Introduction

Aerosoft has released another addition to the German Airports series. This airport, on a first look, may seem to be just another addition to Aerosoft's German Airport series but actually it has some special significance.

Incidentally, this airport is also the home base of Aerosoft GmbH. Further, the location also plays host to the annual German Flight Simulation Conference. Before we dive in, let us try and learn more about this airport.

Paderborn/Lippstadt Airport (German: Flughafen Paderborn/Lippstadt) (IATA: PAD, ICAO: EDLP) is an airport in Germany that serves the Ostwestfalen-Lippe area in North Rhine-Westphalia. While the name implies a location within the city of Paderborn or the town of Lippstadt, the airport is actually located in the town of Büren, around 18 km from Paderborn city centre. It became operational in 1971 as the Flughafen Paderborn/Lippstadt GmbH. Today, the airport handles over 1.3 million passengers. The airport connects to nearly all holiday regions in the south of Europe as well as major hubs for further connections around the world.

Installation and Documentation

Documentation

The manual is pretty much compact and detailed. It consists of 23 pages, both in German and English. Installation instructions are provided and are very easy to follow. This manual comes with technical information of the airport.

The manual very clearly lists instructions on how to use the scenery to achieve better frame rates, weather settings and also to optimize performance settings. For an expert these may not seem relevant but to the bulk of our simmers, these small tips go a long way in achieving better performance and avoid unnecessary problems.

Charts

As expected with Aerosoft, the package comes with the necessary charts of the aerodrome. The package contains 17 pages of Charts ranging from aerodrome charts to arrival and departure charts. Printing these charts will be of great use to our online flyers.

Aerosoft uses an automated installer that allows you to select your language; you then need to enter your product key received at the time of purchase to activate the installation. Once started, the installation lasted about 9 steps and took less than a minute.

The manual explains in detailed and simple manner the procedures to follow for installation or uninstallation. However, the process is extremely simple and all you need to do is follow the instructions on the screen.

Installation is straight forward with simple to follow windows

Overview

Before we move into the detailed review, let us compare the bird's eye view of the airport with the real world.

A view from Google Maps	A top down view from FSX. The airport looks similar to the real life satellite image
An overview of the scenery suggested the scenery is more closer to real life and I am sure you can’t wait to drill down deep into the scenery now.

Terminal , Buildings and Surrounding Areas

One thing I should comment about the terminal of the airport is that it is "impressive". The buildings and structures created in the airport seem to match the real-world buildings. Even the balcony on the terminal building, which one could easily not notice, has been modeled with an eye for detail, with umbrellas and chairs. Each gate is well modeled and while taxing, one will notice the various cargo baggage carts, push-back vehicles and passenger buses along the apron. The downside is all these are static. I loved the way the passengers pick-up and drop areas have been modeled with a bus waiting. Unfortunately, this too was static. It would have been nice to see these things buzzing along.

While you are preparing for flight, the zipping traffic outside the airport is a nice eye candy feature. In fact, depending on the intensity you set, there can be a number of cars and trucks zipping along the roads around the airport. Another feature I liked was that the buildings, including those in the business centre adjacent to the airport, have the actual business names on them for eg: "Atlas Air Service","Paragon", "Airport Hotel"; that is some eye for detail. If I am right, I even spotted the Aerosoft logo on one of the buildings.

A closer look at the Main terminal building with static human and baggage cars, etc	Aerial view of the terminal building	Looks like the terminal to pick up and drop crew/ passengers
Probably a small snack bar on the terminal buildingcorner, even this has been created with precision	Beauty at Night	Good runway lighting
Again another example of good building models but the surrounding areas such as roads, etc may have deserved a little more attention	Nice looking buildings but the roads are not impressive at all	The runway looks used!! Realistic

  The airport looks even better at night. I would agree with Aerosoft's claim that the scenery has "excellent night effects" like the name boards and the light posts. The apron lighting and runway lighting are all well done and the effects at night are particularly interesting. I saw one negative.

There is no doubt that enough attention has been paid to the airport, apron, terminal buildings and also buildings in the adjacent business centre. But in my view, the roads in and around the airport have been neglected and hence they don't look realistic. The immediate surrounding areas around the approach to the airport could have been more realistic with roads and parking lots etc., But in all honesty, I don't really see anyone other than a critical reviewer like me, wanting to go so close and make noise about it. So I wouldn't make such a big deal out of it.

Great graphics comes at a cost. More extensive the graphics, the more will be lost in frames per second (fps). Hence, it is important to strike the right balance.

I am very proud of my system, hence with most sliders to the right including the scenery and traffic settings, I was able to achieve an fps level of 12, which in my view, is decent. But with some tweaking and implementing a few suggestions given in the manual, I was able to take the fps to 16.

Hence, I would rate the performance of this scenery above average.

I have never been a great fan of smaller scenery add-on airports. Also, why should I buy this if I don't even fly to this airport? After seeing this one from Aerosoft, they have brought back some life to the boring default FSX scenery with the skilled design of the terminal and surrounding buildings, thus making it more realistic, especially when you see the name boards of offices in the adjacent business centre.

The main terminal building, gates, parking areas are well designed. The scenery glows and blossoms under the lights. I am now convinced that it is well worth a small hole in your pocket if you pick these well designed add-ons.

In addition, the charts that are available, along with downloads, just makes flying in and out of this airport child's play. Hence, for reasons mentioned above and considering a reasonable price tag of around $17.50 USD, I am a satisfied reviewer.

Printing

If you wish to print this review or read it offline at your leisure,  right click on the link below, and select "save as"

Padderborne

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