Introduction Given the sheer volume of sceneries out there, it has always surprised me that there has been a decided lack of very high quality military sceneries for the FS series. This is not to say that there haven’t been some good freeware and payware air bases, but up until now there hasn’t been a project with the same level of detail that went into products like the classic Emma Field from LAGO. With the release of their Aviano AFB scenery, Cloud9 have made a very good attempt at that level of quality and detail. Installation and Documentation Aviano is only available as a 33MB download for $19.99 plus tax. Downloading is simple since the product can be downloaded and installed for free, but to actually use it within FS, it must be purchased from within the game via a pull down menu. Although the system is somewhat unconventional, it seems to work just fine and the only issue I ran into was that the installer seems to run VERY slowly with FsAutostart running. After the installer runs, Aviano is ready to go, but a read-through of the manual will make the scenery much less frustrating and much more fun. The manual consists of a 30 page PDF file that gives all of the information needed to use some of the more advanced or obtuse functions, as well as a brief, well written history of Aviano itself. The manual is very clear and concise, and does a very good job of explaining all of the features of the product without becoming either rambling or too brief. The Program The Aviano airbase itself is very detailed as well offering a new mesh for the surrounding mountains and some other enhancements to the surrounding area to make VFR approaches possible. The scenery for the base includes the runway, taxiways, etc… as well as base housing and a variety of other buildings and objects associated with the operation of a modern airbase. Aviano has a single runway (5-23) with 8,500 feet available for landing, which sounds like a lot of runway, but is surprisingly short when trying to land an F-104 in bad weather. The base itself is incredibly well done. Everything from ground power carts to fences have been modeled, and all of the buildings look extremely realistic with nicely curved shelters, which are a nice change from the rectangles that pass as hangers on default airports. The mesh and revamped roadways of the surrounding area look extremely convincing and, with the exception of where the mountains meet the default mesh, everything blends together seamlessly and enough detail is present that I am sure if one was familiar with the area that VFR approaches would be possible.
Although the static scenery is very nice in and of itself, what really makes this product stand out is the huge amount of moving parts present in the scenery as well as the GCA system. Almost everything that can reasonably be expected to be animated in a modern scenery addon has been animated and the overall effect is to create a convincing feeling of the base being “alive”. Taxiing around Aviano will reveal that there are a lot of vehicles running around the airfield. Humvees can be seen patrolling and looking for intruders, crew vans drive around the flight line, and fire crews also drive around looking for fires to extinguish. Every so often the fire trucks will drive over to a training area and put out a fire to keep the crews sharp. The vehicle models themselves are somewhat blocky, but unless one looks at the vehicles very closely, they look quite realistic. The only oddity with the vehicles is that they run prescribed routes and will occasionally drive through an aircraft or an open hanger door. In addition to vehicles, several other aspects of the base have animations as well. On the ends of the runway, the barrier that is used to stop aircraft with brake failures is animated, but has no effect in the sim (ditto for the arrestor cables) but Cloud9 has said this will eventually be fixed in a patch when a way can be found to make the barrier and cables work. Several of the hanger areas are blocked off by gates that open when approached, which is a nice touch. The hangers at Aviano are separated into two different styles and the hanger doors can be opened by tuning radios to a specific frequency, but I was unable to make the doors close again.
Aviano also has its own AI aircraft, which also adds to the realism. The AI F-16’s and F117’s will leave Aviano and fly to other airports in Europe before returning, so there is a chance that you will run into a Stealth Fighter at some totally unexpected airport, which is a nice touch. The AI models aren’t the highest quality visual models that I have seen in FS, but given the volume of AI at Aviano, the simple models help to keep framerates reasonable. The biggest flaw with the AI is its behavior when landing and taking off. For some weird reason, AI aircraft will often land in the dirt to one side of the runway or on a taxiway and will then randomly swerve back onto the runway. This is a very obvious bug and Cloud9 has said that it will be fixed in the first patch.
Given
the sheer amount of buildings, vehicles and AI aircraft, I was expecting
Aviano to bring my framerates down to a crawl, but I was
pleasantly surprised.
The scenery itself does not seem to have a huge impact on framerates,
but the AI traffic does. With the AI turned off, framerates at Aviano
were
slightly lower than when flying over a medium sized city (25-30 FPS),
but turning
on
AI at 100%
delivered only about 10 FPS. Turning the AI down to 50-75% delivered
much better results with framerates in the 20’s most of the
time.
GCA Although the Aviano scenery itself is quite impressive, the outstanding feature of this product is definitely the GCA system. For those unfamiliar with the term, GCA is a method used by the military to land aircraft in poor weather. GCA uses a very precise radar system to track the aircraft, and the pilot is given directions via radio to literally talk the aircraft down. Avianos GCA system is truly one of the most impressive pieces of programming to grace an FS scenery since Emma Field for FS2002 came out. The GCA system in FS works exactly like the real thing, with a voice giving directions that will result in a very precise approach if followed. The GCA system does require some modification the panel.cfg’s of aircraft in order to use it, but the manual contains clear instructions for adding the gauge (which doesn’t appear on the actual panels), and when the scenery installs, it adds the gauge to the default Learjet so that you can use the system right out of the box. The GCA system only works for runway 5, and the system is activated by tuning the nav radio to 109.6MHz. For the GCA to work properly, you need to be within 10NM of the airport, or within 18NM of the approach end of runway 05. If you are within the effective area, the GCA controller will vector you around to line up for runway 05. Depending on where you were when you activated the GCA, the initial vectors can take awhile to get the correct lineup, and aircraft with poor turn radii (like the F-104) will tend to overshoot the points the system looks for, so it is best to activate the system when generally aligned to runway 5. If you follow the instructions correctly, you will find yourself aligned with runway 05 12NM out and at 4000 feet, which is where the challenging part of the approach begins. While on approach, the GCA will attempt to maintain a 2.5-degree glide slope down to the ground via verbal instructions. If you begin to drift off course, you will be told that you are either left or right of track and you will also be told when you are coming back and when you are on the correct track. A similar set of directions are also given to keep you on the glide path. Once you are within 3NM of the runway, you will be told to check that your gear is down, and the frequency of the corrections will be faster. If you get too far off course or too low, you will be told to go around and will have to repeat the process again. If, however you successfully keep the aircraft on course, the directions will talk you down almost to the ground, where all you have to do is touch down. Several flights are also included to highlight the GCA module for both the Learjet 45 and, if you own it, the Cloud9 F-104 (which already has the GCA gauge installed) in varying times of day and weather. Although the GCA module is quite complicated and is very unique, I never had any problems with it and the system preformed flawlessly through each of the many approaches I made while writing this review. Technical Support Support for Aviano has been very good. Support is administered via forums that are inhabited by a very professional support staff and most questions are answered within a couple of hours of posting, if not faster. There is a patch planned to add functional barriers, arrestor cables, and improve the AI, but as of this writing, there is no release date for the patch. Summary Overall, Aviano is one of the most impressive sceneries available for FS 2004. While it may lack the sheer volume of the Megascenery titles or Misty Fjords, it still delivers a lot of content for the price. Although there are some rough edges (most notably the AI), the overall product does a very good job of simulating a modern military airfield. |
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