Search the Community

Scenery Released : PAJN - Juneau International, Alaska by Northern Sky Studios Hot off a very busy year in 2022, Northern Sky released PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska and PATK Talkeetna Airport, Alaska, and a few Hawaiian Airports. Both the Alaskan sceneries were gems if you like good bush based airports for open wild area flying. Here is the first release from Northern Sky for 2023 and also for X-Plane 12 (the X-Plane 11 version is also part of the package). In PAJN - Juneau International, again in Alaska, but a more expansive airport with domestic services and sightseeing flights, as Juneau is a major tourist destination. Juneau International Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport and seaplane base located seven nautical miles (8 mi, 13 km) northwest of the central business district of Juneau, a city and borough in the U.S. state of Alaska that has no direct road access to the outside world. The airport serves as a regional hub for all air travel, from bush carriers to major U.S. air carriers such as Alaska Airlines. The airport is located at an elevation of 25 feet (7,6 m) above sea level. It has one runway designated 8/26 with an asphalt surface and one seaplane landing area designated 8W/26W. Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Seaplanes, Ward Air, and Harris Air now all operate in the airport. The busiest domestic routes from Juneau are to Seattle, Anchorage, Sitka, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Hoonah, Haines, Gustavus, Wrangell, and Yakutat. The main aircraft servicing these routes is a Boeing 737-700 passenger, cargo, and mixed modification by Alaska Airlines. Also, helicopter tours are available at the airport. Temsco Helicopters, Coastal Helicopter, and NorthStar Helicopters all make tours on glaciers and scenic flights around Juneau borough. Package include additional heliport 5Z2 North Douglas. Features The most detailed replica of airport buildings and vehicles High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures High resolution building textures Compatible with all X-Plane 12 features Custom working jetways Custom mesh for the airport area (Ortho4XP) All materials created for full PBR Shading and occlusion (texture baking) effects on all airport buildings High-resolution building textures Custom orthophoto for the airport and surrounding areas World Traffic 3 compatible Not compatible with a default mesh (custom ortho link included) Provided is a Ortho4XP tile by NSS is large in size and a 1.90Gb download (a 1 Ortho4XP_patch is provided). So it covers a significant area around Juneau, and so well worth the download size and the ortho is required for this scenery. Priced at only US$18.00, that is simply great value for a high quality regional scenery... that covers all bases Highly recommended. Images are courtesy of NorthernSkyStudios _______________________________ The PAJN - Juneau International, Alaska by Northern Sky Studios is now available! from the X-Plane.Org Store PAJN - Juneau International, Alaska Priced at US$18.00 Requirements X-Plane 12 or X-plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 3.4 GB Current version : 1.0 (January 9th 2023) ___________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 10th January 2023 Copyright©2023: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

Scenery Review: PATK Talkeetna Airport, Alaska by NorthernSky Studio Introduction Hello and welcome to my review of Northern Sky Studio’s Talkeeta Airport. Talkeeta Airport, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is situated in a beautiful area of Alaska, about 100 miles north of Anchorage. Located near Denali State Park, a popular tourist destination, it’s an airport that usually gets incredibly busy during the holiday season. As may be slowly becoming apparent, especially if you read my last review, I prefer flying from the smaller, quaint airports when firing up X-Plane, and Talkeeta is no exception. The airport itself only covers 624 acres, which, by airport standards is pretty compact. Its single asphalt runway measures 3500 ft by 75 ft (1067 m by 23 m), and its single gravel helipad (designated H1) measures 480 ft by 85 ft (146 m by 28 m). Having been categorized as a general aviation airport in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, its passenger turnover figure was numbered at 1500, as per the Federal Aviation Administration records. It is currently home to seven air taxi operations including Sheldon Air Service, Talkeetna Aero Services, K2 Aviation, and Talkeetna Air Taxi. Download & Installation After completing my purchase at the X-Plane.Org Store, I was presented with a download link for the scenery. This weighs in at just over 500MB, but once extracted, increases to 1.3GB. When done, it’s just a simple case of copying the folder into your X-Plane’s Custom Scenery directory. In terms of documentation, there wasn’t a lot, just a single text document going over the installation process. Walkabout The airport, due to its location, is surrounded almost entirely by forest, such is the landscape of Alaska. To the west of the airport, the Susitna River snakes past, and if you follow it south, will eventually lead you down to the city of Anchorage. If city life doesn’t take your fancy, then perhaps try upstream and visit the Denali State Park. Don’t fancy either one (you are picky)? Well, whether you fly east or west, the mountainous scenery surrounding the airport is bound to give you cause for adventure…just watch out for the weather which can be unpredictable to say the least! As mentioned previously, Talkeerna Airport offers a single lit asphalt runway for your pleasures and one helipad for the more adventurous types out there. The textures used for the runway are of high quality and feature a reasonable amount of weathering, such as cracks and a few rubber marks. To increase the realism and look of the scenery even further, the developers have used a photographic overlay for the entire airport, and whilst it only goes out a short distance, works incredibly well. In fact, if you use ortho scenery files like I do, then you’ll find that the airport’s overlay will almost seamlessly blend in. In terms of airport vegetation, you’ll find an abundant amount of grass as you head on up toward the airport proper, which whilst nice to look at, may cause issues for those X-Plane users with lower end graphics cards, such as myself. There are also quite a number of GA aircraft present, and whilst not particularly detailed, help bring the airport to life. Having first checked out the layout of the airport on Google Maps, I was pleased to see that the developers had pretty much got everything spot on in terms of placement. There is no main terminal building to speak of, rather the airport is made up of several air taxi operations. These include Sheldon Air Service, Talkeetna Aero Services, K2 Aviation, and Talkeetna Air Taxi. The buildings for each of these are nicely modelled and reasonably well textured, and whilst not of photographic quality, are more than adequate for the price (more on that later). The airport’s main entrance includes signposts to each one of these operators, along with some nice artwork. From above, you get a clear view of the airport’s name painted onto the tarmac, and this was something I really enjoyed seeing. Call me old fashioned, but I think it just adds to the airport’s personality. Airport ground clutter consists of storage boxes, cones, bins, plus a few picnic tables, but sadly no people. This is a real shame, because due to the number of static aircraft and facilities on offer, having a few figures (animated or not), would really help bring the airport to life. PBR & Night Lighting PBR and night lighting is reasonably good at this price point, and whilst not up there with the best I have seen, it’s certainly not bad. There is a degree of dynamic lighting coming from a few of the buildings, but not all of them, which seems slightly strange. The main runway and taxiways are sufficiently lit, but I would have liked to have seen a little bit more lighting. However, there are some quite good uses of dynamic lighting on show, such as the maintenance hangar and the airport’s main entrance, as seen below. Performance Compared to some of you reading this, my setup isn’t the latest flashiest machine out there. It consists of an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and a 4GB Nvidia GTX 1650, and for the most part, runs X-Plane 11 well…as long as I am sensible with my settings, and this is true for Talkeetna Airport. The only issue I ran into was a slight framerate drop when viewing the 3D grass from above. Apart from this one issue, the airport performed flawlessly and was silky smooth. Conclusion So, having spent the last few days exploring Talkeeta Airport, what did I think of it? Well, I have to say I really did enjoy my time there. It’s one of those little airports which has plenty of character without having too much on show if you know what I mean. Yes, it’s not perfect, as there are a few areas which could be improved on, namely, the inclusion of human lifeforms, better night lighting, and the ability to perhaps choose the level of grass detail for those on lower end systems. However, when you factor in the low price of the scenery (just under ten US dollars), then I think it deserves a bit of slack. Hopefully Northern Sky Studio’s will offer updates to the scenery, perhaps even implementing fixes to some of the issues I have mentioned in this review. As it stands though, due to its location, aesthetics, and general appeal, this is a scenery I think you will greatly enjoy. Happy flying, safe living! _______________________________ Talkeetna Airport, Alaska by Northern Sky Studio is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here: Talkeetna Airport Price is US$9.75 Requirements X-Plane 11 - X-Plane 12 (when available) Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 530 MB Current version : 1.0 (May 23rd 2021) Review by Felicity Smith 18th August 2022 Copyright©2022: X-Plane Reviews Review System Specifications:  Windows 10, AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (overclocked to 4.1GHz), 1650 4Gb, 32GB RAM, 256 M.2 SSD, 2TB HD (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

NEWS! - Scenery Released : PHNY - Lanai Airport, Hawaii by NorthernSkyStudios NorthernSky Studios have moved back to Hawaii after doing another scenery in Alaska with PAWD - Seward Airport. The numbers are now starting to count up with already seven Hawaiian sceneries available, with this new release in PHNY - Lanai Airport the eighth in the series. Lanai Airport (ICAO: PHNY), is a state-owned public-use airport located about 3.4 miles (6 km) southwest of the central business district of Lanai City, in Maui County, Hawaii. It is the only airport serving the island of Lanai. Lanai Airport’s extended runway and terminal building project was completed and dedicated in a special ceremony on October 16, 1966. The project also included construction of a taxiway and apron and a new terminal building as well as the relocation of the existing freight terminal building. Throughout the 1980s, there were minor upgrades to the airport. When the Douglas DC-3 was ultimately replaced by larger aircraft, the airport once again became obsolete. Construction on the new terminal began in January 1993. The spacious new 15,000 square foot terminal, built to accommodate the growth in tourism to Lanai, was dedicated on April 19, 1994. It was five times larger than the structure it replaced. A new parking area, roadway and landscaping were included. Pacific Wings began two daily flights between Kahului and Lanai City on March 1, 2000, the next day Island Air suspended its two daily flights between Lanai and Maui due to a shortage of pilots. Now the only commercial airline, Mokulele Airlines, operates Cessna Grand Caravan 208EX aircraft into Lanai. Features: The most detailed replica of airport buildings and vehicles High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures High resolution building textures Compatible with X-Plane 11 features Custom mesh for the airport area (Ortho4XP) All materials created for full PBR Shading and occlusion (texture baking) effects on all airport buildings High-resolution building textures Custom orthophoto for the airport and surrounding areas World Traffic 3 compatible Compatible with with Ortho4XP and default mesh NorthernSky are doing at lot of quality Hawaiian scenery at the moment and connecting up between the islands, so great for inter-island regional flying. And this Lanai Airport is not just highly detailed externally, but also internally as well... and all these Hawaiian sceneries are at great, if incredible value prices. Images are courtesy NorthernSkyStudios _____________________________________ Yes! PHNY - Lanai Airport, Hawaii by NorthernSkyStudios is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : PHNY - Lanai Airport, Hawaii Price is US$12.00 Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 563 MB Current version : 1.0 (June 21st 2022) ___________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 23rd June 2022 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

Scenery Review : PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska by NorthernSkyStudios Owing to its position at the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad and the well-developed road links to Anchorage and the rest of the Kenai Peninsula, Seward City is both a major northern end-port for several major cruise ship lines that host Alaskan cruises, such as Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, and Celebrity Cruises, and a common destination for general Alaskan tourism. Huge glaciers flow from the Harding Icefield into the local coastal fjords and the township itself is surrounded by peaks, the adjoining fjords are also a whale and porpoise habitat. To the west, a trail leads to the summit of Mount Marathon (1,471 m). The Mount Marathon Race is a famous mountain race that is run every Fourth of July up the mountain. NorthernSkyStudios are alternating between scenery based in the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska. In Hawaii the releases lately have covered PHMU - Waimea-Kohala, PHOG - Kahului and PHJH - Kapalua Airports. In Alaska the last release was so much a favorite of mine in that X-PlaneReviews quickly covered it in a review; PAEN - Kenai Municipal Airport, situated just west of Anchorage. Here is their next scenery in PAWD - Seward Airport, which is directly on the other side of the same Kenai Peninsula (Dena'ina: Yaghenen) from Kenai, and a really great companion scenery to the earlier NorthernSky PAEN - Kenai Municipal Airport... so we will start there, and fly over to the newer PAWD - Seward scenery. PAEN-Kenai to PAWD-Seward Airport My aircraft today is the excellent Thranda Design C208B Caravan. In taking a little bit of cargo out to the more eastern and remote Seward airport. There is no doubt the NorthernSky Kenai is still a deeply impressive scenery and well worth exploring, certainly a must have if you love your remote bush flying escapades. So what is the trick or the value of good scenery? If an addon scenery can recreate the exact look and feel of a place, in other words, place you in an another completely different environ but a real representative of that actual place. Then it is doing of what you want you want that scenery to achieve, then that also in return gives the scenery value in it's usefulness and purchase. That value aspect certainly works here at PAEN, so the newer PAWD-Seward scenery is already creating high expectations of the same. Departure is from PAEN Rwy 02 and PAWD is directly 120º to the southeast which is 104 miles or 167 km, so I initially turn to that heading... ... and directly now ahead are the The Kenai Mountains which are a large mountain range in this eastern Alaska. They extend 192 km northeast from the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula to the Chugach Mountains, and they have an average elevation of 3,000 to 5,000 feet. So I set my altitude at 8,000ft to go over the top. But once heading west I saw a gap in the mountains that would take me almost directly to Seward. The entrance to the valley is over Skilak Lake, taking in the Upper Russian Lake (Not to be confused with the "Russian River" as that is further north), that in then forms into the Resurrection River that flows down an estuary at Seward itself. It is quite a straight forward route. You are in the correct valley if your going directly east, and if you see the Skilak Glacier to your right, and it is quite impressive even in this default X-Plane texture guise. You just then just follow through the valley, again there is another Glacier to your right, and this one is the "Exit Glacier"... Notable is that around this point the custom NorthernSky orthophoto textures are now part of the scenery, but they really have been so well blended in with the default textures, as it is hard to find the blending line between them, NorthernSky have done very well to create this seemless transition... ... by now you are almost through the valleys, and you should see the Resurrection Bay water ahead, and Seward is sited at the top end of the inlet, it is also time to descend down from the 8,000ft altitude. As you come out of the valley, then Seward is directly below you. PAWD is highly visible because of it's twin V shaped runway arrangement. The longer runway is 13/31 at 4,240ft (1,292m), the shorter one is the 16/34 runway at 2,279ft (695m) and both are asphalt, for the Caravan the 16/34 runway is too short, or too tight to get into (most pilots will laugh off this aspect and say the Caravan is a STOL aircraft, and so should easily land on this shorter runway), but I'm finding the Thranda Caravan currently a bit too fast on approach. (I later tried the landing and had to go around), so Rwy 13/31 it is or Runway 31. I drop down to 2,000 ft and do a circular 8 pattern to line up Rwy 31. As a good sight guide there is a small port to your right called Spring Creek (actually also the Spring Creek Correctional Center! shown here but not not in 3d, but as burnt in images). This visual point then gives you a direct line into Runway 31 at 31º. The phototextures are very good on the approach in determining the estuary at Resurrection River to your right, also strewn around are logs for a 3d effect. Over the threshold of 31, and note the great tundra style foliage. Nice also is the runway surface that is well worn, cracked asphalt with the worn out edge markings, it looks all so very authentic, I loved the ground textures here a lot, and they are as good as back at PAEN. The landing was GOOD!, then it wasn't... about a quarter of the way from the threshold there is a slope to a level line that flipped the C208B back airborne, then it came back down awkwardly... ... so it took more time and more runway to resettle the aircraft, thankfully the runway is long enough to do this. You can easily see the offending line on the approach, so I recommend to aim the landing just past it, so I will remember that for next time, as the runway is long enough to accommodate this aspect. Basically there isn't a lot at Seward Airport, as it is just really a motley assortment of cabins, portable buildings and hangars. One thing you can't miss is the welcome, certainly you know you are at "Seward". And it has a great feel here, as the buildings are nicely weather worn and rustic, everything feels very authentic to Alaska, a shame the flags are not animated though. The C208B is shutdown and it is time to unload the freight and you really like the feel here, what is the right word, "Frontier!". PAWD - Seward Airport Seward Airport is a state-owned, public-use airport located two nautical miles (2.3 miles; 3.7 km) northeast of the central business district of Seward, a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. This airport is included in the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation facility. Seward Airport IATA: SWD, ICAO: PAWD, FAA LID: SWD 13/31 - 4,240ft (1,292m) -Asphalt 16/34 - 2,279ft (695m) - Asphalt Elevation AMSL22 ft / 7 m Seward is to be really noted as a small regional airport, because basically it is what it all is, a few buildings and an aircraft parking area. Turn down Airport Road and the first airport building is the AA Seward Air Tours office... you can't really miss it could you, the glacier airtours are quite reasonably priced as well i'm told. The internal office of AA Seward Air Tours has also been very nicely fitted out and with Alaskan decor. Next down the road is the Dogsled Tour Office, helicopters this time but with the same scenic glacier tours... For pure creativity you can't go past the next tour operator (again helicopters) with Marathon Tours, as they have an office created out a ISO shipping container in the longer 40ft length, it is very well reproduced here with a viewing platform above.... "very creative". Next is one of the four larger hangers here, this one is for TedStevens. Hidden behind it is the airport's GA Refueling tank and pump, again very well done in detail. Next is the "Alaska Civil Air Patrol" hanger with another portable office set behind, then a blue storage hangar. Note on most buildings (hangars) are some great solar panel arrangements. The next large hangar is the most interesting one... this one is represented with the door open, and in showing the hangar's excellent internal detail. Certainly highly usable as a parking hanger on your next visit. Next door is a slightly larger hangar but in the same design for "Seward Aircraft Storage" which is again nicely represented, with a large GA parking apron next to finish off the lineup of the airport. Not just with the actual buildings is all the detail very, if brilliantly done, but the ground (clutter) detail is simply realistically excellent as well and there is a lot of this detailing... and that is "Seward Airport". Seward City The city of Seward itself is modeled, but not to a perfect building and street to street perfect though, but still well recreated by generic design. The city is dominated by the harbour's obsolete conveyor-belt fed coal loading crane, they are keeping it in case they need it again... ... the Seward Boat Harbor is well represented as is the Seward Cruise Ship Terminal and wharf (a cruise ship would have been very nice here to fill it in?). To the rear are the city's facilities and a large animated wind turbine. As noted most of the building here are just generic, but they still all provide a nice backdrop and fill... but in areas it is just basic detailing. Recreational and baseball diamonds are all represented, and the whole city is covered with custom buildings... the only odd notes are that the graphic textures sometimes climb the mountains and cars move totally horizontally on their sides, it is sadly quite noticeable. Ground Textures As noted the ground textures are excellent, highly realistic and exactly what you would expect at this "Northern Exposure" sort of area. I can't fault them anywhere, but note that runway 16/34 has a same sort of nasty gradient slope (but lengthways this time) as runway 13/31. Grass and fauna is first rate, can't be faulted... lush, and you wish all of the X-Plane grasslands was like this. Another note are the background custom mountain textures... I'm not really sure about them? They are photographic, but they all seem a little artificial to me, or too light in colour, so I am not really taken with them, but these things are personal choices. There is the option provided to use the default X-Plane textures or your own custom ortho, details are provided. The Ortho4XP is default with the scenery. Lighting This Seward airport is not going to be like landing at Anchorage, there are no bright lights out here. Just a strip of street lights and the lights from the buildings is it. Runway 13/31 has lights, so a dusk landing is actually possible, and there is taxiway lighting to the apron. Again both highlights are the AA Seward Air Tours office and the very nice open door Hangar. Even the western style wheel lights are really well done done internally in the Air Tour office, the rest is all window and drop down lighting. ______________ Summary PAWD - Seward Airport, is directly on the other side of the same Kenai Peninsul in Alaska from Kenai, and a really great and companion scenery to the earlier NorthernSky PAEN - Kenai Municipal Airport. In scale this is a small frontier style Alaskan airport, but small means it is also highly detailed. Seward is just really a motley assortment of transportable offices and hangars, with a focus on local area glacier tourist air tours. So being small the scenery detail and minute is excellent, all buildings, hangars and ground clutter are all of a very high and rustic standard. Runway textures are also extremely good, but have nasty slope gradients, so be careful! 3d grass is also perfection and Seward City is also generically well represented with it's iconic conveyor-belt fed coal loading crane front and centre. Lighting is very basic, but still well done, the only comment is about the photo-graphic surrounding mountains, they are too your own taste or not, personally I would like better for the quality of the scenery itself, and a few of the graphic textures also climb these same mountain sides in not very realistic ways. So if you have NorthernSky's excellent Kenai then you must then have this great double act, and it comes at (for the quality here) also in a very good value price of only US$14.00. What more could you want! Recommended. __________________________________ Yes! the PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska by NorthernSkyStudios is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska Price is US$14.00 Features The most detailed replica of airport buildings and vehicles High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures High resolution building textures Handplaced custom autogen buildings and forest Compatible with X-Plane 11 features Custom mesh for the airport area (Ortho4XP) All materials created for full PBR Shading and occlusion (texture baking) effects on all airport buildings High-resolution building textures Custom orthophoto for the airport and surrounding areas World Traffic 3 compatible Compatible with with Ortho4XP and default mesh Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 1 GB Current version : 1.0 (April 4th 2022) Installation and documents: PAWD-Seward is a twin download of the scenery and the separate (optional) Ortho4XP mesh NSS_PAWD_v1.0.zip (1.08GB) zOrtho4XP_+60-150.zip (2.44GB) That is then translated into a 6.83Gb install in your Custom Scenery folder. The above two install folders must be put in the order of the "zOrtho mesh" below the main "PAWD_Northern_Sky_Studio" scenery folder. The scenery is set to the zOrtho setting as default. You can also use the standard X-Plane textures, or use the provided patch for any custom ortho textures you wish to use Documents There is a Windows Word and pdf installation and requirements, and a description of the PAWD scenery. decription.txt PAWD-Installation.docx PAWD-Installation.pdf ________________________________________ Scenery Review by Stephen Dutton 7th May 2022 Copyright©2022: X-Plane Reviews Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Right Reserved  Review System Specifications:  Computer System: Windows - IS1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU / 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo 1TB SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane v11.55 Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick, Throttle & Rudder Pedals : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini Plugins: Environment Engine by xEnviro US$69.90 : US$52.99 : Global SFD plugin US$30.00 Scenery or Aircraft - Cessna 208 Grand Caravan DGS series by Thranda Design (X-Plane.OrgStore) - $US44.95

NEWS! - Scenery Released : PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska by NorthernSkyStudios NorthernSkyStudios are alternating between scenery based in the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska. In Hawaii the releases lately have covered PHMU - Waimea-Kohala, PHOG - Kahului and PHJH - Kapalua Airports. In Alaska the last release was so much a favorite of mine in that X-PlaneReviews quickly covered it in a review; PAEN - Kenai Municipal Airport, just west of Anchorage... It was a sensational bit of Alaska and well worth checking out if you like serious bush flying. PAWD - Seward Airport is directly on the other side of the same Kenai Peninsula (Dena'ina: Yaghenen) from Kenai, so it is another great destination and a focus destination of the same area. Seward is an incorporated home rule city in Alaska, United States. Located on Resurrection Bay, a fjord of the Gulf of Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula, Seward is situated on Alaska's southern coast, approximately 120 miles (190 km) by road from Alaska's largest city, Anchorage. Owing to its position at the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad and the well-developed road links to Anchorage and the rest of the Kenai Peninsula, Seward is both a major northern end-port for several major cruise ship lines that host Alaskan cruises, such as Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, and Celebrity Cruises, and a common destination for general Alaskan tourism. Huge glaciers flow from the Harding Icefield into the local coastal fjords and the township itself is surrounded by peaks, the adjoining fjords are also a whale and porpoise habitat. To the west, a trail leads to the summit of Mount Marathon (1,471 m). The Mount Marathon Race is a famous mountain race that is run every Fourth of July up the mountain. Features: The most detailed replica of airport buildings and vehicles High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures High resolution building textures Handplaced custom autogen buildings and forest Compatible with X-Plane 11 features Custom mesh for the airport area (Ortho4XP) All materials created for full PBR Shading and occlusion (texture baking) effects on all airport buildings High-resolution building textures Custom orthophoto for the airport and surrounding areas World Traffic 3 compatible Compatible with with Ortho4XP and default mesh The optional Ortho4XP tile by NSS is large in size and a 2.26Gb download (a 1 Ortho4XP_patch is provided). So it covers a significant area around Seward, and well worth the download size. Priced at only US$14.00, that is great value for a high quality regional scenery, so it is a well worth addition to Kenai if you already have that NorthernSky Scenery. Highly recommended. Images are courtesy of NorthernSkyStudios _______________________________ The PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska by NorthernSkyStudios is now available! from the X-Plane.Org Store PAWD - Seward Airport, Alaska Priced at US$14.00 Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 1 GB Current version : 1.0 (April 4th 2022) ___________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 19th April 2022 Copyright©2022: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

Scenery Update : PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska v1.2 by NorthernSkyStudio NorthernSkyStudio released their excellent scenery of PAKT in Ketchikan, Alaska in August 2018. In our review I totally loved the scenery as NorthernSkyStudio is a very good and quality scenery developer... we covered the initial release with a review here; Scenery Preview : PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska by NorthernSkyStudio. Ketchikan is known as "Alaska's first city" due to its strategic position at the southern tip of the Inside Passage, connecting the Gulf of Alaska to Puget Sound. A vibrant harbour and significant position to thrive on fishing industries, canneries in particular, tourism, government, and forestry. In the release review I had really nothing at all negative to say at all about the PAKT - Ketchikan International airport. As a scenery it is exceptionally well done. Notable is the two-tier layout with the main runway of which is located about 30 feet (9.1 m) higher than the apron further on up the hillside, and the runway is connected between the two areas by two (steep) sloping taxiways in Taxiway A - RWY 29 and Taxiway B - Rwy 11 for departures. The single terminal building was also exceptional in detail and authenticity, as the design is very unique with the huge boxy control tower place above the terminal below. The local native aspects are well done in the terminal's construction and external detail. The main airport sign has also been updated. The only airport comment I did make was that the single AirBridge here is only static... really well done, but you would certainly want to connect to an active walkway if you flew into the airport, the AirBridge is sadly still static in this v1.2 update? We are covering two updates here in this update review in v1.1 and v1.2... and here is the changelog; Version 1.1 -terminal name fixed -more boats added -more city buildings added -USA flag added -cruise ships added Version 1.2 (April 26th 2021) - Taquan sea planes base added - new static models added - few models fixed - windsocks direction fixed - "ground traffic" plugin removed - x-plane native boats added - pier added 95% of my negative comments originally of this were not about the PAKT-Ketchikan International airport scenery as noted. But the viewpoint of the Ketchikan city itself, and most of the these updates are thankfully focused over here. The view from the airport of the Ketchikan city was not great, and not totally realistic either. NorthernSkyStudio has take the approach of using a very highly detailed Ortho-Photo base and then put the 3d objects on the top of the Ortho-photo to make it look realistic. But the big problems with Ortho-photos is that although highly detail, they are always also very flat, so you lose a dimension that can affect the realism factor. They also make the areas look flat, when in reality they are not.. i.e the wharfs situated on the waters edge. In v1.2 (and v1.1) there has been some considerable work done over here to fill in a lot of the negative blank spaces... Ketchikan actually now looks like a more realistic location. Some areas however are still nasty and flat, and worse by being brightly coloured or being directly sited on the water... ... and the unique Newtown colourful neighbourhood and cruise terminal is still also missing, and another note was that the ferry was animated and went across the river from the airport to the city terminals, but currently it is now static? But overall this is a significant step forward in detail. Besides a lot of new actual 3d buildings in the city. The biggest visual changes are both the Taquan Air Sea Plane base... .... there is a nice wooden boarding wharf, with neatly modeled Beaver aircraft moored alongside. The other major visual change is the addition of five cruise ships and two ferries (large and small). NorthernSky is not going to win any design awards for the cruise liners,in being boxy and Lo-Res, but they are welcome and hide what should be a significant cruise port facility. Oddly I still don't get putting in (if default X-Plane objects) yachts, set under full sail in scenery marinas, this is very rarely seen? masts only please for realism. But to note the Ketchikan city vista does now work, but it deserves still more attention. One thing I noticed (it rains a lot here), was the PBR effects that are really excellent here, with amazing highly realistic standing water reflection detail... ... drop the lighting down and it comes alive with perfect reflections... top notch! ____________________________________ Summary It is always nice to go back and see a worthwhile update, of what was already certainly a great scenery by NorthernSky Studios. This is PAKT in Ketchikan, Alaska and the scenery was originally released in August 2018. The original scenery was nearly perfect, but it did have and still does have this single static AirBridge that is still not an active feature. Most of the comments however were of the Ketchikan city area, that was created via flat Ortho-Photo bases with 3d objects placed above, great on detail but not what you could say is realistic. In these two concurrent updates v1.1 and v1.2, a lot of work has been done in the city area with loads of new 3d buildings, to (thankfully) cover more of the flat Ortho images, there is a new Taquan Air Sea Plane base and new cruise liners and ferries, flags and more yachts, a new pier and the windsocks corrected, and that covers the updates. Overall and it is becoming quite realistic, the Ketchikan City still needs a bit more attention to make it still a bit more of an authentic feel of this of all Alaskan Cities... but don't get us wrong, this two-tier airport with great detail and brilliant active effects is a great addition to anyone's collection... certainly the airport deserves a high recommendation and now comes at an even lower value price. ____________________________________ Yes!... PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska v1.2 by NorthernSkyStudio is Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska Price is US$18.00 If you have already purchased PAKT-Ketchikan International Alaska by NorthernSkyStudio. Then go to your X-Plane.OrgStore Account and download the updated version. Requirements : X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 1.1 GB Current version : 1.2 (April 26th 2021) ____________________________________ Scenery Update by Stephen Dutton 7th May 2021 Copyright©2021 : X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

News! - Scenery Release : PHJH- Kapalua Airport, Hawaii by NorthernSkyStudio NorthernSkyStudios has added in another Hawaiian scenery to match in with their already released Molokai and Kalaupapa airports with PHJH- Kapalua Airport. Kapalua Airport (PHJH ), also known as Kapalua–West Maui Airport, is a regional private use airport on the west side of the island of Maui in Hawaii. It is located five nautical miles (6 mi, 9 km) north of Lahaina, in Maui County. Most flights to Kapalua Airport originate from commuter airports on the other Hawaiian islands by commercial commuter services, unscheduled air taxis, and general aviation. Features: The most detailed replica of airport buildings and vehicles High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures High resolution building textures Compatible with X-Plane 11 features Custom mesh for the airport area (Ortho4XP) All materials created for full PBR Shading and occlusion (texture baking) effects on all airport buildings High-resolution building textures Custom orthophoto for the airport and surrounding areas World Traffic 3 compatible Compatible with with Ortho4XP and default mesh NorthernSky are doing great little quality scenery at the moment and this Kapalua Airport is not just highly detailed externally, but also internally as well... all at a great value price. Images courtesy NorthernSkyStudios _____________________________________ Yes! PHJH- Kapalua Airport, Hawaii by NorthernSkyStudio is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : PHJH- Kapalua Airport, Hawaii Price is US$12.00 Requirements X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 545 MB Current version : 1.0 (April 19th 2021) ___________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 20th April 2021 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

News! - Scenery Updated : Molokai and Kalaupapa airports, Hawaii v2 by NorthernSkyStudio As per a decision in what to review I did a flight back in 2017 of the newly released Molokai and Kalaupapa airports in Hawaii, by NorthernSkyStudios. It wasn't that I was not overly impressed, but the missing aspect was I was not greatly impressed by the ground textures... as a scenery combo it was not that bad, but not that brilliant either? Interesting because as a developer NorthernSkyStudio is very good... but pass over the package I did. So here comes an update to the Hawaiian Islands scenery and this time a very good one it is as well. Molokai Airport Founded in 1927, Molokai Airport (PHMK) is a state-owned, public use airport located six nautical miles (7 mi, 11 km) northwest of Kaunakakai, on the island of Molokai in Maui County, Hawaii, United States. It is the principal airport of the island. As per Federal Aviation Administration records, the airport had 89,468 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 65,984 enplanements in 2009, and 88,688 in 2010. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a non-hub primary commercial service facility. Molokai Airport occupies 288 acres (117 ha) at an elevation of 454 ft (138 m) above mean sea level on the central plateau of the island of Molokai. The airport has two asphalt paved runways that accommodate commuter/air taxi and general aviation activities, as well as some military flights Kalaupapa airport Kalaupapa Airport (PHLU) is a regional public use airport of the state of Hawaii, located on the northern peninsula of the island of Molokai, two nautical miles (4 km) north of Kalaupapa Settlement, in Kalawao County. Most flights to Kalaupapa originate from Molokai Airport or from airports on the other Hawaiian islands by unscheduled air taxis and general aviation. It is also used as a cargo facility carrying goods for Kalaupapa, which has no road access from the rest of Molokai. The airport offers scheduled passenger service from Makani Kai Air, which began providing Essential Air Service (EAS) subsidized scheduled passenger service in January 2012, using two nine-seat Cessna Grand Caravans. As per the Federal Aviation Administration, this airport had 3,206 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2007, 3,135 enplanements in 2008, 2,035 in 2009, and 1,217 in 2010. Version 2.0 (April 4th 2021) - new high quality orthophotos for PHMK and PHLU - new terminal model with interior for PHMK - new misc models added - new grass and vegetation - new ground textures But this new updated v2.0 version of Molokai and Kalaupapa is now well worth checking out... the highlight is the excellent terminal interior at Mokokai. Molokai Airport Kalaupapa airport Molokai and Kalaupapa airports, Hawaii v2 by NorthernSkyStudio is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore. Current purchasers can update to v2.1 by going to their X-Plane.OrgStore account and downloading the new v2.1 version. Images courtesy NorthernSkyStudios Interior Images by X-PlaneReviews _____________________________________ Yes! Molokai and Kalaupapa airports, Hawaii v2 by NorthernSkyStudio is available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : Molokai and Kalaupapa airports, Hawaii Price is US$18.00 (on sale, you save US$2) Main Features include: Highly detailed airport objects and vehicles Custom texture for taxiways, runways and apron Custom surroundings Custom airport lights (you should tune COM1 on 125.7 to turn on landing lights in night time) Compatible with X-Plane 11 features Animated ground vehicles (plugin by Marginal) Shading and occlusion (texture baking) effects on all models High resolution ground textures / Custom runway textures High resolution building textures Excellent night effects Realistic reflections on glass World Traffic 3 compatible ( Ohana airlines now,) Compatible with with all custom and default mesh: default XP11 mesh HD Mesh v3 by AlpilotX US Orthophotos https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/36327-us-orthophotos/&page=16&tab=comments#comment-223275 Ortho4XP terrain Requirements Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum - 8 GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 758 MB Current version : 2.0 (April 4th 2021) ___________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 5th April 2021 Copyright©2021: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved

Scenery Preview : PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska by NorthernSkyStudio If your brief was to create an International airport with limited space and on the side of a steep hill, then certainly PAKT - Ketchikan International Airport, Alaska would be the result. Unique as well with this position is as the airport is located on Gravina Island, just west of Ketchikan itself on the other side of the Tongass Narrows, and passengers must take a seven-minute ferry ride across the water to get to the airport from the town. Around the World War II era until the early 1970s, longer range land plane air service to Ketchikan including flights to Seattle were operated via an old military airfield located approximately 20 air miles to the south on Annette Island. Aircraft operated into the Annette Island Airport (ANN) for flights in the local southeast Alaska area included the Grumman Goose and Catalina PBY with these amphibian aircraft being utilized to link the airport with the Ketchikan Harbor Seaplane Base. The current airport PAKT was opened on August 4, 1973 and was dedicated on the following day. The airport opening was the culmination of an effort by local residents, a 1965 study by the Alaska State Division of Aviation, another study in 1967 choosing the current site on Gravina Island, and land clearing in 1969. One of the first airlines to serve the new airport was Alaska Airlines which inaugurated the first jet service from Seattle to Ketchikan International Airport on August 4, 1973 with a Boeing 720 jetliner. Alaska Air primarily operated Boeing 727-100, 727-200 and 737-200 jetliners (including 737 passenger/cargo Combi aircraft) into the airport before switching to later model Boeing 737 jets. (edited wikipedia). NorthernSkyStudio The first release in scenery for X-Plane by NorthernSkyStudio, was in Hawaii with their Molokai and Kalaupapa airport package. This was a well done package, but quite a small release that would be a great addition to anyone that need's a very good Hawaiian scenery. So here is their next release with the very complex PAKT - Ketchikan International in southern Alaska. My main connection with PAKT - Ketchikan is that is a superb supply airport for CZST Stewart, and the excellent Beti-x scenery that is positioned close by there. So I have over the years toodled back and too to Stewart in mostly Bush, 208 Caravan and the odd GA aircraft from Ketchikan. But that is not using this scenery to anything but it's full potential. The airport is of course positioned central on the famous "Inside Passage" that consists of thousands of islands that are stretched right up the upper west North American continent from Seattle to Glacier Bay, and it is noted as one as THE very best flying areas in the world, for bush pilot and regional flying services. Ketchiken is also on the famous "Milk Run”. The Milk Run are routes that are run daily by Alaska Airlines and Flight 65, starts in Seattle and stops in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg and Juneau before flying on and landing in Anchorage. The opposite route flight, Flight 66, starts in Anchorage and stops in Cordova, Yakutat and Juneau before flying on to Seattle. There used to be B737 Combi aircraft flying on the route, but the last run was completed last year, and the combi's have now all been replaced by three dedicated 737-700 freighters. Ketchikan International Airport IATA: KTN - ICAO: PAKT - FAA LID: KTN 11/29 - 7,500ft (2,286m) Asphalt Elevation AMSL 92 ft / 28 m The airport does have a very unique layout with the main runway of which is located about 30 feet (9.1 m) higher than the apron further on up the hillside, and is connected between the two areas by two sloping taxiways in Taxiway A - RWY 29 and Taxiway B - Rwy 11 for departures. From an X-Plane modeling point of view this multi-elevation layout is extremely hard to get right as you can't rely on the initial mesh layouts, so everything has to be modeled to fit. Get it right, like here at this PAKT and it makes for one of the best arrival experiences in X-Plane. To fit aircraft parking areas on a hillside, it requires different parking zones and there are two (another zone looks like a parking area on TWY A but it is large turning or holding area.). The lower, lower zone (above) accessed by TWY C is for all General Aviation parking and it is quite a large area. The upper apron in front of the terminal is the main commercial zone. If International in the broad sense is the general idea, then PAKT is not in the same capability as say like KDEN - Denver or KLAX - Los Angeles. To put that into context it is to say international here is going from the USA into Canada, not to Japan or Europe. So in that context you have one (yes only one) airbridge and only one large stand or two large (B737/A320) parking slots. The (small) international terminal and it's very striking offset control tower is excellent, really well done with even the local carving set out around the building for authenticity, all the areas around the terminal are also very authentic and highly realistic... .... including the ferry connection ramp system landside, which is highly detailed. The Ferry itself "Ken Eichner -2" is also animated and docks on both sides of the Tongass Narrows waterway. On the airport side it perfectly fits into the wharf. Only comment is that the single airbridge is static and not animated, which is a shame as that would have been a big feature for the scenery. Next to the main apron is a commercial apron for local services, in i.e. charter, sightseeing flights, and island hopping. On the apron are four large hangars of which the first "Aero Services" of who is the cargo handler for the airport. All four hangars have been faithfully reconstructed and are simply excellent. Note the excellent grass and foliage, that is done all around here very well. Ground clutter is again excellent, with correctly branded and shaped custom cargo pallets (called cargo Igloos!), ramp aircraft boarding stands and branded baggage trolleys. Static aircraft are also provided with 208 Caravans and Lear Jets and are all also correctly locally branded. Detail is also really well done. With all the correct fencing and airport aids (including the ILS System). Seaplane base is also highly detailed, beautifully done. There is also a tunnel under the runway, a small thing but again great detail. Textures and surfaces are good, but feel a little light in colour and especially with the runway and taxiway A, which both needed to be both slightly darker, and note the excellent steel drainage grids. The odd looking light green colour surrounding the runway and taxiway areas is actually correct, and not a faded poor texture as it must be a coloured concrete mix (I checked). Port of Ketchikan Where as the airport island scenery is excellent, the port area on the other side of the narrows is a mixed bag. The area looks fine from the airport view point, but I feel the issue here is the underlay ortho textures in being far too light (washed out) in colour. The textures are flat around the wharf edges and level with the water and that creates a non-realistic feel? Worse there are a few important buildings missing that in their distinctive style and roof colour looked poor in being flat, and are as well front and centre visually... overall there is that "okay we will stop there, why bother doing any more" sort of feeling. And missing is all the shipping at both here at the port zone and in downtown Ketchikan (cruise shipping) as well and because they would be noticed from the airport on arrival or departure it makes it all look again rather more empty than it needs to be ... ... there is a huge slipway building, but I can't find the same on any maps? but it looks visually very good. The sailboats don't work either? They are all a bit bright and samey... I'm not expecting every one to be different, but a few changed styles would have made it that all the more realistic. Lighting The lighting overall at PAKT is excellent... Approach lighting is fine. The signage though looks totally out of scale... ... the sign looks as big as a Cessna 152? The colour brightness reflection is far to strong as well and not realistic. A shame because the terminal building and ramp lighting is absolutely first rate. So many developers get night lighting textures so wrong? but here they are perfect and highly realistic. Detail lighting including the excellent down lights are very well done... Ketchikan Port side is more simplistic, but fine and still includes nice lighting window textures, so the lighting is very good all over the scenery. WT3: WorldTraffic GroundRoutes are provided with the scenery, and over all they work very well including the hard situation of a taxi and turnaround on the end of RWY 29. But don't expect a lot of traffic here at PAKT as it is pretty quiet operations wise. Preview Notes I was actually pretty surprised by this PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska by NorthernSkyStudio as it is really very good, even excellent. Quality and detail is very through and there is a lot in this scenery to consider it's worth. And plus Ketchikan as in it's position is a pretty important airport for not only recreating the "Milk Run", but for a base to cover and explore this excellent "Inside Passage" area, as it is a bush pilot, and regional service supreme flying area. There is a lot of excellent work in here, and to say that NorthernSkyStudio is a developer to watch in delivering quality scenery, but there is the odd fumble in here that needs to be watched, but overall from them this is an excellent release. Positives: Great modeling with a very difficult X-Plane terrain (mesh) to recreate. All airport scenery is absolutely top notch, and night lighting is first rate, detail is excellent with the terminal and ferry ramp and ground clutter is branded and well recreated in detail. Negatives: Ketchikan Port feels like a bit of a left over from the main airport scenery, and feels a little half finished, no shipping is a big visual emptiness that shouldn't be? Signage is out of scale to the airport, looks odd at night and the single airbridge is only static. ____________________________________________________________________ Yes!... PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska by NorthernSkyStudio is Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : PAKT - Ketchikan International Alaska Price is US$25.00 Requirements : X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 2Gb VRAM Minimum - 4Gb+ VRAM Recommended Current Review version : 1.0 (August 6th 2018) Download Size: 1gb : Install Size 2.29gb Installation is the airport folder must be set above the "terrain" mesh in the .INI order PAKT_Northern_Sky_Studio (2.25gb) PAKT_Terrain_Northern_Sky_Studio (35.80mb) There is optional 2K textures if you run a lower powered computer, but to be honest they are not really needed as there is really nothing around PAKT to overuse your processors, running 4K textures my framerate was well within the 40's to 50's Extras and Documents: Manual in txt PAKT Installation manual ______________________________________________________________________ Preview by Stephen Dutton 13th August 2018 Copyright©2018 : X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 16 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo 512gb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.25r2 Addons: Saitek x56 Rhino Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini Plugins: Environment Engine by xEnviro US$69.90 : WorldTraffic 3.0 Plugin - US$29.95 : BetterPushBack - Free Scenery or Aircraft - Boeing 737-800 - Default X-plane by Laminar Research