) good commuter aircraft (which is a very crowded and loved market) available for the simulator.
 
History
The EMB-110  Bandeirante was the first aircraft built by Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica or Embraer as we now know the Brazilian aerospace company that started out building Piper Aircraft light planes under license. Piper had first put together knock-down kits in their US factory for Embraer to assemble and market in Brazil and Latin America.
 
The EMB 110 was designed by the French engineer Max Holste following the specifications of the IPD-6504 program set out by the Brazilian Ministry of Aeronautics in 1965.And the goal was to create a general purpose aircraft, suitable for both civilian and military roles with a low operational cost and high reliability. The first prototype, with the military designation YC-95, was flown on 26 October 1968 and two other prototypes were built and were known as the EMB 100. By 1969 an order was placed for 80 production aircraft, by now known as EMB 110 Bandeirante, for the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) with the now newly formed aircraft company Embraer.
 
The EMB - 110 was very successful, but the ambitious company quickly ceased further development of the EMB 110 which was halted by the manufacturer in order to shift focus to the larger, faster, and pressurized 30-seat EMB 120 Brasilia, but still over the next 21 years Embraer built 494 aircraft in numerous configurations for a variety of roles.
 

 

 
Embraer EMB -110 by Dreamfoil The first thing that you are aware of when first encountering the EMB -110 is the quality. The aircraft is certainly in Carenado territory in style, feel and design. It has a quality air all around it. And that will certainly create a love at first sight (not flight). It is not a Carenado of course but the detailing and execution of the high quality work is highly visible. This is quite obviously if you look at the aircraft the best design for a 15-20 passenger commuter machine you could develop and build, and yet you would be hard pressed to recognise one at your local airfield unlike a Twin-Otter that is far more famous and fills out more airline fleets. Maybe Embraer should have developed the aircraft more and then realised its full market potential.   Once familiar then the aircraft tends to appear everywhere, I have found four around me here in Queensland, Australia that I never knew existed, so there you go. And there is now some smug boasting in noting that "That is a Bandeirante" to your fellow observers in knowing the aircraft's better status.       For this review we are flying the EMB -110 from the south coast of New Zealand and Invercargill (NZNV) to Dunedin (NZDN) and then on to Christchurch (NZCH) in a commuter connection role. My first impressions are that the aircraft is powered down, tagged up and waiting my preparation and ready for flight. Approaching the machine I really love the aircraft, the Bandeirante looks a workhorse and ready to do a day's (or week's) work.
 

 

 
Unlocking the aircraft is one of the best solutions yet and a DreamFoil Creation feature. You have a set of small arrows on the door locks that opens the doors... The rear large cargo door lock is not on the actual door but on the door switching panel behind (and you can spend ten minutes banging on the cargo door like an idiot like I did in trying to find it?), but no doubt well done. You can access the door menu from the inside as well if you need to.
 

 
Secondary ground "Static Elements" are very good with engine inlet/exhaust covers, rear support bar and wheel chocks. Again you can press each arrow marker to make them appear or disappear, or press on the nose for the full menu which you can again select each element separately or use the "Remove All" or "Add All" selections.
 

 

 
Static elements sorted it was time to climb aboard. Note the great set of stairs, great animation as well. Internally in the cabin it is an impressive fitout. Realistic seating for 19 passengers give off that worn leather look, although the single seats look a little narrrow? Rear of the bulkhead is the rear cargo area with excellent netting but no luggage or cargo.
 

 
A sample image of the side wall paneling gives you the quality of the cabin design, panels/window surrounds are perfect, signs and passenger air feeders are beautifully created in detail, so the cabin is perfectly realised.
 

 
A step up to the cockpit entrance and you are spellbounded! Good, great amazing or just brilliant as any statement says how brilliant this is. It is good in every respect, get down low and look at the detailing under the crew's seats, the pedestal the detail everywhere is overwhelming.
 

 

 
The panel itself is again fabulously created, perfectly realised in every aspect... almost real. There is so much detail to take it can easily be overwhelming. We have had so much great cockpit design lately and the Carenado PC12 (Pilatus PC12 HD Series) comes to mind, but here again X-Plane and Dreamfoil Creation delivers a great experience.
 
The contrasting cream/beige cockpit formed fittings is excellent, with minute detailing as small as clips on the edge of the overhead panel holding it on to the roof. 
 
More setup options are available with the internal menu (disk) system when you click the top of the central glareshield clickzone.
 

 

 
Anyone who has flown any of Dreamfoil's other aircraft will be very familiar with this circular disc selection system called Smartmenu. Going counterclockwise the top one is the "SmartLivery" selection. Here you can rotate through all the liveries and easily select the one you require, the livery is shown in the centre of the disk...  Next is the set views that includes positions of the: Pilot, Co-Pilot, Console, Overhead, Passengers, PostCam, Passenger 1, Passenger 2, Baggage Compartment and Tail Cam...  all are excellent.
 

 
The aircraft comes with Dreamfoil's excellent sound DreamEngine which includes over +50 sounds, Doppler Effect and Atmospheric Attenuation, Realistic turboprop sounds with real-time propeller dynamic and relative sustain effect for startup and shutdown. You can adjust the volumes here on the menu disk to your specific liking. FDV ,,,,,,    . Your GPU (external power) can be selected here (You can also use the lower point on the battery switch on the "Overhead" panel) and the Stability options allow you to adjust the aircraft's % in Pitch, Roll and Yaw.
 

 

 
Finally here is the internal, external (static element) selection menu. The menu system is very easy to use, The aircraft's version is also noted, but here it is only shown as v1.0 when this is the current v1.3 release.
 
Panel
With the external GPU connected you can turn on the power flow. On the overhead panel (OHP) the green source button light comes on, but you can check the actual voltage via the button "Battery Voltage" by the voltage gauge, the gauge is a double needle for AC/DC so it is highlighted here to see the voltage. Power on you can then bring the aircraft to life, panel lighting switchgear is across the top of the OHP.
 

 

 
And the lighting adjustment dials are (hidden) behind the yokes in three dials on the Pilot's side and one on the Co-Pilot's side. Note the excellent rudder pedal construction, brilliantly done and even the rear looped cables are animated and move with the rudder pedal alignment.
With the power on and the aircraft feels more active. In this pilot view position the forward view is beyond fabulous in that those deep porthole style front windows actually enhance the closed cockpit feeling, you can understand why flyers took very quickly to the aircraft, it is a great experience just sitting in the aircraft...
 

 

 
Like most dial/gauge driven cockpits (sometimes known as "clockwork") they can look easily very complicated and complex. But when you break them down they are quite easy to fly and understand. Left to right across the panel, we will start with the pilots station.
 
As for the flying instruments placed they are quite basic. The standard six: Altimeter, Speed, Heading Indicator or RMI, V/S (Vertical/Speed) and Horizontal Horizon are all well represented with the ADF and VOR directional points in the heading indicator and a CDI "Course deviation indicator". The rate of turn indicator is also set out below, all these set seven instruments are duplicated on the Co-Pilot's panel station. There is a bigger CDI on the far left of the pilot's panel and analog clock at the top. Brake and pump pressure (PSI) are noted low down. Undercarriage and Flap indicator is central and Cabin Temperature is on the Co-Pilot's lower panel.
 
The central panel is divided up into sections. Left (magenta) are the twin sets of engine dials and gauges, from the top is: Engine Temp ºC, Torque(lb-ft), RPM% (Nh),  RPM% (Ng), Oil Temp ºC, Oil Pressure PSI and ºC. 
 
Middle (yellow) is the exquisite radio panel consisting of mostly Collins sets for Comm 1/VOR1-Comm 2/VOR2, ATC Transponder, VOR 2 directional radio and ADF radio. In the middle of the stack is a basic lovely Trimble Navigation TNL 2100 GPS. The VOR 2 panel can be quite stiff to switch (In fact I didn't think it worked) but you can turn the knobs to get it to show your distance and speed...  very nice it is, I loved it (when I got it to work).
Right centre panel is a Benedix/King WX weather radar set (tube style) which is also a great unit, with a warning annunciator panel below.
The aircraft comes with a full Air Conditioner simulation system that is very effective and usable with the Air-Con panel situated down left of the Co-Pilot on the lower panel.
 

 
The fuel panel is a thing of beauty by itself!, gorgeous in design with gauges for fuel flow (top), Fuel Pressure PSI, and usable fuel lbs x 2 below. Main, Aux tank switches and crossfeed. There is a "Foxbaro" fuel used counter at the top that can reset to zero on startup, so you know the perfect quantity of fuel consumed...  Which is great for telling the airport controller that you have used X amount of your fuel while waiting for clearance.
 

 
Fuse panels sit on both side cockpit panels with radio switches. The cut-out windows open and the arm rests can be stowed upwards.
 

 

 
The pedestal is quite basic, but beautifully crafted. Main twin-levers for throttle, Prop and Condition. The aircraft has a "beta" mode, that can be used as reverse thrust, a lot of developers haven't separated the two items yet, but the "beta" mode is still changing. Three trim knobs are good and easy to use, and central pedestal is an Autopilot (AP) panel. The AP is quite basic in mostly hold modes and a dial for turns and thumb wheel for pitch. But it is the position that makes it hard to use. Carenado uses a pop-out panel with their AP in this position and you really miss that feature here? You mostly have to set up a viewpoint that shows both the AP and the instruments to use both, so it is a little like flying the aircraft while face down on the floor with your legs situated back in the passenger cabin while looking over the pedestal? There is an "De-Icing" panel right top of the OHP that we will see in operation while flying.
So the cockpit looks complex but it is in reality quite easy to use, the main point is the way you interact with the aircraft, and that is in a wonderful way. Switches are big, functional and lights large (usualy green) and glow...  It is a great place to be.
 
Startup
 

 
Ready to go!, passengers in and luggage loaded and the aircraft is secured. Beacon and Nav lights on, fuel pumps on...  I have 2,800lbs of fuel on board to make the distance to Christchurch and not to refuel at Dunedin. On the OHP I set the AC BUS Bar switches on, Inertial Separation switches to on (condition levers to up) and to start is a simple switch up of the "Start" switch.
 
The turbo-whine starts up outside of one of the Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34 turboprop engines (Same as in the King Airs, PC12 and Twin-Otters) and each engine gives you 783 eshp and 750 shp. Throw another switch and you get another whine from the second engine and the start-up procedure is fully automatic.
 

 
The Ng RPM will settle down at idle around 52%, and the excellent as mentioned DreamEngine sounds will give you the full voice from whine startup to idle revolution power. If you are connected up to a sound system (like I am) then be prepared to feel the turbo power on the hairs on the back of your neck. It is great stuff.
 
Once the engines are running you can then switch down both "Start" switches to "Interruption" and turn on both G1 and G2 engine generators, Then close down the external GPU...
 

 
I locked in the VOR 2 (Invercargill "NV" 116.80) more for a distance completed note than direction, and the ADF "Berridale" NDB (394) as a direction pointer. You can choose which ADF/VOR needle you want by the buttons below the RMI. The ADF does not show yet as it is not in range.
 

 

 
Off the brakes and a small push of power with the throttles gets the aircraft moving. You tell the passengers to belt up and stub out the cigarettes, which is old fashioned now as not many airlines allow smoking on domestic routes, but the cabin signs are highly effective.
 
If you pull back the throttle you get the "beta" lights on both engines for taxiing, tt works but be careful not to go into full reverse pitch.
 

 

 
Flying the Pioneer
Flaps 25%, brakes off and throttle up...  The Bandeirante will track the runway very well, but when you lift off around 135knts with that 1500shp power pulling you upwards but with the thrust going slightly sideways the aircraft will very quickly roll right, if you are not prepared for that slip to the right you are very quickly going off the departing runway centre line. So you are working the rudder and yoke to keep the aircraft in a nice straight line while holding a 5º-7º pitch. The first time the slip will easily catch you out but after a few runs to adjust to it and love the feel of this lively machine in your hands. Rolling to a new heading needs a firm hand but it is easier than you think it would be, and you need flaps up (or 0º) before you are out of the slow (white zone) at 148knts. Speed is then set at 91% Nh.
 

 

 
The pitch can be a bit wavy from 500fpm to 500fpm if you don't keep a firm hand on it, but the aircraft will climb nicely with control...  and remember I am quite heavy with 9 passengers and a full load of fuel.
 
The EMB -110 is a great looking aircraft in the air, so well modeled by DreamFoil Creations and is very realistic. I really like the design. The only odd thing is the nose as from certain viewpoints it looks inverted and the nose square and flat? It is an optical illusion of course but noticeable.
 

 

 
As noted the Autopilot is hard to use by its placement. A switch turns it on (a nice touch) but you have to make sure your heading is spot on unless you get a thunk when selecting HDG. You don't need to hit the V/S thumb-wheel because when you turn the AP on it will hold the pitch anyway, just press the ALT when you have reached your altitude.
 
My first impressions of the first release Bandeirante were not that great in the turn. I found the aircraft badly pitched up and down...
 

 
...  when in a higher speed turn, either in manual hands-on-mode but far worse in AP mode, and sometimes a 1000ft or more each way...   In fact I hated it.
 
I inquired from a few other flyers if I was wrong?  Most of the replies were "it was great", "perfect mate" but I still wasn't happy with it?  I found a bit of yoke pushing and pulling (In auto mode?) would soften the turn, but deep down I doubted the real aircraft could really fly like this without the passengers bouncing off the ceiling.
 

 

 
For the pitch issue and a few other minor bugs Dreamfoil Creations have issued two patches, Patch 1.3 fixed the pitch issue perfectly and the aircraft flies quite normally now in high speed turns. You still need sometimes a slight to and fro nudge on the yoke to keep the aircraft tight, the trick is to keep the aircraft around the set Autopilot ALT (here 12,000ft) and if you let the aircraft gain too much height or lose height in the turn the V/S will compensate for you but in a heavy pitch fashion up or down...  get it right and she flies beautifully.
 

 

 
There is a wiper feature that creates a rain drop effect the windscreen, then when the wipers are working you get this gap in the windscreen to squint through, as you gather speed the rain fades away. I love struggling into airports with wet limited visibility, so it works for fine here for me.
Dunedin (NZDN)
 
Flying up the southern east coast of New Zealand with the great HD mesh (X-Plane 10 UHD Mesh Scenery gave you an exceptional experience, but it was now time for our first stop. NZDN is set deep in a valley that is hard to approach, easier from the south but far harder from the north to RWY 21 as you have to hold an altitude and then drop down and in before the range. There is a slight gap to go though on a heading directly to the approach NDB MOSGIEL (MI 358) its tight but doable.
 



 
The EMB -110 does not help you in this regard. The speed zone in the slower approach speeds is quite limited with a range of only between 145knts to 120knts (or the white zone on the airspeed dial) that is only 25knts to play with, Over the 145knts or closer to 150knts and the aircraft will visibly show you it is not happy by rising the nose and drop below that 120knts and the aircraft will very quickly lose altitude or even stall?
With such a small margin of speed to use, lowering the flaps is a tricky business to get a smooth flow and keep your descent without any sudden lift, so it is a balance of throttle input and speed to keep the aircraft in the right margin. Too much throttle and you can't descend, too little and you lose height...  so its a real tricky dicky one.
 
This is also highlighted on an ILS approach. Usually when you catch the beams you drop your speed a little to compensate for the extra descent speed, but here if you get your speed to low...  even by a slight amount, you are going off the vertical beam and descending to quickly. So in this context landings can be challenging, and sometimes you can usually be flying quite fast when going over the fence. 
 

 

 
Flap and undercarriage design and animation is excellent, great detail and beautifully created. The main gear track is quite wide so you have to make sure your landings are quite level, or if not the aircraft will bounce on one wheel (tip the wing up) and then the other before both settle down.
 

 

 
If you carry too much speed into the flare (very easy to do) then you have to watch you don't pull back the throttle too quickly and lose lift, so "easy goes" until the Embraer settles. There are a few notes that the wing on the the aircraft is not very flexible, and I can believe that.
 
So in lower speeds the aircraft is certainly challenging, but that is what simulation is about and if all aircraft were just easy it wouldn't be fun...  would it. But study and understand the aircraft and you can get into the rhythm of the machine, it will take few flights to really get every motion right, but suddenly it will all come together and then the EMB -110 delivers in spades.
 

 

 
Engine shutdown and the GPU connected for ground power...
 

 

 
I can't sit on the ground too long because for one I have a connection to meet in Christchurch and two it is becoming dark. With X-Planes HDR feature switched on the Embraer's lighting is very good. The landing lights are very wide and spread apart so with the nose wheel taxi-light on you get a great spread and handy here to turn around with at the end of RWY21 to fly out to the south of NZDN.
 

 

 
The panel lighting is very good as well. The adjustments give you great overhead and panel control, although it does highlight the top left pilot's panel knob "Fast Erection Vert. Ind", I'm not into smutty humour but I'm quite sure the male of our species would find the item amusing and some very handy?
Now with a full passenger and luggage load but less fuel on board the aircraft feels the same as I left Invercargill only an hour or so before.
 

 

 
The fading light highlights the design and you feel into the rhythm and enjoy the aircraft immensely as you climb to 10,000ft and turn again north along the coast.
 

 

 
Ice Panel and Lighting
The colder night air shows there could be ice around. Although in July in Northern Europe or the United States it is summer, but in New Zealand this is middle winter and it can get very cold. The "Deicing" panel is high right above the Co-Pilot on the roof, and you have deIcing options for the propellers, windshield, engine inlets and pneumatic wing boots.
 

 

 
You can check your wings for ice with the excellent wing lighting, and otherwise the external lighting is quite basic in Nav, top and bottom Beacons, and tail light.
 

 

 
Cockpit lighting is controlled by four rotary dials, three on the pilot's side and one on the Co-Pilot's. It is excellent at night, fully adjustable and you can turn off the overhead lighting on the OHP. No doubt a very nice place to work in. There are map reading lights each side, but they didn't work?
 

 
HDR lighting switched off does not mean an inferior night flying experience (above), in fact it is very good and certainly in the approach phase if you have the cockpit lighting switched off, to many it may even be a better option and a big frame-rate gain.
 

 

 
There are main overhead lights and two set each side above the pilots and rear. In the cabin it is excellent, but not everyone get a light over their seat. They are more there for embarking or disembarking the aircraft. In the darker light the aircraft is quite dark, and can be hard to see except for the external lights.
 
Christchurch (NZCH)
Soon the lights of New Zealand's biggest southern city are spread out in front of the Embraer.
 

 

 
Arrival at NZCH is via RWY20 so that means like at Dunendin I have to track more north to NDB WOODEND (OD 262) to turn directly around for a direct reverse approach to the airport.
 
I used the RWY20 ILS (IHW 110.30) because I want to be safe in the darkness. It was very dark out there, but I was nice and snug in here and enjoying the dark cockpit, I turned the passenger cabin lights off (no door!) with just the "fasten your seatbelts" and "no smoking" signs red glow to keep the rear seated travellers alert. 
 

 

 
It was again tricky under the ILS to keep on the beam, I hated the idea of being too low and hitting the ground before being over the runway so I was extra vigilant on the throttle and speed to hold those CDI markers as central as I could. Otherwise I was tuning in well with the aircraft. Once down those wide lights gave me a good path to the terminal, and because my domestic ramp position was in semi-darkness the wing iceing lighting proved very good to show the path to the terminal entrance. Note the excellent lighting on the undercarriage when the aircraft is on the ground, which is great for night inspections.
 
Liveries
There are eight liveries with the aircraft in six commercial and two South American military FAB/FAC, and all are very high HD quality, but the range is quite small for such an aircraft. In a small way that limits your choices of where and how to fly the aircraft (There are no European Liveries for example, but there is now a nice "Jersey European" on the X-Plane.Org)
 




 
Summary
In reality the verdict is already out on the Embraer EMB - 110 Bandeirante. As already many fliers have taken the aircraft to true classic status and a must have in any hangar, and it is not very hard to see why.
 
The quality is overwhelming, certainly in the Carenado class in every area. In many respects if you let someone fly the aircraft the first words would be "Carenado have done it again!" only the Bandeirante is not from that great company. It also shows the depth of Dreamfoil Creation's  talent and skill as well, with the combination of the best features in menu's, external animations and their great sound system of the 3d reality DreamEngine effects. In moving into a new realm with an aircraft Dreamfoil Creations has created a masterpiece that is a pure immersion in a classic commuter aircraft, in other words Dreamfoil Creations have done a brilliant job.
 
It is a very challenging aircraft to fly, make no mistake about that and certainly at slower speeds. But with aircraft like these it is the skill set and learning to master the machine that is part of the reason that aviation is so attractive. To fly the Bandeirante well is like going for your masters degree, and once held it can open up the door to experiences that gives you the feedback to understand how good you can actually be behind a set of controls. Don't expect to get there overnight either, it will take time and effort to discover the full breadth (or heights) of where you can go with this aircraft and I will get back to you in a few years to still tell you how great it is.
 
No doubt this aircraft has been one of the great surprises of the year in 2015, by the way it was released and how good it is and at a price just below US$30 it is absolutely excellent value as well...  I could go on....   but I want to now just fly it again it is that good, so I will.
 
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The Dreamfoil Creations Embraer EMB -110 Bandeirante is available from the New X-Plane.Org Store here : Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante
 
And is priced at only US$29.95
 
Current version is v1.3 The release version was v1.0 but there has been several updates or patches since the release. The latest patch (to date) is v1.3 which is available here: patch 1.3 b2
 
The X-Plane.Org Store version is the correct updated version, just go to your X-Plane.OrgStore account and update. If you have not updated from the original release version (1.0) I Strongly recommend to update the patch or redownload the current version.
_____________________________________________________________________
 
Installation :   Download file size is 324.90mb to your X-Plane - Aircraft Folder. Installed file size is 468.50mb
 
Notes: The Aircraft comes with two aircraft (.acf) files in the standard "EMB110" and the "EMB110WD" The standard is without dihedral and the WD version has 10º diehdral in the elevator.
 
Documents :  Four documents that cover a main Pilot's manual (13 pages), real Embraer performance tables and normal, emergency procedures.
 

 
Requirements : Windows XP, MAC, Linux - X-Plane 10.30+ (any edition). 32 and 64bit compatible - Pentium 3 GHz+ - 1Gb VRAM Recommended
Current version: 1.30 (last update June 15th 2015)
 
Developer Support Site : Embraer 110 by Dreamfoil Creations .Org Support
 
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Fully featured and including:
Two versions: without dihedral and with 10º diehdral in the elevator.
Cabin, Cockpit and Instruments lights available with great effects.
Full simulation of all switches
Hydraulic simulation
Hotstart simulation for manual startup
Caps for turbine inlet, outlet and pitot
GPU (Ground Power Unit) available
Air Conditioner simulation
Prop Disc effects feature 3D holographic side view, which changes depending on prop settings
Fully articulated and animated sun visors
Very accurate flight characteristics.
Windshield rain effects: rain drops move realistically in accordance with airspeed, get cleared by wipers, and repopulate after wipers are shut off.
Wx radar simulation
Sounds:
Over +50 sounds included
Doppler Effect and Atmospheric Attenuation
Realistic TurboProp sounds with real-time propeller dynamics
Relative Sustain effect for startup and shutdown
 
_____________________________________________________________________________________
 
Review by Stephen Dutton
10th July 2015
Copyright©2015: X-Plane Reviews
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:     - 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”- 9 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3 - ATI Radeon HD 6970M 2048 mb- Seagate 512gb SSD 
Software:   - Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.1 - X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.35 (final)
Addons - Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose  Soundlink Mini
Scenery or Aircraft
- NZNV - Invercargill Airport by Royaloak (X-Plane.Org) - Free
- NZDN - Dunedin 1.1 by tdg (X-Plane.Org) - Free
- NZCH - Christchurch New Zealand International Airport (ISDG) by Chris K (X-Plane.Org) - Free
 

 

Airport Review : EGGD - Bristol Airport by Pilot Plus
 
In early February 2015 Pilot Plus released their first airport scenery in EGHI - Southampton (Airport Review EGHI-Southampton by Pilot Plus). And in the now increasing competitive world of X-Plane scenery here is their second release for Bristol in the south-west of the United Kingdom in EGGD - Bristol Airport.
 
Reputation can make you or kill you, so like a good song or film you are only as good as your last one. So consistency and quality is everything to making sure that the investments in your aircraft or scenery keep coming... So how does EGGD - Bristol compare with Pilot Plus's first release of EGHI - Southampton which was by all accounts very good. To find out we will start at EGHI - Southampton and do the quick flight over to the Bristol Channel in the leg of England and see this latest airport from this very promising developer.
 


 
The Avroliner Project's Avro RJ100, is the perfect aircraft to do this short slightly circular hop.
 


 
First Impressions
This is not my first visit to EGGD - Bristol and I have done both approaches to the single absolute angled West-East runway of 09/27. In either direction the approaches are slightly hidden by low hills. So at first you can't actually see the airport from a distance? This makes the airport quite hard to a ) actually find and b ) centre the aircraft directly into the runways path, it is not bad... bad, but you do need to have some sort of navigation direction in say the NDB (BRI-414) which is the best solution if you don't have ILS-Localiser equipment on your aircraft. And you will need to be quite aware of your height in a GA (General Aviation) on finals if you don't want some branches and Stirling nests in your undercarriage.
 
Pilot Plus has again done a magnificent job of inserting the scenery in the X-Plane surrounding areas, the use of trees to cover the boundries, like with EGHI - Southampton is again very well done. My approach is from the west into RWY 09.
 




 
Runway 09/27 is  2,011m (6,598ft) long and had been totally resurfaced between November 2006 and March 2007. In fact the whole of "Lulsgate Bottom" (Ex RAF Lulsgate Bottom) which is a great if very British name has seen quite a significant amount of development over the last few decades, and they are not finished yet as the the £150 million plan is spread over 30 construction projects with plans to include a doubling of passenger terminal floorspace, new piers and aircraft parking stands, extensions to the apron, two multi-storey car parks and a public transport interchange. Half of the development and represented here in Pilot Plus scenery is already done.
 
So on landing for a smallish west country airport you are surprised to find that the airport at Bristol is quite a significant and large facility that has significant links to almost all of Europe from and to Hungary, Iceland, Finland, Morocco and even as far away as Egypt? All the commercial terminal and ramp areas are on the north side of the runway, with a Flying club and GA parking area known as "Southern Parking" in the south-eastern corner area. Taxiway B is the final turn off towards the north. The main terminal areas are really two...  the new and the old. My parking is at gate16 in the eastern old area which is the old Bristol terminal and ramp area. First thing you notice on reaching the (old) Main Apron is that EGGD is a very busy place! You can download a "Static aircraft and people" package to fill EGGD to the brim with every conceivable ramp and maintenance worker(s) known. Is there too many? well that is debatable, but certainly you have to be careful not to suck in a few hats into your engines on your way to your gate, but personally I love it...     it makes the airport very alive, busy and vehicle animations are plentiful as well. So your first impressions of EGGD are simply brilliant.
 
EGGD - Bristol Airport Overview
 

 

(Google Maps - NATS-UK Copyright©)
 

 
 
Bristol Airport
(IATA: BRS, ICAO: EGGD)
09/27  2,011  (6,598ft)  Asphalt
Elevation AMSL 622 ft / 190 m
 
Landing on RWY 09 will put you close to the terminal areas, but with RWY 27 there is a taxi period to take into account with. The Terminal areas are split into three areas with the "West Apron", "Central" and "Main Apron".
 


 
The new area covers the "West Apron" which has remote parking ramps, but is mostly just for aircraft parking, The "central" area is the main terminal building (rear) with a set of large covered walkways to the west of the terminal building connecting it to eight pre-boarding zones. No autogates here, strictly walk on - walk off boarding. The area is separated by a Fuel Storage depot... 
 


 
Ramps are what you would call slightly chaotic, busy but very well set out, and marshals will call you into the gate areas. The huge covered walkways are really well recreated with the glass connecting walkway a very realistic highlight.
 
Terminal Building
The big terminal building is excellent, but the glass on the real building looks more lighter and clearer than here, which makes the building feel more darker than it is?
 

 

 
 
Control Tower
Central to the complex but situated just behind the walkways is the control tower which was completed in 2001.
 

 


 
Tower design is very good, but the real version has a sort of steel/aluminium finish? Tower view is excellent, not only for the runway, but for any of the areas below on the ramps.
 
Main Apron
East of the new terminal area is the older original section of the airport called Main Apron.
 


 


 
The old Bristol (Lulsgate) Airport terminal is still there and is very well recreated here, even if the area behind is now just a carpark... All around this scenery are bulging full carparks, very well done and it gives this scenery a sort of completion and overall perfect view and realism.
 
Southern Parking Area
Not the most exciting name for the area across the start of runway 27 on the eastern-southern section of the airport. Here is the Bristol and Wessex flying Club, their hangars, restaurant (The Flight Lounge) and general aviation parking.
 


 
The area is however dominated by huge parking areas for cars. But a great place to park you GA aircraft if flying cross-country.
 
Nightlighting
Like everything else in this Bristol scenery the lighting is not done by halves...  the candle-power is breathtaking and can bring your computer down a few notches...
 


 
Runway and taxiway lighting is excellent and the taxiway signage is a stand out.
 


 


 

 
 
All the main areas are very well lit, including great coverage on all the ramps and remote parking areas. Highlights are the different (whiter) lighting for the main road and access ways and the general airport lighting. You would expect the terminal building to be quite lit up, but here it is quite dark and even dull. HDR "on" and the sheer amount of lighting in here does affect your framerate, but still it is great to look at it all.
 
Services
You don't get a lot of big widebody's in EGGD (Dreamliner is coming), but you would get everything else in the single-isle type variety. EGGD is very big on charters and tours, and so the big tour operators like Thomas Cook and Thomson Airways have a lot of seasonal departures from here. LCC's Ryanair and Easyjet dominate, but you have a lot of interesting operators that you don't usually see in this part of the world like WIZZ air, Air Malta, Austrian Airlines and even SAS. Close European connections to Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris keeps it all very interesting. Closer in Ireland, Scotland and the Channel and Isle of Man islands give you great regional and quick routes.
 
Aer Lingus Regional operated by Stobart Air - Cork, Dublin Air Malta  - Seasonal: Malta Aurigny Air Services - Guernsey Austrian Airlines - Seasonal: Innsbruck[72] BH Air - Seasonal: Burgas, Sofia Blue Islands  Jersey BMI Regional  Aberdeen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Milan-Malpensa, Munich, Paris-Charles de Gaulle : Seasonal: Bastia, Nantes Brussels Airlines operated by BMI Regional - Brussels EasyJet - Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belfast-International, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bilbao, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Faro, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Geneva, Gibraltar, Glasgow-International, Inverness, Isle of Man, Kraków, Lanzarote, Lisbon, Madrid, Málaga, Marrakech, Murcia, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nice, Palma de Mallorca, Paphos, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Pisa, Porto, Prague, Reykjavík-Keflavík, Rome-Fiumicino, Tenerife-South, Toulouse : Seasonal: Bodrum, Bordeaux, Catania, Corfu, Dalaman, Grenoble, Heraklion, Ibiza, Innsbruck, La Rochelle, Lyon, Mahón, Marseille, Naples, Olbia, Salzburg, Split, Zakynthos. Flybe - Seasonal charter: Lleida Jet2.com - Seasonal charter: Chambéry KLM operated by KLM Cityhopper - Amsterdam Mistral Air - Seasonal: Verona Ryanair - Alicante, Budapest, Castellón, Dublin, Faro, Gdańsk, Gran Canaria, Kaunas, Lanzarote, Málaga, Malta, Poznań, Tenerife-South, Warsaw-Modlin, Wrocław : Seasonal: Bergamo, Bergerac, Béziers, Bologna, Chania, Girona, Ibiza, Knock, Limoges, Palma de Mallorca, Reus, Rzeszów, Treviso, Valencia Scandinavian Airlines - Seasonal: Stockholm-Arlanda Thomas Cook Airlines - Enfidha, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Tenerife-South : Seasonal: Antalya, Bourgas, Corfu, Dalaman, Heraklion, Ibiza, Kos, Larnaca, Mahón, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Skiathos, Zakynthos, Geneva Thomson Airways - Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Málaga, Sharm el-Sheikh, Tenerife-South : Seasonal: Alicante, Antalya, Bodrum, Burgas, Catania (begins Summer 2016),Cephalonia, Chambéry, Corfu, Dalaman, Enfidha, Fuerteventura,[77] Geneva, Heraklion, Hurghada , Ibiza, Kos, Larnaca, Marrakech, Menorca, Naples, Palma de Mallorca, Paphos, Reus, Rhodes, Santorini, Sal, Salzburg, Sofia, Toulouse, Turin, Zakynthos Wizz Air - Katowice.  
Routes
1   Netherlands - Amsterdam : 350,097
2   Ireland - Dublin : 331,655
3   United Kingdom - Edinburgh : 322,760
4   Spain - Málaga : 280,713
5   Spain - Palma de Mallorca : 273,371
6   Spain - Alicante : 271,457
7   Portugal - Faro : 269,899
8   United Kingdom - Glasgow International : 245,286
9   United Kingdom - Belfast International : 230,833
10    Switzerland - Geneva : 188,384
11   United Kingdom - Newcastle : 174,461
12   Spain - Tenerife : 165,519
13   Spain - Barcelona : 127,606
14   France - Paris Charles de Gaulle : 120,341
15   France - Toulouse : 112,061
16   Italy - Rome-Fiumicino : 107,364
17   Spain - Lanzarote : 103,540
18   Turkey - Dalaman : 94,304
19   Spain - Girona : 79,941
20   Spain - Madrid : 79,124
 
Total Passengers 2014 - 6,339,805
 
Summary
EGHI - Southampton from Pilot Plus was very good scenery, but EGGD - Bristol is outstanding scenery. In every area except the few issues with the windows - glass (day and night in being too dark) with the main terminal building the airport is excellent. It is like noted if there is just too much equipment and people on the ground, as it does look like an airport running at full speed in the summer holidays and the carparks are overflowing. But that is okay if you like your scenery like that. Animations are thoughtful and not over done. And the lighting in here however is enough to send your power bill into orbit, or at least your computer down into the negative zone with HDR "on".
 
Insertion into the X-Plane scenery is very good as well, with great photo textures to blend in (for absolute detail though you need the textures set very high to extreme or it gets a little buzzy) and the traffic flows are around the airport in very good and realistic.
Overall...  Brilliant, great outstanding X-Plane scenery...   and highly usable... Love it.
 
__________________________________________
 

 
EGGD - Bristol Airport by Pilot Plus is now available from the New X-Plane.Org Store here :
 
EGGD Bristol International Airport and it is priced at only US$22.95 
 
Features :
High Resolution ground imagery  Custom night lighting  Optional (free) download to add  static aircraft & 3D people Animated Ground Marshaller guides you into the gate Ground traffic that brings Bristol to life!  
Installation : Download is 91.40mb that is unzipped to 243.70mb and placed in your Custom Scenery folder. "Static" aircraft  and people add-on can be downloaded from the X-Plane.Org site - (Free Payware extension) Pilot Plus EGGD Statics and then deposited in your custom scenery folder (note: static aircraft file must be placed above your EGGD-Bristol scenery in the "scenery_packs.ini" file to work!)
 
Documents : 1 Manual pdf, 4 STAR, 3 SID, Airport and Parking Charts and ATC minimum altitude surveillance chart.
 

 
Developer Site : Pilot Plus
 
Requirements:
X-Plane 10.30 Windows XP/ Vista/ 7, Mac or Linux.  Multi-core processor @ 2.6 Ghz or faster, 4GB Ram. 3D video card with at least 1GB YOU MUST HAVE OPENSCENERYX INSTALLED FOR STATIC AIRCRAFT TO APPEAR.
Current version: 1.0  (Last updated April 24th 2015)
 
__________________________________________
 
Review by Stephen Dutton
24th April 2015
Copyright©2015: X-Plane Reviews
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:     
- 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”
- 9 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3
- ATI Radeon HD 6970M 2048 mb
- Seagate 256gb SSD 
Software:     
- Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.1
- X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.32 (final)
Addons
- Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle
- Bose - Soundlink Mini
Scenery
- EGHI - Southhampton by Pilot Plus (X-Plane.OrgStore) US19.95
Aircraft
- Avro RJ 100 by the The Avro Project (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$22.95
 

 

X-Plane Year Review 2014 and Welcoming in 2015.
 
Well that was 2014? What did you think of it? The usual, the different or just forget the whole year happened. Well it was different in a unusual way in that it wasn't filled with the usual things that turn the simulator upside down. My view it was quite a subdued year in a way, but a lot still happened and a lot changed. But I did feel this time last year that X-Plane needed a more stable settling period to consolidate its main base and in a big way that did happen. The word "consolidate" is the key point here, and in that context for X-Plane it was a very good year.
 
Review 2014
The year started off with loads and just loads of scenery released, The excellent LEVC - Valencia from DAI-Media started it all off and I loved this Spanish scenery. Tom Curtis had another great year with KDEN - Denver and big updates to his great packages "Final Frontier" and "Seattle - Boeing Country" and his "Las Vegas "Glitter Gulch" through out the year had a touch more magic as well. Another good solid year from Tom. Santiago Butnaru was another who gave a lot of prolific scenery releases this year with KBUF (Buffalo-Niagara) which is underrated, KFLL - Fort Lauderdale and last week KEWR - Newark. Two stood out in CZST Stewart by beti-x and EIDW - Dublin by Aerosoft were both brilliant but in their very different ways, But as scenery goes it was a really good year, a lot of really great freeware and many new faces having a go at doing some work with a lot of the usual suspects delivering outstanding work. Two points I will highlight here in the return of ISDG with a bang with Steve K and YMML - Melbourne and the simply amazing "tdg"and If one person has single-handedly changed our scenery base it is tdg. I really loved the recently released "Winter_Package" of winter scenery from Albert (xflyer) who is the person that creates the default Laminar Research autogen art...  simply amazing, and Laminar has also made hints it could be included in the base simulator in a start of the seasons feature, well bring that on. Another great late in the year release is the v3 terrain files from Alpilotx, another step up in high-quality detail, but a huge just under 100gb download for the lot (It takes two days alone if you want it all downloaded now) but it does now also include Australia. I earlier had my doubts about the Laminar Research default airport scenery system, but it works very well and not as intrusive as I expected, the updated WED 1.30 is also now very, very good.
 
Overall the scenery aspect came along in heaps and bounds this year, 2014 was a really good year for scenery and I am getting really very impressed by a lot of the images coming out of the simulator. Not perfect by a long shot, but a big and definite step forward and X-Plane is finally fixing its biggest blackhole.
 
Laminar Research felt like it was being diverted by another presence in 2014 and that turned out to be fact in most of the development time of the year went into an upgrade of LR's other simulator business in mobile games or X-Plane 10 MOBILE for iPhone or iPad. They note that these products help the desktop version and vice-versa, and you can't argue with that philosophy, and the launch of X-Plane 10 on STEAM has again shown that LR is aiming lately at the gamer crowd for more business and users, So is X-Plane a game or a simulator? will the roads narrow as the products come closer aligned? I still see a big difference flying on my desktop to using X-Plane on my iPad (you can however fly around the room making loud aircraft noises with your steering iPad), but my only really big fun and main focus is my addictive personality of minecraft proportions of collecting and building my huge X-Plane scenery world and flying around it.
 
One major (and only) X-Plane release for the desktop simulator form was version or v10.30 in a mid-year release in June. But it was a beauty, and its biggest feature was how well rounded it was when it was released. It didn't feel like a beta and had no really big hidden nasties, it was also brilliant from day one and a really good well rounded product. Laminar noted that they had taken their time to do this one and it showed, great quality and great features. The standout was the inclusion of an updated GARMIN 430/530 gps which was just sensational in design and operation. Created by Philipp Münzel my personal "Person of the Year" in 2013, in he had been recruited by LR to do development work directly for LR in 2014 and that took Philipp out of the daily limelight, but his brilliance was once again shown in a great feature and also gave the simulator another big push forward. He will be there for 2015, so expect more great things from him, Chris and Guru in the next year.
 
Again v10.30 provided a very good consolidation of the desktop simulator, it refined and changed it into a more complete application that was more reliable and even smooth. There was a few missing features that had been promised like a wider visual distance that is really (really) showing now its time and age in the simulator these days and there was still no update to the average autocratic ATC system that is so badly required to make X-Plane 10 deliver on its promised features, no better water shading or cultures either, but maybe in 2015 a few of these changes will finally grace our screens.
 
I noted in last years 2013 review that this year would be the last year for X-Plane9, that has come to pass as most developers now don't issue X-Plane9 versions with their releases, the biggest is of course Carenado and in that the v3/10.30 upgrade was completely X-Plane10 and no new product from either Carenado or Alabeo would in the future will be in X-Plane9. If you keep X-Plane9 into 2015, you are going to find it very slim pickings indeed for (payware) aircraft and a lot of quality scenery for that simulator version. X-Plane has now moved a long, long way even from its own X-Plane10 release version, in to a point it is now barely recognisable from its own small time beginnings.
 
The biggest satisfaction for me in 2014 was the emergence of more developers that were willing to put their talent on the line and build payware. The gap from freeware to payware is simply massive, you have to be good not only in one area but many or create a stable team to produce good aircraft. It is not easy in covering this gap, as even the very best have had their moments this year. Once you cross that line and ask for payment, you are then required to deliver in every area, but the rewards are also very good if you can pull the off the project. X-Plane now requires extremely high quality, no half-measures can pass the line and it is a tough line, but it is still very highly required. In that talent and products build the simulator and the good news is X-Plane uses will pay for quality products, and that is a very good thing. As it goes both ways in that the users get great product and the developers will keep producing great product to satisfy the need. So both the users and the developers both benefit...  In that area X-plane has crossed that invisible line.
 
But quality was there even if at first the fine-tuning points are not. So basically the work was always very good, but the real work and talent is in that very last 5% to get that tuning and the quality first rate. Stephane Buon of Aerobask was a real talent this year in not only turning out interesting modern like the Lancair Legacy FG aircraft but refitting out his older work to the 10.30 requirements, and with a flourish even finished off the year with an amazing glider (Antares 20E). The X-Trident team with their amazing Bell - 412 was another great intro. X-Crafts produced his ERJ-195ER that really was a great start in quality payware and Jetsim gave us an Airbus A330-300 with CRT instruments. MLADG gave us some WW2 German fighter experience with the Me 262. And Colimata's Mig-29 blew me away, and on a modern twist AoA Simulations released just lately their F-35B Lighting ll.
 
But the old hand operators still delivered as well. As a group they delivered very deep immersion simulation with always new tricks to get your attention. Reviewing these challenging deep system aircraft is taking longer and longer to deliver your verdict, as you have so much ground to cover. Many need not a week now but weeks to understand and get the very best from and to understand how to fly them to their best performance. Peter's (Hager) Aircraft started off the year with his 3d A320/A321 series, but I was simply a non-starter from the very start. The aircraft no matter how much I twisted my settings could they run on my computer, frame rate was always in the low single figures and I simply had to give up any chance of giving them a fair review. It was the first time I had actually gave up and moved on, something I simply don't like to do. I tried again later in the year with the same results. JARDesign did a few updates till mid-year to his A320 but then left it to focus on the A330. SSG - Supercritical Simulations Group started the year with a bang in the B748i which was a bit raw, but steady and quality time in development brought this aircraft (And the just released Freighter version) up to a very high standard and they now both now sit in that high point quality area. Jack and Joe from FlyJSim did not disappoint with their excellent Boeing 732, another really great simulation and a great companion in your hanger with the B727 Series.
 
FlightFactor also was busy with great upgrades (including engine options) to both their Boeing 777 and 757 series aircraft, and later in the year the release of the amazing A350-900 with a menu system that is just so unique and clever. It had QPAC airbus systems as well, and the very best in airbus laws and protections that made it something really special to fly. It was delayed and frustrated by a very stubborn bug for Mac users? Not a major issue in context, but it simply refused to be hunted down and fixed, as a beta tester on the A350 I spent hours (and hours) doing loops in trying to focus it down, but it still remained elusive. It will in time be usually something very simple that fixes it, but that is not to take away the achievement this aircraft is to X-Plane's quality and position in flight simulation, and a pro version of the A350 is still coming.
 
Hydroz and Khamsim brought out their excellent HU-16 Albatross that was a great aircraft to get your head around, and Khamsin also updated his Mitchell. And I liked the old B-29 from Virtavia and Dawson Designs, strange to fly but very rewarding if you are willing to put in the effort.
 
Carenado had again a huge year with constant updates right through the range and great releases. Putting the updated GNS 10.30 gps into Carenado aircraft was always going to brilliant, and it was. And Carenado also created a unique manipulator system that could change the way we operate knobs and switches in the simulator. great for scroll mouse users, but I found it a bit strange with my one puck mouse. In aircraft it started with the PA-38 Tomahawk, which i simply loved as it was simply a great aircraft to fly. Then came the brilliant B200 King Air, a monster of an aircraft that was then even later over shadowed by the even bigger and more monstrous KIng Air in the 1900D that was just the ultimate King Air you can ever get in simulation. Released in-between these two giants was the Piper PA-46 Malibu and the excellent CT206H Turbo Stationair, which is really the very best single-upper wing aircraft in X-Plane bar none. So for Carenado it was a just that a huge year, and great simulation.
 
Helicopters did exceptionally well as well. You don't get a huge amount of releases in the rotary world. But the quality is out of this world, and 2014 did not disappoint. DMO started it out with a really great update to the S92, now a major player and a great big aircraft to fly. Then came the Bell 407 by Dreamfoil Creations which is quite possibly the very best helicopter ever created for X-Plane, it was simply in every area sensational. But my overall favorite was the B412 Huey from X-Trident. It is still the most addictive aircraft I have ever flown in X-Plane... When you are still flying at 4am in the morning and still wanting to have another go after five hours of flying already means this aircraft totally has your guts and heart at its controls. I now fear going near it as I know I will lose hours or a day if I do so and reviews are then left hanging half done. It is a total love/hate relationship, but the love for the B412 will always win me over.
 
None expected shows for the year are also to be noted. The IXEG 737 classic is still going into another year of development. Real 733's are now going to the graveyard in big numbers and X-Plane still hasn't had any hours behind the controls of one of them, it is now promised before next Christmas...  2015! But still well worth the wait (ing). The EADT x737 3d cockpit aircraft was a no show as well, but the update images show an amazing experience when it does arrive. maybe 2015 will finally be the year of the B737?  I doubt the PMDG B737 will join the queue, there was a lot of noise from PMDG in the middle of the year referring to X-Plane and then nothing? So PMDG is slowly going into the "I'll believe it when I see it" zone. JARdesign didn't release his A332 either, but I doubt it is very far away in early 2015.
 
An area I am interested in is the DC-9/MD-80, There was a great freeware release from Roger2009, but three projects were announced and going into 2015 only one in "Rotate's" MD-80 is still ongoing, but what an aircraft this is. If one aircraft should be in your hanger in 2015, it will be or should be this one...  looks simply brilliant.
 
Going into 2015 and news of new work is very thin on the ground. Developers are holding their cards closer to their chests these days. But they are all out there work and creating...  we will just have to wait and see what 2015 brings us.
 
To wrap up this review of 2014 and the year, I will now list my Best of the Year 2014:

Best Aircraft : FlightFactor aero A350-900
Late in the year but an excellent, fully featured and clever aircraft.
Honorable Mention : X Crafts ERJ-195LR,
A great debut aircraft and expect great designs from this designer.

Best Classic Aircraft : Boeing 737-200 Series - FlyJSim
As good as the B727 series, but smaller.
Honorable Mention : Grumman HU-16 Albatross
Really different and versatile aircraft, loved it.

Best General Aviation Aircraft : Carenado Beechcraft 1900D King Air
Just simply brilliant...  thats it.
Honorable Mention : Any Aerobask aircraft
Very modern and very different, and now a glider as well

Best Helicopter : Bell 407 by Dreamfoil Creations/Bell 412 X-Trident
Both totally brilliant and very hard to split
By design it is the B407, but the B412 totally won my heart.

Best Scenery : CZST - Stewart by beti-x and EIDW - Dublin by Aerosoft
Both really really good scenery, but EIDW is more usable and functional for everyday use.
Honorable Mention : Tom Curtis
His work throughout 2014 was just excellent again in scale and detail.

Person of the Year 2014 : tdg (scenery)
Airport by airport and a release sometimes daily...  tdg is slowly changing the face of X-Plane Airports. His facade work is simply overwhelming and sensational, his detailing is superb. How can he do all that work? and in a single day?
Honorable Mentions : Philipp Münzel and Daniel Klaue
Again Phillipp has touched X-Plane with his brilliance. The GARMIN 430/530 gps in X-Plane 10.30 is another master work and Daniel drives X-Plane forward with his brilliance in so many areas that you don't see...  but use all the time.

Best Plugin : SkyMaxx Pro
Real clouds and real weather.
Honorable Mention : TugMaster - JARDesign
Finally a really decent pushback truck(s)

Best Moment of the year 2014 : Using the GNS 430/530 GPS for the first time.

Worst Moment of the Year 2014 : Monday 22nd December 2014?
 
Biggest distraction of 2014 : The none shows that promised us an announcement that never came.

Personal Favorites of 2013 : The Bell 412, CT206H Turbo Stationair, 1900D Carenado King Air, B200 King Air in fact any King Air? and the A350-900 and finally flying the CRJ-200 correctly (It is a very long story)
 
So that was 2014... So was it a good year or a great year. Certainly X-Plane grew and even passed the significant milestone of 300,000 users on the X-Plane.org, many will of course churn over and leave, but many are also liking what they are seeing and are joining us and most importantly are contributing to the cause. So we grew as a simulator, a lot and that is a nice feeling. The X-Plane.Org shop was overhauled and ready for 2015. A very difficult and long task, but well worth the effort. So in many ways X-Plane is in great shape for 2015 and another big year in simulation.
 
I will be back with more and a better X-Plane Reviews in 2015, but at this point I'm not sure exactly when I will be actually able to restart? The date above of 22nd December 2014 was a day of "oh hell" as my trusty iMac went into meltdown and totally blew out its graphic chip?, Yes its true, X-Plane actually blew my graphic chip to pieces and that is how hard I have pushed it this year... In fact I am proud to say "I ran X-Plane so hard I blew my computer up!" It works but only in "Slow" mode which means no X-Plane for me at all and I am in denial. When I can get it fixed depends on when the Australian workforce decides to come back from its annual holidays and I can get the parts. Hopefully in the very early days in January 2015.
 
I have to thank Joe Charman for his huge contribution this past year, thanks Joe and to all the incredible developers that provide me with their work and and valuable information to make these reviews work and happen. I am as always in awe in what they do. Finally to Nicolas Taureau and the backing of the guys of the X-Plane.Org that keeps the site running smoothly and give great advice and assistance.
 
So all X-Plane flyers, have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year 2015!...  more to come and soon!
 
"Anyone know of any good books to read, while I get my computer fixed?"
 
Stephen Dutton
 
Copyright©2014: X-Plane Reviews

Yes the CRJ-200 is a quite a challenge to fly well, A very deep aircraft but very fulfilling.

Aircraft Release : B1900D HD Series by Carenado
 
The big, big King Air is here in the B1900D as Carenado unleashs this small prop liner on X-Plane.
 

 
The aircraft comes with the usual spectacular Carenado effects and features...  Inside the cockpit and cabin the B1900D is simply gorgeous.
 


 
The bonus is that if you are already familiar with other King Air's from Carenado, then you will slip right in and feel at home, as the systems are very much the same layout.
 

 
Features include:
HD quality textures
3D gauges
Original HQ digital stereo sounds recorded directly from the real aircraft
3D stereo effects, such as outside sounds entering open windows.
Customizable panel for controlling window transparency, instrument reflections and static elements such as wheel chocks and turbine inlet/exhaust covers.
Realistic behavior compared to the real airplane. Realistic weight and balance. Tested by real pilots.
Realistic 3D night lights effects on panel and cockpit.
Individual passenger 3D reading lights and numerous HDR lighting effects.
Dynamic loading/unloading of 3D parts and plugin logic for FPS optimization.
Ice and Rain effects
 


 
Included in the package:
5 HD liveries.
1 HD Blank livery
B1900D Emergency Checklist PDF
B1900D Normal Procedures PDF
B1900D Performance Tables PDF
B1900D Reference PDF
B1900D EFIS X-Plane PDF
B1900D EVVI X-Plane PDF
Recommended Settings PDF
 
And you get...   6 EXTRA FREE Liveries after you buy it.
 
Technical Requirements are:
Windows XP - Vista - 7 (32 or 64 bits) or MAC OS 10.6 (or higher) or Linux
X-Plane10.30 (or higher)
2.5 GHz processor - 4GB RAM - 1GB VRAM
900MB available hard disk space (incl. free downloadable extra liveries)
 
Price of the B1900D HD Series is US$34.95
 
Developer site : Carenado
 
Stephen Dutton
 
26th September 2014
 
Copyright©2014 : X-Plane Reviews
 
All images are courtesy of Carenado©
 

Competition! : Winners!
 
X-Plane Reviews have listed the winners below in no order, as per usual we had four that we just could not divide on and so we have given out a special commendation prize for the huge effort put into the entry...   and so a huge congratulations to them for their entries. And a huge thanks to all who spent their time to note their views on X-Plane. If you are wondering if the competition was an exercise in feedback on the site, it was not planned that way but on how you use X-Plane and how it relates to you as a simulator and this is the aspect that X-Plane Reviews based its final decisions on..
 
The comments are interesting in hindsight because it does mean X-Plane Reviews are on the right insights on what you want to know and read in reviews, and the pros and cons of the releaes. We could easily post photocopy (or Xerox) style reviews on every new release in X-Plane (just the facts) but that would be boring. In all scenery or aircraft there certain known items that would be boring to repeat ad nauseam in every review which would go for pages and pages. So our point is that the aim is to focus on the features and the things that make the aircraft different and attractive and the things that are not, and in doing the review process if we find something that should be explained to get yourself up to speed quickly (In other words, we have spent the time, spending days to get our heads around the issue or screaming at the computer in frustration) to fly and enjoy the best aspects of the release in X-Plane. Again to highlight the notes on frame-rate, if I don't mention it then it is fine, as my Mac is semi-powerful my point of difference is that if it works well for me then 95% of computers will have the same results.
 
And secondary aspect is to see how the release relates to being in the simulator itself. I want to put the release to work so to speak. If it is in service or has a job to do and how well it relates to that scenarios and then shows us its strengths and weaknesses, There is nothing more valuable that running a "heavy" from one side of the world to another as it not only shows how it works in that environment, but also how the X-Plane simulator as a whole has progressed in relation to the release. In fact you are evaluating two aspects at the same time with one the release and then secondary the simulator as it progresses. Both results I will always pass on to the users.
 
A final aspect is just to explore our X-Plane world, go to places you would never go and note the reasons we go there and the history of why it is significant, I was top every year in school for geography...  my guess is I am still exploring.
 
So the selection of the winners are based on this aspect of you getting the very best out of the simulator. Investing in add-ons is money to be just that in investing in the simulator, and we all purchase for many different reasons. If I do occasionally (okay a lot) get over excited it is because of the simple fact that "I love this so much, then you should to", a bit biased? No not really because if it is that good then you will love it as well, and share the love.
Not every time does it have to be totally perfect at release, if you are paying monies then should it be?  The simple fact is that simulation does not work that way. All and even the very best will be updated over the next 12 months of their release, our position is that we need need to gaze a little and see the investment in six or twelve months time and where it will be and not where it is now, many would be confused when we have effused a lot over something that quite obviously has flaws. But we are looking at the things that are quality of the basic elements and not the usual in your face issues that are usually fixed in an update or two, The Boeing 748i from SSG is a good example of a poor release version to the excellent aircraft it is today. Above all else I am very proud of our track record in that area.
 
But the last thing to say on reviews is that the one thing that has become most important of the three years I have posted reviews is that the first impression is not always the right one. Quite a few have become firm favorites only after flying them after a period of time. Many a review has been late (even by weeks) because I have to scrap the original assessment of the aircraft (and scenery as well) and reassess it a different way, and unexpectedly many have wound their way into my heart in a way that was totally unexpected and many are not the ones that I expected to be part of my hangar collection or would have personally invested in them.
 
So to the winners....
 

tsmercer  - FlightFactor/Vmax Boeing 777
My favorite aircraft review was for the B200 King Air. I had been eagerly awaiting the B200 having once flown a full motion B350 sim before. I was hoping that the file would be an accurate modeling of its flight dynamics and the details in the review gave a great impression of how it flies. I love how the details of the review are presented in the context of a multi-leg flight. It gets all the details in there, but gives I nice narrative to keep it interesting. The thing that I loved most about the B200 review in particular was the not only the history of the development of the B200, but the history of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. It was a neat bit of history that gave the aircraft a mission other than the executive hamburger run. It was also great how that mission lead into the context of the review flights.
 
Thanks to the descriptions of the review, I purchased the aircraft. The review accurately captured the nuances of the aircraft and it's my favorite turboprop in X-Plane. The aircraft hits a great sweet spot in my hangar. I love that I can get in and out of nearly any airport with it, but still be fast enough that I don't get bored with long stretches of en route flight. It doesn't require nearly as much setup time as the CRJ that I also fly regularly, but still offers enough performance and complexity to be a handful and keep me engaged. On top of all that it's an absolutely gorgeous model with great cockpit ambiance.
Congratulations on one year of great reviews!
 
PJS37 - FlightFactor/Vmax Boeing 757
My favorite review is the Final Frontier Scenery review.  The reason this is my favorite is because the reviewer understood my plight it felt like when he started off with Juneau (Juneau being where my wife is from an somewhere I am familiar with and enjoy flying around).  Every sim I have tried the default Juneau is usually way off.  Heck half the time I couldn't even find mesh scenerey that didn't incorrectly render the Juneau area.  So when I saw X-Plane had an nice Juneau scenery upgrade I began my migration to X-Plane 10 (Ever so slowly)  I hadn't bought the scenery however because I was worried that there would be issues with it or it would look too dated in X-Plane 10.  Then I found xplanereviews.com and boy was I glad I did.  You guys have single handily reviewed everything I had the slightest interest in an helped me make clear and informed decisions.  The final frontier review was just what I needed to jump head first into X-Plane finally after many many month of waffling and retreating back into the safe comfortable arms of the familiar.  So I reformatted my PC a week ago have only X-Plane installed as my civilian sim and started buying up add-ons.  The Final Frontier review is an excellent example of the work you guys do so well.  It is objective; it shows the clear issues (Such as the texture blurriness of the add-on) but also compares it across the spectrum to add-ons available elsewhere and explains to me as a consumer why this is the one I should spend my money on.
 
Darrick - SSG/Vmax Boeing 748i
Happy 1st Anniversary X-Plane Reviews!!! I might be a new member here but i've reading your reviews since last year. I really like all your reviews, so it was very hard just to pick one. But in the end i decided to go for your Aircraft review of FlightFactor Boeing 757RR-200, Cause It really is just mindblowing your review is 100% accurate describing this add-on. The Details in the 757 is just gorgeous, I enjoy looking at every detail of this 757. I also like how it handles it is a very nice and fun aircraft to fly. I also like how its nit really complicated and very user friendly. I really think all the measurements in this add-on is perfect. As soon as the FlightFactor B757RR-200 I was really excited as it was one of my 4 Favourite Aircraft. Since it was a new release I need to get reviews first before bought it, I could not find a very Detailed review till i found your review. As soon as I red the review over and over again I decided to go on and buy the add-on. Your review is different. Its more reader Friendly, It made me easier to understand for I'm still a learner to Xplane. Your reviews are very 'light' but has very deep and detailed information users should know. I like how you Divide the parts by sharing your first Impressions and share people who and what is FlightFactor. Pictures!!! Your Pictures are top notch shows the detail of the aircraft form beginning to the end. Your exterior and interior Pictures of the Aircraft is quite a lot so it gives the user lots of pictures to see before they buy the add-on. I also enjoy reading cause you tell us how the plane works so we sure know when we own the add-on. When I first tested my FlightFactor B757RR-200 I did not regret it at all thanks to your review I was sure to buy this add-on. I really like your Conclusion it gives the readers mind a confident and ready feeling when buying the add-on. X-Plane is a great game with your reviews its even better. Thank you for all your Reviews! Two Thumbs Up! Wish you all the best for xplanereviews.com and Happy Birthday!!! Hope I can be one of the 3. Thanks.    Yes you are!
 
special commendation prize
 
MadMckMax - Daniel Klaue Embraer ERJ 140
Choice of Review
Although I'm very new to this website (I was introduced via forums.x-plane.org).
I've had a quick look at the content and I've chosen the since it is the review that I can most relate to.
I've bought other products from this developer, and was considering this aircraft as a result.
  Motivation for Choice
Speaking as a 13 year old wannabe pilot, one of the most exciting things about this article is how it
links the simulation to the real world with historical references. The down to earth nature of the review raises its credibility
and motivates me towards considering purchasing the 732.

The fact that Stephen Dutton has conducted a full documented flight also adds value.
His balance between opinion and fact is just right. eg."The chunky (and quite worn)
Pilot and Co-Pilot yokes do take up a lot of the panel view, removed you can now see the instrumentation clearer."

Good terminology, paints the picture, combined with vital information, exactly like you'd want it!
 
Note
Due to the quality of add ons and reviews here, I will be visiting this site often as long as I still fly on X-Plane
(likely a long time, as I am starting gliding training this year!). Also, the community here is just superb, so far I feel very at home here and
I admire how much effort the managers of the site put into communicating with the brilliant community they've created.
 
Summary
· Stephens review of the 732 offers an excellent balance of information, and personal opinion
· Immersive and thorough review
· Helpful when comparing products
· Adding confidence to the consumer
· Supplying advice/feedback to the seller/developer
· Overall positive contribution to the X-Plane Community.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Max
 
His prize is the ERJ-140 by Daniel Klaue!
 
everyone else is a runner up...  well done.
 

A small note in some out worldly spelling mistakes that creep in, The system we use has a final click that switches the review to HTML before posting, In the process I have found it does strange odd things to the text (plus block text whole paragraphs), I fix most but some still creep on through...  odd business.
 
Stephen Dutton
 
Copyright©2014: X-Plane Reviews
 
15th August 2014
 

Scenery Review : Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International                                  by Butnaru
 
Introduction:
Fort Lauderdale ( ICAO: KFLL, IATA: FLL) is Butnaru's latest scenery to be released for X-Plane 10, and no, this is no ordinary scenery! Many new features have been added in this scenery package which make it unique above the rest. Situated in Florida it's surrounded by many other airports, some bigger some smaller. So what makes Fort Lauderdale special?
Apart from the fact the others are default scenery! Fort Lauderdale is one of the closest to the Florida shoreline, and has become and intercontinental gateway.
 

 
If you enjoy long haul flights to or around America then Fort Lauderdale has to be in your scenery collection. Another bonus is that KFLL is located not too far from TNCM, another great place to fly! So the history behind KFLL.
 
On the 1st of May 1929 the US Navy stationed base there (start of WWII), then in 1946 when it was transferred to county control it became: Broward County International Airport. With expansion in growth, popularity and buildings it's now known as Fort Lauderdale, this airport serves millions of the general public each year. So how does the real Fort Lauderdale compare to Butnaru's rendition in X-Plane?
 
The answer, a review with a conclusion.
 
Publisher and Developer:
Butnaru is known for his work within scenery development around the community, publishing KLGA - La Guardia, KORD - Chicago O'Hare and even KMIA Miami which is close by... However KFLL has taken a massive leap into the latest most up to date scenery category. Comparing this scenery to some of his others you can clearly tell he has come a long way now! Yes, he is known for his sceneries but he doesn't have a website? Or a branded logo? However he sure has airport development skills. So lets move onto the airport itself.
 
Installation and First Impressions:
 Installing the scenery was simple but not ordinary. No, there wasn't an installer and yes, you drop the folder like normal into custom scenery. However you have to complete these two steps for installation.
 
Taken from the manual:
 
1- Go to x-plane/Custom scenery/Global Airports/Earth nav data/+20-090 and rename or delete the file +26-081.dsf
2- Place KFLL – Fort Lauderdale inside x-plane/custom scenery
 
I can't say that the steps are confusing because they are not. Step 2 is normal for scenery installations and step 1 is explained clearly. 
The only thing that startled me was the word 'delete' I don't like deleting x-plane directory files so instead I renamed it, I added a - between the 8 and 1. This way I still have the dsf however x-plane does not recognize it.
 

 
The first time I loaded up KFLL I was parked in a 732 at the default parking gate. Normally I look outside the cockpit window and browse around to see what's out there but at KFLL it felt different. Before looking around at the scenery I was startled to see the shear volume of traffic maneuvering around the airport. Even though I was looking straight ahead at the terminal I could see a pilot undergoing a walk around inspection in the gate to my right! And on the left in the corner of my cockpit window I could see an aircraft to my left with a baggage cart driving around it and ground crew walking beside it! I was not expecting any of that! Although the people walk a bit weird you can still get the impression, and feel the immersion. So then I decided to go flying, taking off for a short flight.
 
Pushing back from the gate and turning looked fantastic as the gate slowly got further away, now back from the gate and turned around it would be impossible not to pick up on the ground textures. I have never taxied a real 732 away from a gate in Fort Lauderdale however the ground textures are very high resolution and look realistic. The tire marks have to be my favorite part of the ground textures, when I looked back or to the side it looked as though I actually left the tire marks myself!
Now facing out toward the runway and my taxi route I was just blocking the small road which the ground vehicles use. There are hundreds of ground routes for all of the ground vehicles and people, so it was time to put them to the test. A Baggage truck and a few carts was approaching me on the right side using the road I was blocking. To my surprise the truck didn't stop and went straight through the aircraft. This is pictured below.
 

 
This may become annoying with extensive use of this scenery because of the many ground vehicles moving you have a 70% chance of one driving straight through you.
 
After undergoing a standard takeoff I thought I would undergo a long flight from KFLL - Fort Lauderdale to TNCM - Princess Juliana in a BAE Jetstream 32. After passenger loading at the default gate it was time to push back in the BAE.
 



 
Being in the Jetstream meant that I could see more of the ground textures and scenery, after pushback and engine start it was time for taxi to takeoff. Taxiing around KFLL is pretty simple the ground navigation is made easy with the big taxi signs. One thing I did notice taxiing is how low resolution the orthophoto actually is. From the air it looks fine but taxiing it doesn't. The orhtophoto is used to fill the gaps of grass between the apron concrete. As well as the blurry orhtophoto there aren't any ground grass polygons, this is a shame as these grass polygons really add to great immersion. The only thing that softens the blow is the great ending of the texture. When the asphalt stops and the grassy area begins the asphalt has a black ledge which looks very real and it's how you expect it to look. 
 

 
The small cracks are great, it's just as though the sun has dried up the asphalt and it's been subject to wear and tear! As well as cracks oil spills can be noticed, especially at gates where the aircraft park they really work in conjunction with the green grunge making the airport look dirty. And it's all high res!
 

 
Shortly after takeoff I could look back at KFLL at around 2600ft and climbing. This is when I noticed a few more things about KFLL. The roof textures look great as I believe they are from the orthophoto however they are very blurry. From above it doesn't matter too much as the higher you climb the less blurry the roof textures become but low flying into the airport and you will easily notice the blurriness. The only advantage of using the orthophoto as the roof textures is from above is it blends in with the orthophoto creating a realistic look from above, but then we move onto the orthophoto it self. So yes I have already said it's blurry to a degree however from the air like I said with the roof textures this gets better the higher you go. The problem is the colour of the ortho. The ariel ortho image does not blend back into the default x-plane land and instead is just cut off. This is when you can clearly tell the difference within the colour.
 


 
For some reason its as though Butnaru didn't colour change the ortho as it is very bright from above and just does not fit in. When your thinking about purchasing this scenery you have to think will I be really bothered how the airport will look from 2000ft?
Are you just looking for a very realistic environment to taxi and takeoff from?                                         Then this scenery is the answer.
 
I know I have just pointed out everything wrong with the scenery but nothing can be perfect. But that is not to say this scenery is not worth buying!
 
This is one of the best for X-Plane 10 yet!!!                             And it's version 1.00 so we can expect many future improvements.
 
This scenery has so many great features that I haven't even got to yet such as animations and lighting! I just pointed out all of the minor bad things!!
 
Around The Airport:
 Around the airport you are certainly not starved of objects. Many are moving which makes it feel living and breathing however many are static and not dynamic. Overall they all have high resolution textures on them! However most objects seem to be placed in places where you will visit most, there is not a certain level of objects used throughout the airport. For example in some areas there seems to be a lack of static objects placed but to argue that they are places you will probably never visit.
 

 
The above image shows how ground traffic gets into the areas where no static objects are placed, so really even the open 'empty' areas aren't actually empty.
The details on most of the objects really increases the quality of this scenery package. For example the jetways have been modeled to a very fine detail, every small detail can be carefully noticed. The gpu boxes attached on the bottom of the jetway are greatly modeled, and the jetway looks as though it constantly moves as there are very high resolution tire marks on the concrete. Overall the detail of objects sets this scenery apart as it creates a high level of immersion tricking you to believe you are actually there.
 


 
The lighting in this scenery package is simply the best feature. The lights create a very realistic night environment as a range of techniques for lighting have been used. Orhtophoto lighting: The orhtophoto has been lit up in certain places linking to certain buildings, this is great as it increases the brightness however in some places the lighting on the orthophoto is a bit out of place. For example a random lit circle on the floor with no building above it.
 

 
The good thing about this technique for lighting is that with HDR Rendering ON it looks great and with HDR Rendering OFF it still creates that same effect.
 

 
The second technique used was colouring standard lights. Butnaru has edited the colours of the lighting to create the real orange effect throughout the airport, this just looks great! All lamp posts emit this orange spill, in conjunction with the othophoto lighting great results are achieved. 
 
A new lighting feature was also used, rotating beacons! This just puts the icing on the cake in terms of lighting!
 

 
The rotating beacons on the moving vehicles creates a living and breathing world atmosphere! This is something not yet seen in x-plane! The two pictures below of the baggage cart show off the new rotating beacon feature, you can see, flicking between each picture, the rotating beacon light!
 
These features are hard to explain as words can't express how good the features look in the sim. A video is surly needed so you can see the lighting and animations around the airport!
 
Trees can also be found spread around the airport, the trees look great and really capture the feel for florida. Tall thin palm trees, with long branching palms.
 
A small misc thing I also noticed was how each terminal has gates only associated with certain airlines, just like in real life! The far terminal just has 'Southwest' jets parked at the gates and then the other terminal next to it is full of 'United Airlines' jets. This just shows the attention to detail that Butnaru has put in.
 

 
The 3D modeling is not basic yet not advanced. Where you would expect a round surface you will get a sort of hexagonal surface. I believe that this is linked to Sketchup (3D modeling program) however it is now possible to texture round surfaces. Despite that Butnaru has modeled extensively in detail for KFLL. Textures have taken over from modeling in some parts of this scenery for example the roof has the orthophoto texture and displays some squares with dark shadows I can only pick them out to be air conditioner units, not modeled just on the texture. However down at the gates, 3D modeling has had attention to detail.
 
So FPS (frames per second). FPS anywhere in and around this scenery is great I don't get any lag at all. Running addons such as aircraft and Skymaxx pro I don't get any hit to frames. With HDR ON/OFF it doesn't make a considerable difference regarding FPS. Also on high rendering options I still get very good FPS!
 
Animations:
Animations are everywhere, wherever you look something will be moving or be en-route to somewhere. This is great in the day or night as the airport never sleeps! This means that whatever time you land or takeoff at KFLL you are sure to have an immersive experience. The following ground objects move around:
Baggage carts and trucks Fuel Trucks People Airport SUV's As well as other objects which I may have missed, anyhow you can imagine just how much stuff moves around all at once!
My favorite animation has to be the people, it's not just ground crew that wonder around doing their daily jobs but pilots as well! In some gates well before departure a pilot can be seen walking around the aircraft undergoing his exterior checks, looking around for noticeable issues.
 

 
In other gates ground crew are preparing aircraft for their next movement. Obviously static aircraft don't move about but the ground vehicles do which makes you believe the static aircraft are about to as well! There are some draw backs to the ground traffic, I wouldn't call it big problems just small constraints. For example the ground vehicles move without the wheel moving which is possible to do but not animated within this scenery. Also the vehicles do not make any sound, however that is down to the plugin which was written by Marginal and not Butnaru.
The moving ground vehicles contain the rotating beacon light and headlights as well, overall it creates ground traffic that looks amazing!
Also there is no traffic on the custom roads which is also possible within a scenery package, this means that the main raised highway coming into the airport has no traffic on it. However the road is only noticeable from the air and not from the ground anyway so it doesn't matter too much.
 
 
Documentation:
Very minimal. 
 
That's a harsh way of putting it but I am afraid not much effort was put into the READ ME PDF. It consists of two pages. The first gives you the two steps listed above for installation and the second page consists of special thanks and references to his other sceneries. No charts are included or 'Recommended Settings' or FAQs, just 2 steps for installation, and obviously the email for support. 
 
In a way I suppose that's all you really need. The Read Me is something that you reference once and forget? Unless it's an aircraft and you use it for the checklists.
 
Outside the Airport:
Yes, things are modeled outside the airport and yes, the othophoto covers it. But it's not all great.
 
Its good that Butnaru spent the time modeling outside the airport boundaries so lets take a look.
 



 
Outside the airport two areas are included along the coast line, the first is the shipyard. Butnaru has made some container ships and placed them inline with the ortho image on the water. The container ships look okay but are a little blurry as the textures are low res. On the ground at the dock you will find some containers placed on the ground stacked very high. To the left of this you will find the other side of the dock where the cruise ships park. The cruise ships are modeled and textured again with low res textures. I feel as though so much more could be achieved with these cruises. To start smoke puffs could be easily added as well as navigation lights. Currently the ships textures do the night lighting.
But its outside the airport so you will only be flying over it at 700ft. The custom roads blend in nicely with the default roads outside the airport so that link makes the airport fit in place.
 
Here are some left over pictures, I took too many screenshots as there was a lot to document:
 



 
Summary: 
I know I have commented on the many minor things that can be changed, added or improved however it is version 1.00 and it has many great features that make it stand out from the rest of the sceneries. All things can be fixed in the future with an update. My final verdict, yes, it's certainly worth having! This scenery creates a very realistic experience that you need to see for yourself. The ground traffic mixed with the advanced lighting system make this scenery one of the best. The annoyances are just my personal preference for scenery quality and everything works just the way it should. I didn't find any bugs within the scenery, so nothing to report there. It's possible to even further enhance the visuals with the Haze plugin and more. I did not use the haze plugin or enhanced runway textures HD as I reviewed the airport as it came. The only thing I had exrta was aircraft and Skymaxx pro v2.
 
It's hard to develop a payware scenery and live it up to the standard of other sceneries for example Beti-x's Stewart, but Butnaru pulled it off here and that's surprising due to the size of the airport! Also Stewart by Beti-x is $25.80! so as you can see from the price difference this aiport has been priced right. Yes, a few things could be improved which are mentioned above however as the base for V1 this scenery should definately be in your x-plane.org shopping cart. The modeling is great, the animations look real, the textures look phenonemal and the frames per second are high! What more could you possible want? Maybe more area covered such as the beach and some modeled hotels but for the price you are paying so much is already included. For the price range of this scenery package you will definately experience a special visit in your simulator to KFLL, an experience to remember!
 
KFLL - Fort Lauderdale International by Butnaru is now available on the x-plane.org store for US$19.95
 
Please comment below if you have any questions.
 
Developer Website: None
 
Developer Support: [email protected]
 
Aircraft Used in the review:
 
- 732 TwinJet by FlyJSim
- BAE Jetstream 32 by Jrollon
- 757 Professional by FlightFactor
- x737 Project
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:
- Intel Core i5 3330 @ 3.00GHz
- 4.00gb of RAM
- Geforce GTX 650 1gb
 
Software:
- Windows 7 64 bit
- X-Plane 10 Global version 10.25
- Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System
- KFLL - Fort Lauderdale International
- Skymaxx Pro v2
 
Review by Joe Charman
 
13th August 2014
 
Copyright©2014 : X-Plane Reviews
 

Happy Birthday! : X-Plane Reviews is One Year Old...
Yes!     X-Plane Reviews is now One Year old today and counting. This time just only a year ago we were sitting here facing a completely empty site. Nothing except the challenge ahead. And we have exceeded even our own expectations, but without X-Plane's constant evolution and expansion then we could not have reported and reviewed so much in such a short time.
 
Without doubt the biggest surprise over the year was certainly the amount of releases and projects that have filled these posts. We expected busy times but also the many quiet times and they never seemed to come to pass, as releases are now almost year round and average about one every two weeks, with a very large project release about every three months.
Above that is simply the high quality of these releases, many are simply extraordinary in quality and features and there are very, very few that don't come up to mark. So every review was pushed higher and higher as the months went by in every area in features and quality that really any purchase today is not going to fail your expectations or live up to your investment into the simulator.
 
The amount of releases can also push your own boundaries in that there is so much to absorb and then learn as the ideas and features are sometimes quite complex, but still need to be dissected and then explained so everyone can understand and get the very best from the project. In most cases what you see on the site posts is only a quarter that we do behind the scenes to post the very best information to you.
 
I don't do all this by myself and I have a big thanks to Adrian, Wycliffe and Joe for their invaluable contribution and mostly giving their valuable time to post on this review site over the past year. More people to thank is Nicolas Taureau from the X-Plane.OrgStore that gives us the support and quick updates to bring you the latest reviews almost as they are released. To Dan Klaue who can explain things that are simply unexplainable (To me anyway) and to the amazing developers that have created the amazing world we fly in and let us bring their efforts and skills to our reviews.
 
So we start another year, and still there will be more and more great projects that will excite us and to be explored and reviewed. And X-Plane will continue to become one of the very best simulators ever released and we are living and enjoying the journey that will continue well into the future. Its been an amazing ride to date and it won't slow down anytime soon... and most of all is our thanks to you the users for joining us and giving us the great feedback that is required to run sites like these, this is your site more than anything and the best place to get the best reviews in X-Plane.
 
And to celebrate our first anniversary X-Plane Reviews is going to run a Competition!
 
Prizes are in no order of a:
 
FlightFactor/Vmax  Boeing 777 Worldliner Professional
FlightFactor/Vmax  Boeing Aircraft:757 Professional
SSG/Vmax  Boeing Aircraft:747-8i Advanced
 
Details and conditions will be posted on the Competition post, So get in and have a chance to win one of the most significant aircraft that has been released in X-Plane over the last two years...
 
Stephen Dutton
 
1st August 2014
 

Around the traps : What is on our radar
 
X-Plane can feel like a relentless monster sometimes, you can at times just barely breath as one thing after another just keeps coming out. There used to be the quieter times of slow development and spaced releases that you could get a breather or two to reflect on the past or take a view of the future. As like all beasts X-Plane can seem to be standing still, but when you look back only over the last six months then Christmas 2013 feels like a lifetime away and the changes since then are profound, go back a year earlier and X-Plane in as much (certainly in the scenery department) has certainly changed in a significant way.
 
For releases X-Plane used to have two big windows that revolve around holidays, One is the northern summer in that after a few weeks at the beach they huddle around their computer screens because they want to finish off that scenery or project sitting on their hard drives, and so in the late August and early September will bring a lot of finished work to our simulator before most head back to the office and few more months of the hard grind. The Christmas holidays create a double whammy in that most heavy payware developers will want their aircraft or add-on under your X-Plane Christmas tree to fly on Boxing day and in the free work period just straight after, so the releases will start coming in around late November right up to Christmas Eve. After Christmas it is another "finish the project" period and you will get a lot of finished scenery coming in January. Easter is an interesting one because people either blow caution to the wind and go away somewhere and blow everything bit of cash because they just want freedom from routine or otherwise they will simply hunker down to save the cash and worry about the world.
 
But the periods between these two windows are now becoming just as busy as payware and scenery designers are not restricted to career work hours, as for many now X-Plane is their work. Still most can have a secondary job to pay the weekly bills and keep the wolf from the door. The great news is that as X-Plane add-ons have lifted high in quality, then so has the purchase price. Most top end add-ons now are in the $50 and higher dollar/euro bracket up from the $20-$25 bracket means it can be a way to survive the economic costs of just living, so the more we buy these top end add-ons will certainly mean that the developers can have more time creating them (It moves from being a hobby to a full time occupation) and working full time will also means shorter development times and more product coming into a store near you.
 
All this is great news for our simulator, because it is growing faster and better all the time. One of the biggest hindrance within the simulator is that X-Plane was looked on as a sort of hobby, a man shed for simulation (It certainly was when I joined up) but like everything else it has to go either forward or simply die because it won't attract new blood that brings in the new ideas and innovation.
 
PMDG Simulations
Over the last year or so PMDG Simulations which is a major FSX/P3D stalwart has toyed with the idea of creating a product for X-Plane (a test the waters, sort of thing), Mr PMDG in Mr Robert Randazzo has always noted that he wanted to be in X-Plane and has had a lot of discussions with Laminar Research in which direction the simulator is going. The problem is that Laminar Research can be a bit slow in going in that direction (They always do get actually there and you usually get a far better simulator when they do) but for a commerce business like PMDG or other big FSX/P3D businesses it is very hard to that fit into their business model. However working with Laminar Research is also a great interaction as well in the fact that you want a certain element that does not exist, then Laminar Research can and usually does oblige and usually very quickly, Ask Microsoft for the same help and your email will go to a large empty building with a "For Lease" sign on it.
 
But with everything it comes down to numbers or bank accounts. And here X-Plane is in the cart or the horse situation. X-Plane is growing, but the amount of return for an investment is still low compared to playing it safe like staying in FSX/P3D. But that creates the other  situation in that other users won't use X-Plane because they don't want to lose their expensive add-ons that they love because PMDG are not in X-Plane for them to fly their investments in.
 
Many a comment is "I really love to try X-Plane but I would lose my PMDG B737NGX" is a big issue and it works the other way round, would you want to lose your FlightFactor B777/B757 or Peters Aircraft A380 to move on to another simulator?  The answer for me is no and so it works both ways.
 
But adapting to another code can not only increase your business but also your overall share of the simulation business. in this case we are talking about Carenado. No one company has influenced X-Plane more than Carenado, in not only creating a higher price point for its aircraft and finally broke that $20 price ceiling. But also bringing into the simulator a very high quality of product that is still being chased and overwhelmingly admired. In the GA category in X-Plane then Carenado simply now own it lock stock and barrel. And their products are better in X-Plane than in the other sim areas because of X-Plane's better dynamics and lighting features. So if you are a learner pilot or trainer then what would be your simulator of choice in the GA market with an aircraft model that suits your flying skills...  X-Plane and Carenado would certainly be at top of your list and the gap between the FSX release and X-Plane release of the same model of aircraft is getting more and more closer.
 
So finally PMDG decided to jump off the fence and announced an announcement in Mid-June that they were finally coming into X-Plane and the details were to be announced in Mid-August, and that there will be not one but two X-Plane projects (to still just test the waters!).
 
Many users are noting that PMDG in the simulator is a significant change for X-Plane. As in Carenado's prophecy they where right, but PMDG will be going into an area that is already very competitive in X-Plane and that is in the big heavy aircraft category, but it is also the area of the biggest rewards as users are now already used to investing in the $50-$100 American dollar range, and PMDG's products are not cheap as they sit more towards the $100 mark than the $50 mark on the scale, and when you are investing that sort of cash in an add-on investment then it had better deliver.
 
Success or failure however in X-Plane is really based on how well you can transition from one platform to the other. Carenado uses one of the best and a genius in the transition and geniuses are not thick on the ground, most can be counted on two hands. Most transitions between FS and X-Plane that have used a good developer however have been very successful like with Virtavia & Dawson Designs with their excellent Seaking and C-17 transitions, so it can be done.
Throwing money at the issue is not the answer because a good X-Plane developer may be good and fresh and thinks they are ready to work in that higher level that top payware demands, until they realise that in that level their skills have still a long way to go in the ever fast moving developing development cycle. Pressure can come from above and all that money has been spent and the product is stinking at the store, another leading developer has found that just rolling out products that are years old in FSX and worse are not adjusted to the demands of X-Plane will not find instant returns coming into the bank and their future X-Plane release sheet is now blank. But certainly PMDG will be smarter than that and will deliver quality aircraft that will be tuned ready for the X-Plane simulator.
 
There is a lot of speculation as just what PMDG will (test) out in X-Plane. Most users will want their excellent B737NGX and no doubt it would be a huge seller and a defining moment in X-Plane if it was released on the platform. Not only for X-Plane users, but as if it was available in the simulator it would bring many "sitting on the fence" FS users to the X-Plane platform. However that is also the whole point. The B737NGX is just too big a step for a first release as it would be more of a commitment than a test. It may be the second release noted in the announcement, but certainly not the first release. I also think that PMDG are going to be smart and release an aircraft on two platforms at once to gauge the response and that will also mean the aircraft would have been developed up from scratch for X-Plane and not just a conversion of old stock...   and that aircraft will be the "Douglas DC-6B Cloudmaster". 
 


 
No I don't have inside information on any releases, but this is my choice of the release because it makes great business sense. It will be a new product, It will be in a better cost point between $50-$75 US dollars, It has the attraction of an iconic status and as a thundering four engined fire breathing piston-engine airliner that you would certainly want it in your hangar.
 
Helicopters
For vertical flight aircraft X-Plane has some of the very best available. In quality we lead the pack not only in just the shear equipment they deliver but also in the variants and ways you can set the aircraft up. Very rarely do you have a poor helicopter released in payware, the standard is always simply overwhelming and if you are not interested in vertical flight then you are really missing out on a major dimension of simulation that is available in X-Plane.
 
I myself was also cautious when approaching these spindly unwieldy machines. But I persevered (Okay I swore a lot and crashed even more) and now I would say I was reasonably competent, but I still practise at least once a week if not flying them in a review.
 
But this year has been a banner year, last year was also good with the a simply brilliant machine from Dreamfoil Creations and Nemeth Designs and the by Virtavia & Dawson Designs in December, The update to the earlier this year brought the DMO Flight Design into the realms of greatness and of course there is the again from Dreamfoil Creations that was jaw-droppingly good.  A note still to the older by ND Art & Technology that still causes users hearts to swoon in flight and operation.
 
Many now have trainer-wheels with an arcade game approach to learning how to fly them, but still practise makes perfect. But at least you can start somewhere with these aids and get into the club...  you will be glad you did.
 
Two new aircraft are due soon that will make you finally want to take that vertical flight plunge...
 
Bell 412
First up is the Bell 412, it is a Huey, but not a Huey in the sense of the double-blade Vietnam War, Peace and 60's and all that, but the more modern twin-engined four-bladed version that plucks idiots off mountains and sinking boats.
 


 
The B412 is a serious bit of kit, and sounds like no other with a great chop-chop suey noise when changing the angle of attack. It is coming soon.
 
Sikorsky UH-60L / S70A Blackhawk/SH-60 SeaHawk
It is amazing that X-Plane does not have the Blackhawk/Seahawk in the simulator. It is one of the most iconic choppers of the last 50 years. Well wait no more as the Brazilian Flightsim Development Group is going to make your dreams come true.
 


 
Multi-role versions and the Naval Seahawk version to practise those carrier landings is going to keep you happy for a very long time.
 
VHHH - Chep Lok, Hong Kong
Another item that caught my eye and made my heart go a bit faster was a scenery/airport from Aerobridge Studios. VHHH or Chep Lok airport in Hong Kong is a huge gateway to the East, and finally a payware developer is willing to do an airport out of the USA/European circle. Most users love their long hauls and myself included, but there is nothing out there when you get there in a real big quality scenery. The Far East is just that..  Too far out. This airport in Hong Kong should hopefully change that way thinking and allow us to start and end a long haul at a decent gate.
 

 
Quality is astoundingly good, as is the tiny detailing in closeup.
 

 
The very last image shows you how very far along in development VHHH is. And how quickly Aerobridge have recovered from losing the whole VHHH project to a hard drive meltdown.
 

 
I hope that VHHH will change the course of the far east being off our radar in terms of really great scenery, because there is a gold mine in great Asian airports waiting to be created and discovered. No release date is yet noted from Aerobridge Studios.
 
So is simulation slowly dying? Many development houses are saying that investment is slowly disappearing, as that is in the FS realm as the lack of FS development is now starting to kick in. products have very long development periods and a short shelf life and most developers have to look years ahead to plan for now. X-Plane may be a far smaller pond, but that may be also our saving grace as X-Plane can adapt and change (as we have done over the last few years) to accommodate these huge changes. Our developers are now as good as anything else on the market and in some cases far better, and they still have a lot of product gaps to fill.
 
Deep down many people love flying and even more the huge challenge of flying an aircraft that is never ever possible in real life. The world today provides so many more distractions, but there are still more than ever more enthusiasts piling in with pride their work for many other X-Plane users to share, like I said at the start of this post, X-Plane is busy, busy...  busier than ever and with so much coming in the future it is an exciting place to be.
 
Stephen Dutton
 
8th July 2014
 
Copyright©2014 : X-Plane Reviews
 
DC6B_Classic images are courtesy of PMDG
Sikorsky UH-60L / S70A Blackhawk/SH-60 SeaHawk images are courtesy of Brazilian Flightsim Development Group
VHHH-Chep Lok images are courtesy of Aerobridge Studios
 

Scenery Review : LGMK - Airport Mykonos        by Aerosoft
 
This is my review of LGMK Mykonos, having been there myself I hope this review gives you a detailed insight to how Aerosofts rendition of Mykonos compares to the real thing! 
 
Publisher and Developer:
Mykonos LGMK is Aerosoft's latest scenery release! Developed by Icarus, this scenery is definitely one not to ignore. Aerosoft have released many sceneries in the past, but none live up to the standard of Mykonos! LGMK is Aerosofts first scenery using new developed features such as, animated ground traffic and Ultra HD textures. This is also Aerosofts first scenery covering a whole island in lots of detail! This release is the first time I heard the name Icarus, after some research I found out that the team are also developing a DC-9 which is very exciting!
 
So LGMK Airport Mykonos can be found on a small island of Mykonos off the coast from Athens in Greece. In Greek mythology, Mykonos island named from Mykons, son of Greek God Apollo. The place of a big battle between Zeus and Titans, where Hercules killed the powerful Giants. Even now it is rumored that the large rocks over the island are corpses of the Giants. Mykonos is the most famous island in the heart of Cyclades and Aegean Sea, which attracts thousands of tourists every year.
 
Installation and Documentation: 
Mykonos could not be easier to install, just simply run the installer that you download and select your x-plane folder. After entering your activation code it will start installing. In the past I have had trouble using the installer provided by Aerosoft, others seem to have had the same issue, but installing Mykonos worked perfectly.
 



 
If you are new to x-plane in general then you may install the scenery and load up the sim and see your new airport, however you can find the manual within the three folders that are installed. First locate your x-plane 10 folder and click into 'custom scenery' in here you will find three folders each with Mykonos in the title. The folder you need to open is called 'Mykonos Airport' in here you will find the very detailed 16 page manual. The manual tells you everything that you need to know, and includes extensive explanations of certain things including a FAQ (frequently asked questions). Unfortunately no charts are provided with the scenery, this could be something forgotten or the charts were intended not to be included. Anyhow it doesn't matter too much as many charts can be found online.
 
Features:
From Aerosoft: 
 
"This scenery package has been designed to take advantage of the most modern X-Plane technologies, like HDR lighting, texture detailing, object instancing, and many more. In order to experience the feeling of the actual airport during the night, the HDR option, in the rendering options, should be checked on. The night lighting was carefully designed to represent the real life lighting with the minimum affect on frame rates. The Airport is represented as close as possible to the real counterpart, with the combined use of Ultra High Definition (UHD) textures and High Definition (HD) textures. The ground is represented with custom textures with resolution 3-5cm/pixel. The whole island is covered with 50cm/pixel satellite imagery (orthophotos) with added shaders for increased resolution, with hundreds of the well known white/blue “Aegean Sea” type houses and local vegetation (trees), giving an accurate representation of the island. For the towns of Mykonos (Chora), houses are almost 1-to-1 ratio to the real world, giving you the feeling of the dense town. Moreover, every light is a “real” light, emitting and lighting the surroundings. There are plenty animations providing a “living” environment, like the windmills. Also there is maritime traffic around the island."
Highly detailed rendition of Mykonos International Airport (LGMK) Complete coverage of over 140km with high resolution satellite imagery (0.5m/px) High resolution day and night scenery complex terrain mesh animated car traffic around the airport complete reconstruction of airport's lighting equipment realistic 3D grass and vegetation complex reconstruction of the town over 2,000 hand placed objects animated windmills Highly detailed manual compatible with x-plane 10 HD Mesh Scenery v2 x-plane 10 HDR lighting custom ground textures with about 5cm/px (only airport area) First Impressions: 
The first thing that stood out to me was the scale and complexity of the scenery, every house on the island has been placed on top of an orthophoto at high resolution! This airport is great for VFR circuits over the main town, so that is the first thing I did. I started up the Carenado Malibu Mirage and taxied to runway 34. After take off I turned left and flew over the small town. Flying over the town was great fun, from 1,200ft you can see the windmills turning and boats slowly sailing around the island! If you look closely you can also see small smoke puffs coming from the cruise ships parked in the docks!
 



 
The town looks very clustered with houses from 1500ft, however close down the houses can appear to be spaced out. I have pointed this out as when I visited Mykonos the public foot paths were only about 3 meters wide! You can even tell from google earth how crammed the houses are in the town. After flying over the town I turned left and set my heading back to runway 34. The approach was actually quite challenging! As the runway is slopped at 400ft above sea level it is a difficult approach. Nether the less it was pretty fun, trying not to touch the roofs on the big hotels!
Also the other thing that stood out first was how detailed the ground textures are at the airport, the 5cm/px looks excellent especially when taxiing off of the runway onto the apron.
 
Location:
Having been here myself I personally love the location of Mykonos, surrounded by islands in the Aegean Sea! But currently this gives us all one issue, where can we go to do a short flight from Mykonos? You are probably thinking of the small islands around Mykonos however there is no amazing scenery to fly to. I have done a few long flights to Mykonos however sometimes I like to jump in a small cessna and island hop! It would be great to island hop to Tinos (the island next to Mykonos) or all the way to Athens! Having been to Athens as well, it would be great to see some fantastic sceneries for around there! So the x-plane.org downloads would be a good place to search however we are in need for another good quality payware airport near Myknonos that we can fly to!
Apart from that Mykonos is a nice destination for flying around europe. 
 
Textures and Frame Rates:
The textures on the airport buildings are all standard white with a slight layer of dirt which looks good as the airport looks a little worn and not brand new. Cracks can also be noticed on the walls and pillars. The roof textures have to be the best, all colours match the same as real life and the roof window hatches have cloud reflections! By the way I should point out that the reflection is a picture within the texture, there are no 'actual' reflections. The ground textures on the beaches and slightly out to sea look phenomenal! The sea looks great and I feel as though I want top go swimming in it! The orthophoto sea also fades out nicely into the default sea. Overall the textures and 3D modeling within the airport from Aerosoft, summed with the high resolution orthophotos and great visuals, puts this scenery in the top list of airports ever made for X-Plane 10!
 


 
Despite this the control tower windows look very dark and they do not have reflections. I believe that the texture needs to be brightened up and reflections should be added, this will then make the control tower look identical to the real one! Also the A320 parked on the apron has low resolution textures compared to the rest of the scenery. It would look great if the textures where sharpened up on the A320, in turn it would add more realism.
 
With the addition to better textures brings us onto frame rates. All textures within this scenery are .dds, this adds performance which is good. On average I get around 28 fps. Sometimes this does drop, for example the 3D lighting has a negative effect on fps. As each light in the scenery, including the island, casts a spill on the XP environment. Overall the frame rates aren't too bad, but I would advise you to check your system first before purchasing as you want to make sure that you can run it and get good performance. You can read the manual and follow steps to increase performance however be warned you cannot change the number of objects. Changing the number of objects in the settings menu will not alter the amount of objects you see, your computer has to render each object wether it likes it or not!
To improve your frame rates the most drastic thing you can do is turn HDR off,I do not like doing this as the quality of the sim gets reduced when this happens. Light is not reflected etc.. and when flying around Mykonos with HDR off you can considerably notice the difference day and night. 
 
3D Modeling: 
The 3D modeling is great and very creative. Mykonos can look a bit square but thats how it looks in real life! The 3D modeling in this scenery is not  ground breaking or overwhelming, but simple and life like. The architecture of the airport at Mykonos is very simple anyway so the icarus team have a faithful replica. Other Aerosoft airports can be known for their bland and emptiness, Mykonos is totally different. The best 3D model has to be the turning windmill don't you agree? The windmills turn not to fast and not to slow, a very good rendition! When I visited Mykonos the windmills were barely turning, this is because there was not enough wind that day, just blazing hot sun! Obviously the windmills in x-plane are not wind dependent but still operate great! 3D modeling just outside the airport is also very good, the benches, bins, people, signs, railings all are very detailed. The vegetation has many different varieties, shapes and sizes, lot's of work has gone into that end of 3D modeling as well. 
 

 
Every model is custom made with precision and high resolution textures, some models are basic but this reflects the style of the real Mykonos.
 
Night lighting:
The night lighting in the town looks okay, you definitely know you are entering Myknonos, the white walls are even further emphasized by the lights! The airports runway is extremely dark and hard to visually find 15nm from the island but this is nobodies fault, just the airports fault for not installing more lights! The main Apron lighting is sum what special.
 

 
The bright cast of pale white light shines on the side of your aircraft as you move about the apron, the light even lights up inside the cockpit! However the light is very pale and not appealing to the eye. Also another thing that could be added to the light casting are rays of light coming from the bulb, I have seen this in many of Aerosofts airports for FSX, there is a picture below. There is not much else to comment about the lighting apart from it being very dark over the otherside of the island where no houses have been modeled and therefore there is no night lighting.
 
What to find on the Apron:
During my initial wander around the airport the apron looked very basic. However that's simply because there are not many object where you taxi your plane, most airport objects such as portable fire extinguishers, buses, GA Aircraft, stairs, the Aegean Airbus, cones, GPU's, belt loaders and cars etc.. As you can see the list is long and therefore creates a realistic environment. The apron is also home to the "ultra HD Ground Textures", written on paper can still impress but walking around the apron whilst oil spills reflect the sun is just great! As well as the oil spills and concrete cracks the grey grained ground looks good in HD as well. Before seeing the ground textures I did not know what to expect, I thought that the ground textures would look like the default repetitive design however I was totally wrong.
 

 
The main missing item on the apron is taxi lines and markings, but this is accurate to real life as pilots have to rely on ground crews to guide them in! This is very realistic as you feel as though you have to wait for the ground crew to turn up when you're in your aircraft ready to park up! In all, this creates a very realistic experience.
 
The biggest objects on the apron are the apron lights. These lights stretch high into the sky and have been modeled with precision, just like everything else on the apron.
 
Summary:
So is this scenery on the Beti-x Stewart level?               Unfortunately no, not quite, but close! It is very nice to have a whole island with an airport, especially with orthophoto under everything. This airport brings something special to x-plane, a realistic experience wether your in a GA Aircraft or a heavy 737. It is difficult to make a replica of an international airport, also very time consuming. Despite that Mykonos is very close to the real thing, every building and visual. I would most certainly recommend Mykonos to any FS enthusiast, even though the airport is small and basic the icarus/aerosoft team have re-created the airport and island with precision.
 


 
When flying long haul to Mykonos you are waiting desperately to land just to see the airport in it's beauty. It's as though you can feel the heat when you open the door and put on your sun glasses, looking around at the airport as you walk toward the enclosed passenger terminal. When flying around Mykonos I also sense a colour scheme, it's as though I have a product like Maxx-fx running (which I don't). Everything seams light blue and bright, just how I experienced the real Mykonos on my real life trip.
 
"Overall the textures and 3D modeling within the airport from Aerosoft, summed with the high resolution orthophotos and great visuals, puts this scenery in the top list of airports ever made for X-Plane 10!"
 
For the price of this scenery at $21.48 it is worth the purchase. Don't think of this airport as small and basic, there is so much to explore!
 
There are always ways in which things can be improved, more objects around the dock and town area could be a start. But then people with low end machines will not be able to run the scenery, icarus can either find a balance or have an option to show certain types of objects etc.. Also it would look great to see moving objects around the airport such as belt loaders and even 3D people, such as the ones Orbx have!
 


 
One last thing was the difference of colours between two of the orthophoto's just past Ornos, this left a line between the two. Just a simple fix though of changing the brightness/contrast (pictured below). But don't let this put you off, so much is already included much of which is explained above. This scenery is a great rendition of Mykonos for x-plane.
 
Orhtophoto issue:

 
 
So why not wait, you can buy LGMK - Mykonos Airport for $21.48 on the X-Plane.OrgStore.
 
Please comment if you have any further questions.                      
 
Aircraft Featured:
 
- Robinson R66 by Alabeo
- A230neo by JARdesign
- C208B Grand Caravan by Carenado
- PA46 Malibu Mirage by Carenado
- C172RG Cutlass by Alabeo
- B200 King Air by Carenado
- 732 TwinJet by FlyJSim
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:
- Intel Core i5 3330 @ 3.00GHz
- 4.00gb of RAM
- Geforce GTX 650 1
 
Software:
- Windows 7 64 bit
- X-Plane 10 Global version 10.25
- Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System
- LGMK - Mykonos Airport by Aerosoft
- Skymaxx Pro
 
Review by Joe Sharman
 
29th June 2014
 
Copyright©2014 : X-Plane Reviews
 

These engines are very old fashioned!...  you just can't push up the power and let the engine management do the job of protecting them. You are now the engine management as the engines will burn out quickly. So easy does it on the throttle, yes you can give 100% power on takeoff, but then get the power well back into the safety zone as quickly as possible. And then manage the power...  SD

Aircraft Thoughts and Opinions : Boeing 732 TwinJet by FlyJSim
 
Test Route: LSZH (Zurich Airport) to EGGD (Bristol Airport)
 
The FlyJSim 737-200 TwinJet is a massive release for the x-plane community, its not often that somebody makes a massive jet! This 732 is special; its not as technologically advanced as its bigger brother the 777, yet it is easier to fly than a 757. This aircraft has been long awaited by many of us, and finally its here! If the "200" part of the name (737-200) puts you off, be assured that the systems have been greatly modeled. And you can also wait about another few months or less for the new release of a 737-CL by IXEG, but that "classic" model still classes as a 737-100/200.
 
 Today I am going to give my views and opinions of certain features on this fantastic jet, starting with aesthetics.
 
Exterior Aesthetics:
This aircraft looks almost vintage from outside, its a shame some of the liveries do not support this and look "clean". However from its design you can clearly tell that this aircraft is old and well maintained. One of many of my favourite features are the long sloped Pratt and Whitney JT8D's, with their reflective mirror like look, nowadays by chance it is very unlikely that you will see these engines attached to a 732 as normally airlines choose the later updated 737-700/800. I also like the thickly shaped fuselage with the fat nose, it looks and feels like a tank when flying! Despite all of that there is one thing that I do not like about the exterior of the 732, the passenger windows. In my opinion the window textures are to clean and repetitive. The glass texture that jack and the team chose for the passenger windows looks dull and to bright, I believe that to improve the texture FlyJSim should use more of photo-real glass texture so it feels as though you are looking in when viewing the aircraft exterior. But an argument against that is when you fly you sit in the cockpit, not outside the aircraft ;-)

 
Another thing I also like about the 732 exterior are the landing lights! These lights are amazing and greatly animated and designed! The lights under the wing hang off of the flap runners and move when the flaps are extended etc.. A great feature!
 
Interior Aesthetics:
Pictures do not do justice for the 732, you need to see it to believe it. The B732 is very immersive, with a slight window reflection on the captains and first officer side in the cockpit and high resolution textures, I nearly forgot I was sat at my desk and not flying high in the sky! My favourite part of my journey from Zurich to Bristol was having to go-around at 600ft on my landing due to a casual yet annoying feature in x-plane, deer on the runway! My normal reactions would be to click "local map" and move the deer far, far away, but I forgot I was in a simulator so I decided to go-around at 600ft when I spotted them. This turned out great as the low 6200ft sharp turns over the city of Bristol looked great! So you can relate to my previous comment about being immersed in the B732. When looking behind toward the door to the cabin the back wall texture in the cockpit is slightly blurry, it still is at a high resolution just not as high as the main panel textures. It would be great if the circuit breakers were modelled just like in the FlyJSim 727, but unfortunately they are not. However the photo textures on the back walls of the cockpit have been taken in the pilots perspective, this means that the photo real textures on the back wall look slightly 3D.
 


 
The yoke looks phenomenal, it has an amazing worn look which looks very realistic. I also like the fact that you have the option to disable viewing of it however it is much easier to click on it to disappear such as in a Carenado aircraft. The gauges also have nice textures, a slightly worn affect.
 
Jack Skieczius (lead dev of FlyJSim) did comment during his live stream of the 732 that he is planning on adding another seat texture where you will be able to switch between the two. The new seat texture will be "fluffy" it will look near enough identical to the seat texture in the 757 by Flightfactor.
 
Despite the great things listed above the cabin is not modelled? The closest you can get to the cabin is through the "call flight attendant" the button simply plays the PA sound. I did ask Jack during his live stream why the cabin was not modelled, he replied with something like:  "well, the cabin wasn't modeled because I simply don't go there in flight, I sit in the cockpit". This is a very fair point by Jack, sometimes though I think its nice to have a look back there in flight whilst the pilot is 'stretching his/hers legs'! Across the main panel you also get reflections from the sun, I am not talking about shadows, no, I am talking about the sun leaving a white cast on the gauges. This is a fantastic visual effect, the only issue I have is that it is a bit bright and when holding short at Zurich I could not monitor my engine gauges as I could not see them! Overall though I suppose all visual effects add to the great realism.
 

 
The overhead panel contains many switches and knobs that all have the same cream texture, this looks great but it could be even better if some have a weathered look. This point is just being really picky and it doesn't matter really.
 
The cockpit floor is pretty detailed, you can see the dirt and mud engraved into the groves of the metal, in my opinion when entering the cockpit the dirty floor adds to the realism.
 
Overall the interior looks very close to reality which makes this 732 cockpit/plane one of the best modelled and available for X-Plane 10.
 


 
Lighting:
The in-cockpit lighting is truly first class! You have many options for lighting, my favourite is the overhead moveable light (map light), you can spin the light and it will cast a spill on wherever you have positioned it. Ass well as this you get your general lights such as "dome" , "overhead switch" lighting, "main panel" lighting etc.. all of the lights look great as you would expect. There is not a lack of lights but it would be even nicer to have a few more such as the orange lighting which casts over the A/P panel. Apart from the main lights you expect I find not much more here.
 

 
Systems:
Nearly all of the systems aboard the aircraft are modelled in detail which I think is great and therefore worth the $47 price tag. The following systems are simulated:
 
. Air system
. Anti-ice
. Autopilot (SP77)
. Com/Nav Radios
. Electrical
. Fire protection
. Hydraulics
. Fuel
. Warning Systems
. Weather Radar
 
My favorite three systems are the Sperry SP77 autopilot, the weather radar system and the warning system.
 

 
The SP77 Autopilot is very simple to learn and use. For a detailed explanation read The autopilot is easy to operate and see, despite its simplicity the autopilot is very effective. my second favorite system aboard the aircraft is the weather radar. I love how you can adjust lots of options you have for the weather radar! Next to the radar on both sides is a yoke. The yoke itself isn't really a system that FlyJSim spent many months on but it is connected to a system that they did, the A/P (autopilot). The yoke moves around by itself as the autopilot navigates the plane, it's phenomenal seeing the yoke and the trim wheel both working together in unison. Another system that I think should also be implemented is ground services. The a320neo does a fantastic job of this, it would be great to see moving airport utility vehicles around the 732 also.
 
If you would like a detailed explanation of all of the systems and how to use them then I suggest for you to check out Stephen's 732 review.
 
Overall I believe that the systems are simulated spectacularly. 
 
Sounds:
First the warning system. The sounds of the warning system are very realistic, especially the altitude call outs. I believe that the altitude call out (500, 100, 50, 40, 30 etc..) have been recorded real time and refined. I also like the sound of the over speed warning, the loud repetitive sound will surely grab your attention! Also the autopilot disengaged sound is near enough perfect to match the real thing, according to youtube videos!  Another thing I noticed was the v1 and rotate call outs! After hearing Jack's voice from his live stream I think that the call outs are actually him! so your virtual cop-pilot is Jack ( lead dev of FlyJSim) and he is with you for every flight you go on! The call outs that you hear are v1 and rotate, it would be great to hear many more of these whilst flying such as 'positive rate of clime' and 'gear up'.
 


 
The engines sound great this is because the sounds are from dream engine and turbine sound studio. Although my personal opinion is that they sound a bit strained, the engines still look and sound realistic. 
 
The only other sounds the aircraft makes are the knobs and switches. They all make clicking sounds that sound okay, maybe a bit quiet?
 
Sidebar menu:
The side bar menu comes with many different options. You have four boxes that you can select to bring up options, the level of options is great but it could be even better if you have the options of service vehicles like I mentioned above. Despite that there are still many different options you have. I think that the options menu can feel a bit basic after a while but its still a great feature that's there. The artwork behind which looks good. The blue and cream colour scheme for the release of the 732 can really be seen here especially behind the weight and balance manager.
 

 
The weight and balance manager is also great, my favorite feature is the one to click in the blue rectangles to fill up the passengers, the same is applied to the cargo which is nice.
 
Liveries:
The aircraft comes with 7 liveries that are all at a high resolution. only including 7 is a bit strange, but not to panic there are many extra to download for free on x-plane.org. Here is a list of the default liveries included:
blank (white) Southwest  Westjet Aer lingus Air france Aloha KLM
 
My favourite livery has to be the Westjet, don't you agree? if that's not enough then there are many to download for free:
Pan Am   ( clipper morning glory ) (two liveries, one clean and the other dirty) Pan Am  ( traditional ). US Air Force : this livery is just fantastic! Air One United Airlines Cayman Airways Continental "red meatball" Air North Lufthansa (the livery used in this "thoughts and opinions" post) There is now also a category dedicated to all new painted liveries for the B732: on the x-plane.org
 
Landing at Bristol International:
 

 
Overview:
Overall this aircraft is truly phenomenal and you have to experience the simulation in x-plane yourself to agree to the praise I have gave it. The FlyjSim team have really gathered all of their talents for this plane and it that is shown throughout the plane. There are many sounds that play behind the scenes but it would be nice to have a few more such as the extra co-pilot call outs! You have a range of options to chose from but it would be even better to have more such as:
changeable cockpit textures from 'worn' to 'clean' the option to change the seat texture options for service vehicles such as 'catering' and 'stairs' But apart from those small picky points not much more can be changed. It was a shame that the interior cabin was not modelled however Jack gave a valid reason for not doing that! This aircraft is most definitely worth $47, every cent is well spent!! Especially when you also receive a free copy of KILM Wilmington worth $30!
 
I would urge you to grab a copy for yourself just to experience this amazing aircraft, I forgot I was sat at my desk and not at "27'000ft"! Just imagine this with the oculus rift virtual reality headset! Here is my personal list of my favourite features: just to list a few:
cockpit textures flight dynamics aircraft systems sounds night lighting So there are all of my truthful thoughts and opinions of the B737-200 TwinJet by FlyJSim.
 
If you are looking for a full review please read
 
Price : $47.00 - Boeing 732 TwinJet 
 
You also get a free copy of KILM Wilmington with your purchase!!!!!!!
 
This"thoughts and opinions" post for the B732 was conducted in x-plane 10.25. If you wish to find out about the B732 in 10.30b1 you can refer to the bottom of
 
Scenery used for the test route:
 
LSZH : Zurich Airport
 
EGGD : Bristol International 
 
Copyright©2014 : X-Plane Reviews
 
Review System Specification:
Computer System:
- Intel Core i5 3330 @ 3.00GHz
- 4.00gb of RAM
- Geforce GTX 650 

Software/hardware:
- Windows 7 64 bit
- X-Plane 10 Global version 10.25
- Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System
- 732 TwinJet by FlyJSim
- Skymaxx pro
 

Scenery Review : LGMK - Airport Mykonos        by Aerosoft
 
This is my review of LGMK Mykonos, having been there myself I hope this review gives you a detailed insight to how Aerosofts rendition of Mykonos compares to the real thing! 
 
Publisher and Developer:
Mykonos LGMK is Aerosoft's latest scenery release! Developed by Icarus, this scenery is definitely one not to ignore. Aerosoft have released many sceneries in the past, but none live up to the standard of Mykonos! LGMK is Aerosofts first scenery using new developed features such as, animated ground traffic and Ultra HD textures. This is also Aerosofts first scenery covering a whole island in lots of detail! This release is the first time I heard the name Icarus, after some research I found out that the team are also developing a DC-9 which is very exciting!
 
So LGMK Airport Mykonos can be found on a small island of Mykonos off the coast from Athens in Greece. In Greek mythology, Mykonos island named from Mykons, son of Greek God Apollo. The place of a big battle between Zeus and Titans, where Hercules killed the powerful Giants. Even now it is rumored that the large rocks over the island are corpses of the Giants. Mykonos is the most famous island in the heart of Cyclades and Aegean Sea, which attracts thousands of tourists every year.
 
Installation and Documentation: 
Mykonos could not be easier to install, just simply run the installer that you download and select your x-plane folder. After entering your activation code it will start installing. In the past I have had trouble using the installer provided by Aerosoft, others seem to have had the same issue, but installing Mykonos worked perfectly.
 



 
If you are new to x-plane in general then you may install the scenery and load up the sim and see your new airport, however you can find the manual within the three folders that are installed. First locate your x-plane 10 folder and click into 'custom scenery' in here you will find three folders each with Mykonos in the title. The folder you need to open is called 'Mykonos Airport' in here you will find the very detailed 16 page manual. The manual tells you everything that you need to know, and includes extensive explanations of certain things including a FAQ (frequently asked questions). Unfortunately no charts are provided with the scenery, this could be something forgotten or the charts were intended not to be included. Anyhow it doesn't matter too much as many charts can be found online.
 
Features:
From Aerosoft: 
 
"This scenery package has been designed to take advantage of the most modern X-Plane technologies, like HDR lighting, texture detailing, object instancing, and many more. In order to experience the feeling of the actual airport during the night, the HDR option, in the rendering options, should be checked on. The night lighting was carefully designed to represent the real life lighting with the minimum affect on frame rates. The Airport is represented as close as possible to the real counterpart, with the combined use of Ultra High Definition (UHD) textures and High Definition (HD) textures. The ground is represented with custom textures with resolution 3-5cm/pixel. The whole island is covered with 50cm/pixel satellite imagery (orthophotos) with added shaders for increased resolution, with hundreds of the well known white/blue “Aegean Sea” type houses and local vegetation (trees), giving an accurate representation of the island. For the towns of Mykonos (Chora), houses are almost 1-to-1 ratio to the real world, giving you the feeling of the dense town. Moreover, every light is a “real” light, emitting and lighting the surroundings. There are plenty animations providing a “living” environment, like the windmills. Also there is maritime traffic around the island."
Highly detailed rendition of Mykonos International Airport (LGMK) Complete coverage of over 140km with high resolution satellite imagery (0.5m/px) High resolution day and night scenery complex terrain mesh animated car traffic around the airport complete reconstruction of airport's lighting equipment realistic 3D grass and vegetation complex reconstruction of the town over 2,000 hand placed objects animated windmills Highly detailed manual compatible with x-plane 10 HD Mesh Scenery v2 x-plane 10 HDR lighting custom ground textures with about 5cm/px (only airport area) First Impressions: 
The first thing that stood out to me was the scale and complexity of the scenery, every house on the island has been placed on top of an orthophoto at high resolution! This airport is great for VFR circuits over the main town, so that is the first thing I did. I started up the Carenado Malibu Mirage and taxied to runway 34. After take off I turned left and flew over the small town. Flying over the town was great fun, from 1,200ft you can see the windmills turning and boats slowly sailing around the island! If you look closely you can also see small smoke puffs coming from the cruise ships parked in the docks!
 



 
The town looks very clustered with houses from 1500ft, however close down the houses can appear to be spaced out. I have pointed this out as when I visited Mykonos the public foot paths were only about 3 meters wide! You can even tell from google earth how crammed the houses are in the town. After flying over the town I turned left and set my heading back to runway 34. The approach was actually quite challenging! As the runway is slopped at 400ft above sea level it is a difficult approach. Nether the less it was pretty fun, trying not to touch the roofs on the big hotels!
Also the other thing that stood out first was how detailed the ground textures are at the airport, the 5cm/px looks excellent especially when taxiing off of the runway onto the apron.
 
Location:
Having been here myself I personally love the location of Mykonos, surrounded by islands in the Aegean Sea! But currently this gives us all one issue, where can we go to do a short flight from Mykonos? You are probably thinking of the small islands around Mykonos however there is no amazing scenery to fly to. I have done a few long flights to Mykonos however sometimes I like to jump in a small cessna and island hop! It would be great to island hop to Tinos (the island next to Mykonos) or all the way to Athens! Having been to Athens as well, it would be great to see some fantastic sceneries for around there! So the x-plane.org downloads would be a good place to search however we are in need for another good quality payware airport near Myknonos that we can fly to!
Apart from that Mykonos is a nice destination for flying around europe. 
 
Textures and Frame Rates:
The textures on the airport buildings are all standard white with a slight layer of dirt which looks good as the airport looks a little worn and not brand new. Cracks can also be noticed on the walls and pillars. The roof textures have to be the best, all colours match the same as real life and the roof window hatches have cloud reflections! By the way I should point out that the reflection is a picture within the texture, there are no 'actual' reflections. The ground textures on the beaches and slightly out to sea look phenomenal! The sea looks great and I feel as though I want top go swimming in it! The orthophoto sea also fades out nicely into the default sea. Overall the textures and 3D modeling within the airport from Aerosoft, summed with the high resolution orthophotos and great visuals, puts this scenery in the top list of airports ever made for X-Plane 10!
 


 
Despite this the control tower windows look very dark and they do not have reflections. I believe that the texture needs to be brightened up and reflections should be added, this will then make the control tower look identical to the real one! Also the A320 parked on the apron has low resolution textures compared to the rest of the scenery. It would look great if the textures where sharpened up on the A320, in turn it would add more realism.
 
With the addition to better textures brings us onto frame rates. All textures within this scenery are .dds, this adds performance which is good. On average I get around 28 fps. Sometimes this does drop, for example the 3D lighting has a negative effect on fps. As each light in the scenery, including the island, casts a spill on the XP environment. Overall the frame rates aren't too bad, but I would advise you to check your system first before purchasing as you want to make sure that you can run it and get good performance. You can read the manual and follow steps to increase performance however be warned you cannot change the number of objects. Changing the number of objects in the settings menu will not alter the amount of objects you see, your computer has to render each object wether it likes it or not!
To improve your frame rates the most drastic thing you can do is turn HDR off,I do not like doing this as the quality of the sim gets reduced when this happens. Light is not reflected etc.. and when flying around Mykonos with HDR off you can considerably notice the difference day and night. 
 
3D Modeling: 
The 3D modeling is great and very creative. Mykonos can look a bit square but thats how it looks in real life! The 3D modeling in this scenery is not  ground breaking or overwhelming, but simple and life like. The architecture of the airport at Mykonos is very simple anyway so the icarus team have a faithful replica. Other Aerosoft airports can be known for their bland and emptiness, Mykonos is totally different. The best 3D model has to be the turning windmill don't you agree? The windmills turn not to fast and not to slow, a very good rendition! When I visited Mykonos the windmills were barely turning, this is because there was not enough wind that day, just blazing hot sun! Obviously the windmills in x-plane are not wind dependent but still operate great! 3D modeling just outside the airport is also very good, the benches, bins, people, signs, railings all are very detailed. The vegetation has many different varieties, shapes and sizes, lot's of work has gone into that end of 3D modeling as well. 
 

 
Every model is custom made with precision and high resolution textures, some models are basic but this reflects the style of the real Mykonos.
 
Night lighting:
The night lighting in the town looks okay, you definitely know you are entering Myknonos, the white walls are even further emphasized by the lights! The airports runway is extremely dark and hard to visually find 15nm from the island but this is nobodies fault, just the airports fault for not installing more lights! The main Apron lighting is sum what special.
 

 
The bright cast of pale white light shines on the side of your aircraft as you move about the apron, the light even lights up inside the cockpit! However the light is very pale and not appealing to the eye. Also another thing that could be added to the light casting are rays of light coming from the bulb, I have seen this in many of Aerosofts airports for FSX, there is a picture below. There is not much else to comment about the lighting apart from it being very dark over the otherside of the island where no houses have been modeled and therefore there is no night lighting.
 
What to find on the Apron:
During my initial wander around the airport the apron looked very basic. However that's simply because there are not many object where you taxi your plane, most airport objects such as portable fire extinguishers, buses, GA Aircraft, stairs, the Aegean Airbus, cones, GPU's, belt loaders and cars etc.. As you can see the list is long and therefore creates a realistic environment. The apron is also home to the "ultra HD Ground Textures", written on paper can still impress but walking around the apron whilst oil spills reflect the sun is just great! As well as the oil spills and concrete cracks the grey grained ground looks good in HD as well. Before seeing the ground textures I did not know what to expect, I thought that the ground textures would look like the default repetitive design however I was totally wrong.
 

 
The main missing item on the apron is taxi lines and markings, but this is accurate to real life as pilots have to rely on ground crews to guide them in! This is very realistic as you feel as though you have to wait for the ground crew to turn up when you're in your aircraft ready to park up! In all, this creates a very realistic experience.
 
The biggest objects on the apron are the apron lights. These lights stretch high into the sky and have been modeled with precision, just like everything else on the apron.
 
Summary:
So is this scenery on the Beti-x Stewart level?               Unfortunately no, not quite, but close! It is very nice to have a whole island with an airport, especially with orthophoto under everything. This airport brings something special to x-plane, a realistic experience wether your in a GA Aircraft or a heavy 737. It is difficult to make a replica of an international airport, also very time consuming. Despite that Mykonos is very close to the real thing, every building and visual. I would most certainly recommend Mykonos to any FS enthusiast, even though the airport is small and basic the icarus/aerosoft team have re-created the airport and island with precision.
 


 
When flying long haul to Mykonos you are waiting desperately to land just to see the airport in it's beauty. It's as though you can feel the heat when you open the door and put on your sun glasses, looking around at the airport as you walk toward the enclosed passenger terminal. When flying around Mykonos I also sense a colour scheme, it's as though I have a product like Maxx-fx running (which I don't). Everything seams light blue and bright, just how I experienced the real Mykonos on my real life trip.
 
"Overall the textures and 3D modeling within the airport from Aerosoft, summed with the high resolution orthophotos and great visuals, puts this scenery in the top list of airports ever made for X-Plane 10!"
 
For the price of this scenery at $21.48 it is worth the purchase. Don't think of this airport as small and basic, there is so much to explore!
 
There are always ways in which things can be improved, more objects around the dock and town area could be a start. But then people with low end machines will not be able to run the scenery, icarus can either find a balance or have an option to show certain types of objects etc.. Also it would look great to see moving objects around the airport such as belt loaders and even 3D people, such as the ones Orbx have!
 


 
One last thing was the difference of colours between two of the orthophoto's just past Ornos, this left a line between the two. Just a simple fix though of changing the brightness/contrast (pictured below). But don't let this put you off, so much is already included much of which is explained above. This scenery is a great rendition of Mykonos for x-plane.
 
Orhtophoto issue:

 
 
So why not wait, you can buy LGMK - Mykonos Airport for $21.48 on the X-Plane.OrgStore.
 
Please comment if you have any further questions.                      
 
Aircraft Featured:
 
- Robinson R66 by Alabeo
- A230neo by JARdesign
- C208B Grand Caravan by Carenado
- PA46 Malibu Mirage by Carenado
- C172RG Cutlass by Alabeo
- B200 King Air by Carenado
- 732 TwinJet by FlyJSim
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:
- Intel Core i5 3330 @ 3.00GHz
- 4.00gb of RAM
- Geforce GTX 650 1
 
Software:
- Windows 7 64 bit
- X-Plane 10 Global version 10.25
- Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System
- LGMK - Mykonos Airport by Aerosoft
- Skymaxx Pro
 
Review by Joe Sharman
 
29th June 2014
 
Copyright©2014 : X-Plane Reviews
 

Aircraft Review : B200 King Air HD Series by Carenado 
 
Route : Archerfield (YBAF) to Roma (YROM) to Longreach (YLRE) and Mt Isa (YBMA) : Distance 979.31nm 
 
This is the B200 is second King Air release from Carenado after the C90B in November 2013. Both aircraft very much the same from the cockpit forward, but they are very different in design and by length at the rear by 8.3ft and the B200 has a distinctive large T-Tail configuration that came out of the development of the 100 series that had the longer fuselage over the C90 Series but still kept its conventional tail arrangement. The Model 200 series and Model 300 series as they became known were originally marketed as the "Super King Air" family, but the "Super" was dropped in 1996, but the B200 is still in most cases called the Super King Air. 
 
 
The Model 200 was originally conceived as the Model 101 in 1969. Apart from the T-tail, other changes included Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-41 engines rated at 1,015 shp (757 kW) instead of the 805 shp (600 kW) engines of the Model A100 then in production, and a wing of increased span and extra fuel capacity.Overall, the 200 series was 3 ft 10 in (1.17 m) longer than the A100, with wingspan 4 ft 3 in (1.29 m) greater, containing 60 US gallons (230 L) more fuel. Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) was increased by 1,000 lb (450 kg). After protracted development that including extensive wind tunnel testing of the design (especially of the T-tail which was tunnel-tested for 375 hours),the first 200 Series prototype flew for the first time on October 27, 1972; a second prototype took to the air on December 15th of the same year.
Three production aircraft were also built in 1972 and delivered to the U.S. Army, these three were designated Model A100-1s by Beechcraft and were given the military designation RU-21J, which was the first of some 400 T-tail King Airs to be ordered by the U.S. armed forces. The 200 received civil certification in December 1973 and the first civil delivery took place in February 1974. 
 
Performance : Maximum speed: 339 mph (294 knots, 545 km/h) at 25,000 ft (7,600m) - Cruise speed: 333 mph (289 knots, 536 km/h) at 25,000 ft (7,620 m) (max cruise) - Stall speed: 86 mph (75 knots, 139 km/h) IAS (flaps down) - Range: 2,075 mi (1,800 nm, 3,338 km)with maximum fuel and 45 minutes reserve - Service ceiling: 35,000 ft (10,700 m) - Rate of climb: 2,450 ft/min (12.5 m/s). 
 
Royal Flying Doctor Service.
One of the largest operators of the B200 King Air is the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. In Australia the aircraft is very wildly recognised more through the familiarity of the aircraft as it is an icon of the outback of the services it provides. The RFD service has 12 Beechcraft B200 (Basic) King Air's, 20 Beechcraft B200C King Air's and 2 Beechcraft B300C King Air's with 34 aircraft in total (latest add-ons to the fleet include C208 Caravans). The Model 200C in was introduced in 1979, and this version had a large cargo door on the LH side of the rear fuselage with an airstair door similar to the Model 200's door built into it. The door opening was 4 ft 4 in (1.33 m) high and 4 ft 4 in (1.33 m) wide, allowing a large range of items to be loaded into the cabin.
 
The Model 200C found favour with many operators who fitted them out internally as Air Ambulances like with the RFDS. The 200C was built from scratch rather than as a modification of the Model 200. The RFDS is a very old service that was created by the Reverend John Flynn had worked in rural and remote areas of Victoria and was commissioned by the Presbyterian Church to look at the needs of Outback people. His report to the Presbyterian Assembly in 1912 resulted in the establishment of the Australian Inland Mission (AIM), of which he was appointed Superintendent.
In 1928, he formed the AIM Aerial Medical Service a 1-year experiment based in Cloncurry, Queensland. This experiment later became The Royal Flying Doctor Service. Today the RFDS is based at Alice Springs. The RFDS is made up of seven legal entities – National Office, Central Operations, Queensland Section, South Eastern Section, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Operations. The RFDS operates in a federated structure and each of the seven entities has its own Board and Management. Each entity operates independently, both financially and operationally. Every now and then the RFDS has to replace aircraft in the fleet and being a commercial self-funded operation the fleet is a mixture of old and new aircraft. So here we are going to deliver a second-hand German aircraft that had been delivered to Brisbane in Queensland for delivery to the Central Australian Alice Springs base,. But first it has to flown from Archerfield to Mt Isa for a RFDS paint job and registration change. 
 

 
Departure from Archerfield was wet and cold. Which is very unusual for Queensland which is situated in the tropics. Sometimes you get a southern wind that comes all the way up from the Antartica, and that plummets the weather from a very nice 22º to a freezing cold 4º in one day. 
The B200 comes with great rain and ice effects and a misty cabin to make you feel at home, and a new feature of an exhaust gas shimmering effect on the turbines. You have to look pretty hard to find it, but it is there.The aircraft is noticeable in several areas in the B200 than the C90 and it is that first is that the big T-Tail makes the aircraft very twitchy in strong winds.
I had a nasty 16knt side-wind and you worked very hard to keep the aircraft straight while going down the runway and it was even more apparent once you were airborne and climbing up through the gusts. So you are working hard in keeping the aircraft smooth and straight. You can't over power the turbines either. Once clear of the runway you have to dial the power back to at least 88% torgue or they will start to fail on you. The B200 does not like the default scenery much either. The C90B had an issue with those 2K textures (Which were X-Plane9 left-overs) on your frame-rate, the B200 has the newer larger 4K textures and they are heavily revised to help in the frame-rate and so dropping the texture resolution has no effect on the frame-rate and even under my 512mb VRAM limit (around 362mb was the average). However if you put any default autogen around the aircraft and then the frame-rate dropped markedly, The weather did not help things either, but even in clear weather the aircraft did still not enjoy any heavy autogen? 
 

 
But the slightly extra length of the aircraft and the high tail makes this King Air a lovely machine in the air. It is beautifully constructed by Carenado and the aircraft has a great physical presence. You notice the 2K textures, but only from some angles, in other angles the livery looks really good and clean and I can easily live with that. 
 

 
You have the option to either have the standard wing or one with winglets. Both are well designed, but the winglet's are simply beautiful in their curved shape out of the wing. The aircraft looks stunning in any point of view with them selected. 
 

 
By any stretch of the imagination, Australia is a big place. It is the size of America in that after the Mississippi it is then just desert all the way to California. More than that the barren emptiness starts only a few hundred kilometers inland from the sea, all Australians mostly just cling desperately to the cooler ring of the coast. Our first stop is at Roma which is only 252.42nm inland from Brisbane at an average of 220knts, so you were there in just a little over an hour and a half. 
 

 
In the lighter inland 5knt winds I find the aircraft nicer under the controls. In all the landings here I never found the sweet spot to drop the first of the three stage flaps. Dropping the speed to just below 120knts still gave me a lift I didn't need and then all the full power I had to bring the speed back up to counteract the drag, I tried different ideas of finding the right place (speed) to drop the flap (To Approach) to make it smoother, but I never found it. But under the yoke and rudder however the B200 was very easy to control in the descent and lining up of the runway, even fun really as the aircraft reacted the right way you wanted it to. But the devil was in that if you struck the lower high-winds the aircraft suddenly became very twitchy again. 
 

 
Outside lighting is excellent with a taxi-light on the front undercarriage strut with two landing lights, outboard on each wing was an extra landing light that created a full lighting effect right across the landing runway. This arrangement would be ideal for landing at a dirt strip at light. The rest of the outside lighting is excellent as well, with a high tail beacon, three strobes (wings and tail) and Navigation lights. 
 
Roma
 

 
Approaching the aircraft the next morning you can see what options you have to play with. There are three pop-up menu options in typical Carenado fashion down on the lower left of your screen. 1) is the Views or © Camera, 2) is the Options (O) and 3) is the Autopilot (A). A walk around the aircraft notes the excellent entry door on the left rear, Carenado leave nothing to spoil the completeness of the design. Everything is totally detailed to perfection. The riveting and paneling, the wing panels with those excellent leading edge rubber ice-boots. That high towering T-Tail that is so significant to this design. The undercarriage is very well constructed with perfect linkages (animation) and piping connected to the well designed braking units on the hubs, The undercarriage when retracted is still semi-exposed (the tyres). Smaller detailing is well covered in all the required pitot tubes, radio annennas (and cables) and moving trailing edge Static dischargers. (O) Options gives you access to - Window Reflections - Winglets - Static Elements - Passenger Door (rear exit) and finally the Cockpit door that separates the cabin from the cockpit. 
 


 
The cold cockpit is very familiar if you have come straight from the C90B, it is almost an exact replica here except for the two Garmin GNS430 units (Com 1 - VOR 1 and Com 2 - VOR 2). Panel detailing is phenomenal almost overwhelmingly good, note the metal sliders on the rudder pedals and you can see how far Carenado will go with almost every nut and bolt, switch and knob created to an intimate detail. Lower pilots panel behind the (hidden) yokes. The switch gear covers all the lighting and electrical elements of the aircraft with engine anti-ice and Ice protection. The battery and the Generator switches (1 & 2) are hidden under a panel. Turn on the power supply and the panel comes to life. 
 

 
Instruments on both the pilots and the Co-Pilots positions are basic in just the standard six instruments on both sides. (the altitude display is digital) but updated with the built in EFSI (Electronic Flight Instrument System) that is connected to the Electronic Attitude Director Indicator (EADI) and the Electronic Horizontal Situation Indicator (EHSI) on the main (PFD) aircraft panel, this system works in conjunction with the autopilot. You have a set of instruments set at the top of the pedestal that covers the Flap position, Cabin Climb (pressure) and Cabin altitude. There is a twin set of gauges set down the panel that covers the engine ITT (*Cx100) - (Interstage Turbine Temperature), Torque (FTLB x 100), Prop - RPM, Turbine % RPM, Fuel Flow and Oil temps. Besides the two Garmin GNS340's there is a AVIDYNE Entegra EX500. This unit is very good but also limited in application.
 
Each engine has its own "Ignition ON" switch, and then another switch to start the each engine that both sets are situated low and behind the yoke. It takes awhile to wind up and then start each turbine to full power. Multi-track stereo sounds are excellent as the whine and then the power as the engine comes into life. When running, don't forget to turn off the Ignition ON switches as displayed on the glareshield. I found an odd note in that the alert panel showed "Battery Chg" on all the time unless you switch the battery switch off, On starting the aircraft hot the alert stayed off with the battery switch in the on position? Lighting is control by a battery of knobs on the overhead panel. You have master to turn them all on together, or you can adjust them individually. The spot lights in the cockpit by the OHP and the rear cabin can be adjusted to point light in any direction. Panel lighting is indirectly and not from behind the instruments and dials... Overall the lighting and switchgear lettering is brilliantly lit and very clearly readable. However I did find in some circumstances the main panel "Instrument Indirect lights" like on the C90B could affect the frame-rate by 20fr, and at other times it did not? switching it off meant flying with a dark panel until conditions changed to use it again? 
 

 
You have twin fuel tanks and the gauges are on a panel on the left side of the pilot. I put in 13.5 x 100lbs per tank to give me 2700lbs of fuel and enough fuel capacity to get me now all the way to Mt Isa. The panel also has two backup switches for standby pumps.
 
The pedestal has twin levers for both engines in the throttles, prop pitch (feather) and condition/fuel cutoff. The condition levers have an idle position (thankfully) and the best placement for taxiing is about half-way from the idle notch to the full throttle position. The aircraft still needs a heavy shove from the throttles to get it moving, but once you are you can do the turns with just the brakes to slip off a little speed. Many runways in Australia are a single runway with a slight space at each end to turn the aircraft around, no problems with the B200 with just a slight nudge from the throttle to get through the tight u-turn. 
 

 
Distance to Longreach is 378.45nm or about 2 hours flying time on a good day, but again those pesky winds came and went with regularity. I had help though with the aircraft's autopilot (AP) system that is located on the rear of the pedestal. You can thankfully use the AP panel as a pop-up by pressing (A) on the menu selection. It is resizable from the very large unit that takes up a big proportion of your screen space to something smaller, it will work outside the cockpit as well which is great if you like to fly like that and still set the autopilot with out ruining the view by having to dip into the cockpit.
Without the pop-up functionality you will know if you have used the X-Plane default King Air of how hard it is to set and reset the unit by it being down and away behind you...  how many times have you looked up to see yourself cartwheeling into the water after takeoff by just a glance away from the window? As noted the AP is part of the EFSI (Electronic Flight Instrument System) that controls many functions over the aircraft. The AP itself is quite straightforward in the standard settings are all set out as usual.
 

 
Here you can select the Heading-HDG - NAV (a note here in that right now the NAV function is fairly useless, however with the new GPS in v10.30 then it will come into its own) - APPR (Approach selection) - B/C - ALT (To hold an altitude) ALT-SEL (Altitude Select with the V/S mode) - V/S (Vertical Speed), the vertical speed is used with the DN/UP button to select the feet per minute (fpm) in - or + in the pitch of the aircraft. I found the aircraft climbed very nicely at 1200fpm and reduced to 800fpm over the last 2000ft (to 10.500ft), The B200 will climb easily at even 2500fpm but a warning in that if you over-torque for longer than 5 minutes with those engines, they will fail, throw smoke and ruin your whole day. You set the Altitude via the altitude select display on the lower panel and use the ALT-SEL to stop the aircraft at the selected height. There are also two CLIMB and DSC selections as well, but they climb and descend in a quick go/to manner. I never used CLIMB/DSC and always the V/S system. AP engage and YAW engage is on the lower panel with the large turn selection knob. Two large selection knobs above the main AP selection buttons are for the HEADING Selection and the COURSE Selection. These are both shown on the main Heading display. The Course needle has a built in CDI (Course Deviation Indicator) 
 

 
 The smaller middle selector knob allows you to change the Heading display into three modes - Rose - ARC and MAP. Out here and way out in the outback of Australia the MAP function is fairly useless with just a few dots, all nav-aids are too small anyway except for a few points on lining up to a runway with a lot of fixes.  In the center of the AP pop-up panel are two arrow buttons that allow you to select on the Heading display either the ADF bearing or a VOR bearing, the other button can be used to select the VOR 2 bearing that shows information on a separate display on the side of the Co-Pilot. There is a manual version for NDF/VOR just next (left) and slightly above to the electronic one. All autopilot selections are displayed on the electronic Artificial Horizon display. The whole instrument package is exactly the same as the version in the C90B. If you love that one, then you will also feel right at home here. The yokes are well in keeping in with the quality of the aircraft. 
 

 
The pilot's yoke has switchable clocks in real time, zulu time and elapsed time that you can start or stop. On the Co-Pilots yoke there is a clever 24 clock that you have to glance at a few times to see how it works. 
 

 
There is a point in every journey when you just fall into the rhythm. It is constant background sounds and it is usually the engines and the slight rushing of air around the body of the aircraft. You are not bored and yet there is very little to do except to watch the gauges and click of the passing numbers of speed and height. There are blinds that you swing around the main windows to block out the sharper light. They make the cockpit even more smaller, more intimate, now and then you look out of the windows of sometimes complete nothingness, a flat landscape with no visual clues on where you are going or where you have come from. Australia is like that in parts, just empty space and you feel very small in the landscape. 
 

 
The main cabin has 6 luxury leather seats with 4 in a club layout, another seat is set behind the rear partition opposite the door/entrance and by a large empty luggage bay. The windows give a great view out outside and the whole cabin feels more like a personal jet than a turboprop. You can adjust the polarized rear cabin windows, as they can be darkened by dragging a handle around in semi-circle. A opening door is situated between the cockpit and the cabin, but this is a delivery flight so we keep it open most of the time. Tables can be stored or open for the pasengers. You can use the excellent menu © Camera or views menu to easily move around inside and outside of the aircraft and change the pilots POV (Point of view). 
 
Night-lighting
 

 
With tbe HDR on the lighting effects are excellent. Every cockpit and cabin roof light is both adjustable for brightness and for direction. This shows how good and effective the X-Plane lighting effects really are when executed with skill. If you swivel the lighting in certain ways you can see the effects from the outside of the aircraft. 
 


 
The panel lighting highlights how far and how good the aircraft lighting has come from the of clever lighting tricks in 2d cockpits and XP9. The cockpit is dream of reality and lighting sources and the lit text that fills up all the your view in any direction. It is a nice place to be in the dark.
 

 
Out of the windows and the green is getting sparse, the drier and hot inner continent is now coming out as life slowly recedes away. The straight line of the Landsborough Highway, the only connection between the the few townships out here and the rest of the world comes into view. Each way you look it just one line from horizon to horizon, but for us a link to something man-made and a pointer to our next destination. 
 

 
Longreach
We could have flown directly to Mt Isa from Roma. But this diversion is only slightly off the main track and being way out here you can't miss the chance to pass by a bit of history. Longreach is part of the birth of QANTAS  or "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Which was founded in November 1920 in Winton 177 kilometres (110 mi) northwest of Longreach, it began flying international services in May 1935. Between these small god forsaken towns an airline that took on the world was conceived out of necessity more than profit, as again the aircraft was the only real means to cover these impossible long distances. 
 


 
There is a museum here to the airline which moved its operations here in 1921, called the "Qantas Founders Outback Museum", which includes amongst its displays a decommissioned Qantas Boeing 747-200 aircraft, registration VH-EBQ, "The City of Bunbury." and QANTAS's first jet aircraft VH-XBA (formerly VH-EBA), a Boeing 707, "The City of Canberra.", Douglas Corporation DC-3 VH-EAP and the heritage listed original Qantas hangar, combining historical artifacts. Yes they landed that huge B742 in knowing it would never leave here again, It was a close landing... very close. The midday sun is hot here and in opening the small side windows on the B200 you would think would let in some cooler air, but it just made the cockpit worse as more heat came in than the hot cockpit had in the first place. 
 
Cloncurry
The next leg was to Cloncurry at 284.44nm. It should have been a breeze but it wasn't. It was hot and airless on the ground at Longreach, but once we had reached our normal 10,500ft altitude the gusty winds made the ride rough and tough. They were  blowing at 19knts and it was tough going, At higher altitudes the wind force was even higher at 23knts and so after a fair while of being bounced around we dropped the aircraft down to under 7000ft and the lesser of two evils at 14knts of gusty winds that was not as hard on the aircraft. 
 

 
The red ore like landscape is the reason that Mt Isa is way out here. It is a mining town, a rough and tumble place were fortunes are made and lost. After still following the Landsborough Highway and passing over Winton until it joined up with the other trans-state Flinders highway over Central Queensland, Cloncurrry was now visible and the very last leg to "The Isa" was only a short 64nm after a heading turn west. 
 
Liveries
You have the standard Carenado white livery and 6 HD (High-Definition) liveries to choose from in 5 Civilian and one military in the Swedish FLYGVAPNET... 
 




 
Sounds are as expected very good. But the main outside high buzzy whine can give you a headache after flying for the many hours as I did here. I ended up with a set of headphones on if I had the aircraft on flying over the scenery which was getting more and more interesting as the fading light was now showing the immense ripples of the formations of rock lying below us. 
 

 
You can understand why this B200 aircraft is so important out here. It has the speed and the range to cover very large distances and then land on a rough runway on a homestead or cut out of the bush for the RFDS next to the highway of which there was many over the distance of the Landsborough and Flinders Highways. It is a very nice aircraft to fly, but that T-Tail has to be respected. 
 

 
Sounds
The 3d surround sounds are overall excellent. But there is a buzzy high whine with the main side on outside view that tired out my ears and gave me a headache after many hours of flying. From that point on I needed the headset on to stop the buzzyness to give my ears a rest if I was flying over the landscape and if I wanted to view the vista below.

 
Mt Isa
Lake Moondarra gives you a focal point to aim for and a turn over the far side bank of the lake gives you a direct lineup to Mt Isa's YBMA RWY16, By now though the several landings with the B200 have learnt of how it behaves and how the aircraft feels like at the lower speeds. And enjoy the slight touch landing...  The engines have a reverse thrust/prop to help the drop down the speed, but in most cases you don't need to use it as the aircraft easily drifts off the speed. Sadly X-Plane does not render "The Isa" backdrop very well, The town is an industrial skyline of company mining infrastructure, X-Plane only gives you the usual low housing estates of California. It has taken the B200 only two flying days to cover the the 979.31nm from Archerfield to Mt Isa. Impressive for a general aviation aircraft and it was how the aircraft covered the distance with ease. The aircraft still has on this journey another 660nm still to go to the RFDS base at Alice Springs, no doubt that would have to be completed in one flying hop, but you have no issues with that sort of distance as the range at 1600nm is phenomenal for an aircraft of this size. In those few days you almost become one with the aircraft, In this case it was easier than most. 
 
Summary
There is always going to be with both these King Airs the controversial comparison between the C90B and the B200. In most cases they share most of exactly the same equipment and both have the same excellent EFSI (Electronic Flight Instrument System) and sitting behind the panel it is hard to tell them apart. No doubt the B200 is the far more powerful and the larger of the two aircraft. And that comes through with the way the aircraft behaves, the differences are subtle but there are still small very noticeable differences, The power to climb and cruise is much more apparent and you feel the difference of that large T-Tail, this with the added slightly different CoG (Center of Gravity) and the extra length is noticeable in the handling which makes the B200 a very nice aircraft to control, except certainly in gusty winds were it gets very twitchy. On this journey I certainly got to understand the aircraft better the more distance I put on the airframe. However more time would allow you to find still more of those subtleties, to find even more control at the limits of the low speed handling. The aircraft needs constantly a firm but fair hand. The aircraft however behaves like the B90C with strange effects on the frame-rate. It does not like added special effects like the autogen and any weather and that is not down to the textures either as it reacted the same at the high autogen of Archerfield as it did once it felt the far smaller autogen arrangement at Mt Isa.
 
The "Instrument Indirect lights" adjustment on the OVH for the main panel also was a sucker of power when it felt like it and so a 20fr loss will come and go at a whim for no reason and it will be interesting how much difference the X-Plane 10.30 upgrade will effect the aircraft and take away these niggles, even with the weather upgrade I feel v10.30 would would give you an substantial improvement here. If you have the power to overcome this, then it is not an issue. It is noted that you do require 1gb of VRAM to run the aircraft correctly, other than these niggles I didn't have problems with that with my 512mb limit. Carenado's quality in their aircraft is always a sign of the depth of design over any other developer. The B200 certainly comes with all those hallmarks of the sheer design quality that you expect, and the aircraft is on a top level with any other quality aircraft, it is one of the best in X-Plane in this category.
In a few areas like the inside lighting it excels. In systems the EFSI package is simply excellent for flying those really long distances like we have done here. When the X-Plane 10.30 upgrade to the GPS is released it will be a significant advantage to the B200. The framework is already in place for the new GPS and that will then give the aircraft an excellent way to fly these very long routes without only just the select few NDB's and VOR's to chose from in these sort of open distance areas (you can use a basic route now in the current Garmin GNS430, but it is just that... very basic). 
The B200 has excellent features with great effects in that rain drops move realistically in accordance with airspeed, and then are cleared by wipers, and repopulate after wipers are shut off. Ice can be cleared with de-icing options and the internal lighting is above the usual HDR standard, all animations and intimate detailing here is simply first-rate.
 
Overall the Carenado B200 is one of the best of current series of larger aircraft that are being released by this outstanding developer. It is certainly a highly distinctive and dramatic aircraft in flight with its tall T-Tail arrangement and slightly longer fuselage. For an investment you would certainly do no better as the aircraft would deliver many years of great flying with its outstanding natural abilities and excellent features. 
 
The Carenado B200 HD Series is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store. Price is currently US$34.95 : Get the - B200 King Air HD Series - Here. 
 
Documents and Install, Download is 207.50mb, that is unzipped into your General Aviation Folder of 265.20mb.
 

 
Developer Site: Carenado
 
Review By Stephen Dutton
 
6th May 2014
 
Technical Requirements:
Windows XP, Vista 7 or 8 (32 or 64 bits) or MAC OS 10.6 (or higher)
or LinuxX-Plane 10.25 (or higher - 64 bit compatible)
Not compatible with X-Plane 94GB RAM/1GB VRAMVersion
1.1 (last updated May 5th 2014)
updated store#
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:   
- 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”
- 6 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3
- ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb
Software:     
- Mac OS Mavericks 10.9.2
- X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.22 (final)
Addons
- Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle
Scenery- VOZ Australian Scenery by B Roberts - Aussie Scenery Packages (you do also need to download the AussiePak7)
 

http://newbluejournals.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/image.jpg   Aircraft Review : Carenado Piper PA28 181 Archer II
 
Route : VFR Circuits at EGKK - London Gatwick
 
Carenado make the best general aviation aircraft payware, but does this Piper Archer live up to Carenado's high standards?
Well I will get to the main message of that in the conclusion but first its time to analyse everything. Despite the size of this small GA plane (general aviation) it is very complex. Carenado have really showed their talents in this plane, it is absolutely fantastic! Over the next few paragraphs I will describe everything about the plane and give an overall summary. Below is a list of features for this aircraft.
According to Carenado:
 
- SASL plug in added functionality
- 32-bit and 64-bit Mac, Windows, and Linux support.
- Stereo 3D sound, with new dynamic effects
- Custom prop, which adds realism to the spinning prop etc.
- 2D pop-up windows to control camera presets, FOV etc.
- Interior lighting optimized for X-Plane v9 and v10.
- Overhauled lighting system.
- Strobe lights blink in a custom pattern and order.
- Landing light features tightly-focused “glare” effect.
- Navigation lights have been improved.
- Improved ground handling.
 
We start we some real life pictures of the Piper PA28 181 Archer II which can compare to the model made by Carenado, these pictures show the cockpit and the exterior.
 


 
From the real life pictures you can tell this small GA is great fun to fly, and from past experience I can tell you it most definitely is! With a 180 HP Lycoming engine and an advanced Garmin G1000 Avionics Suite, the Archer is a modern and reliable aircraft for both teaching and cross-country flying. All Specs can be found by clicking the above picture. Having flown this aircraft prior to this review I can say this plane handles lightly, with a rotation speed of roughly 65kts and a cruising speed of 128 ktas, its the feather of the skies. Now onto the Carenado Archer!
 
Exterior
 





 
The first things I am going to evaluate are the textures of the aircraft. We begin outside which I can easily say looks stunning! From every nut and bolt to door seems can be seen at a good resolution which is always nice when flying in VFR (visual flight rules). However the outside visuals cannot be described as crisp. As well as high resolution on the side of the aircraft we can also find this on the wheels, the tires are crisp pixel sharp and even reflect the sunlight! When in “chase” mode a 3D pilot appears in the cockpit, this is a nice effect when viewing the externals although there should be an option to get rid of him! But he is not just sat static, his head turns according to the input of your flight controls as well as his arms to the yoke and throttle and his legs to the rudder.
 
The prop has been modeled with great care however as the textures are at an acceptable standard we can still find that two logos are blurry (see picture above) but, the prop is only static when the aircraft is stationary so this can go un-noticed. All outside lights have been modelled well especially the navigation lights on the edge of the wing. All the control surfaces have the delay of input movement just like on the real Archer, and the control surfaces are also modelled well. The main feature that stands out though is the reflections on the tires, this is a stunning feature as the sun wraps its rays around the tire. This is also important though as the hear is not retractable, so when your in 'chase' view taking in the scenery, you can constantly see it.
 
3D Cockpit
 





 
Moving through the door and into the 3D cockpit the textures are at an amazing resolution, this can be expected as all carenado models are! I believe that the images below speak for themselves, as you can tell the textures in the 3D cockpit and surroundings are photo-realistic which adds to the immersion. The seats and yoke have a weathered effect which adds more realism when flying, it is not an old and battered model nor a brand new plane, but just right for a good weathered look and feel. Moving down toward the floor we find an aluminium plate as a floor scratch/foot pad which has a photo-realistic finish along with the pedals which perfectly match the real ones! Looking back up to the ceiling of the aircraft we find two lights which are interactive. One is a general lamp whilst the other is a night vision light for night VFR flying. There are also animated sun-visors with information on them however the information is blurry. But all information needed looks fantastic if you print out the documentation.The 3D gauges in the aircraft are spectacular the textures on these are great too.
 
Despite living in the 3D cockpit when flying I never had a loss of frame rates which was good, my average FPS was 31. The radio stack and all other knobs are easy to use, this helps a lot if you are flying on vatsim. Above is a mounted compass with a photo-realistic casing, the compass is well positioned meaning it does not interrupt your visual display. Near to this is a window which is nicely animated, sound is also affected when opening or closing the window which adds to the realism when in the 3D cockpit. Even the compartments on the armrests are animated! Also I have a comment which may be debated in the comments, space awareness. To help you understand I will explain. Everything has been positioned well in the cockpit despite whatever filed of view angle you have set in the pop-up option menu everything remains to a realistic degree. This plane will be my first of choice to try with the upcoming release of the Oculus Rift VR headset! As its so close to the real thing!
 
The option menu’s are a great feature of this aircraft, you have two options to choose from, “camera” or “options. The camera menu offers a wide range of camera shots whilst flying, see the picture below. However despite this great camera option there is a slight snag, by the way this is NOT a bug of any kind. For instance I have a 3D cockpit button and a chase button assigned to my hardware flight controls, if you are in the 3D cockpit and switch a camera view via the menu when you go to chase view everything is normal. However when going back to the 3D cockpit using my assigned button I go back to the previous view set by the menu. This gets slightly annoying at times but does not affect anything to do with the plane or my view of the plane.
 
There are two menu’s that are 2D pop-ups which can be accessed on the side of the screen or on the panel in the clicking zones. The camera menu was described in the last paragraph so I will now explain the nice features and animations of the options menu. The first option is used to open the passenger door, the second opens the baggage door, the third triggers static elements, and finally the last option is for wheel fairings. All of these options work perfectly and with ease, changing the options during flight does not effect the frame rates. Night lighting is a big issue with many planes, but not this one. Outside you have the navigation lights and the landing lights, all lights effect the surface glare of the plane. Moving back inside there is a option of three lighting affects. In the cockpit there are two lights on the ceiling, one is for night lighting on the panel which is controlled by a knob and the other is for passenger lighting controlled by a switch. The only thing I don't really like about the ceiling lights is the lack of 3D. It would be nice to see a rounded dome shape on these lights, but mainly your looking out the front windshield so this doesn't bother me too much. The third effect is for integral lighting on the gauges, this scan be controlled by a scroll positioned next to the outside lighting switches. Placed together all lights create a pleasurable night flight experience.
 
Liveries
 



 
Now to the liveries, excluding the default white paint there are an additional four liveries with this aircraft (pictured above) which are pretty nice. All liveries have been based on real life replicas which is a neat feature of this plane, as a result of this if you have your PPL I am sure you will recognise these like I do! All liveries have reflections etc.. And make the aircraft a beauty to fly. All liveries have the option for wheel fairing's on/off. You can get some extra liveries on x-plane.org under the downloads section but not many which is a shame. When I was flying for real in the Archer the plane had the Gold_Blue skin, its not identical but its similar and I am sure there are many American variants!
 
 
Flight Dynamics
Having flown the real Piper Archer myself I can comment on the flight dynamics of this aircraft compared to Carenado's version. So first I will start with the in-air model. The model of this aircraft behaves quite realistic however it cannot be compared exactly to the real thing. The real Archer behaves with a delay, as you would expect, however Carenado's model does not simulate this to a detailed extent. This model from Carenado is extremely responsive, and if the controls are held in a certain place the aircraft will dive and spin around, this simply wouold not happen in the real Archer. The next test was the stall test. Throttles back, pitch up, and enter stall. Carenado's version responds very quickly, in fact too quickly. When the throttles are applied again and the nose is pitched down the aircraft recovers fast, this is unlike the real Archer as when I conducted a Stall in the real thing it took a lot longer to recover.
 
With throttles and flaps full for take off at a speed of 70 KTAS the Archer "sticks to the ground" this feels very realistic. When pulling back at take off speed the Archer wants to resist as though its very heavy, this feels real and the same as when I took this plane for a spin in the UK. Also when taxiing this plane it took 1/5" throttle to get it moving, in x-plane its a lot less. Overall the flight dynamics are "Ok" at an acceptable level. To lower the response time it may be worth changing the joystick settings. However its not necessary to have an enjoyable flight!
 
Sound
Now we move onto sound. The sound for this aircraft is phenomenal, when the throttle is 1/4 open the prop sounds normal, then when the throttle is positioned 2/4 open and you reach 2000 RPM the sound changes and you are then listening to many different .wav files playing. The sound is so close to real, but it does not pan around you like in the new Carenado Mirage. Its a shame but this is an older plane of Carenado's, although in the version 2 update many new features were added with the help of 64 bit processing. To hear this for yourself I recommend visiting you tube to take a listen. As highlighted earlier the door and window changes the sound heard in the cockpit, just like in real life!
Conclusion
Overall I would highly recommend purchasing this aircraft, whether you are a beginner or post PPL this aircraft will become one of your favourites by far. The systems and animations all simulate the functions just like a real life archer. It is a Carenado plane, Carenado has quality written in its name, this Archer wont disappoint. Another thing is Frame rate. My x-plane settings are all relatively high, despite this fps on this aircraft is an average of 31. This is great as my computer can handle detailed scenery, cloud puffs and extensive framerate killing options. I suffer absolutely no lag when flying this beauty. The only bad thing about this aircraft would be the unclear textures in some areas such as the cockpit interioir roof and prop. Apart from that this is a great plane to add to your virtual hangar!
 
Is it worth buying this aircraft?  Yes!
  
Well, its available on the x-plane.org store for the price of $24.95 :
 
Carenado PA28 181 Archer II
 
Carenado Aircraft support:  Click here 
 
Reviewed by : Joe
 
©copyright 2014 : X-Plane Reviews
Technical Requirements:
Windows Vista or Windows 7 (32 or 64 bits) or MAC OS 10.6 (or higher) or Linux
XPlane 9.6/9.7 or XPlane 10.11 (or higher - 64 bit compatible)
Pentium 2 GHz - 4GB RAM/1GB VRAM
250MB available hard disk space
Version 2.1 (last updated June 2013)
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:
- Intel Core i5 3330 @ 3.00GHz
- 4.00gb of RAM
- Geforce GTX 650
Software:
- Windows 7 64 bit
- X-Plane 10 Global version 10.25
- Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System
- Carenado PA28 181 Archer II