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.
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.
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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 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
