AVSIM Commercial
Scenery Review
SwedFlight Pro
|
 |
|
| Rating
Guide |
|
| Publisher:
SWEDFLIGHT Design Group |
Description:
Highly detailed airports at Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg, the largest in Sweden |
Download Size:
(see text) |
Format:
Download |
Product Type:
FS2002 scenery add-on |
| Reviewed by: Craig Wyzik, AVSIM Sr. Reviewer |
Possible
Commercial Rating Score:
1 to 5 stars with 5 stars being exceptional.
Please see details of our review rating policy here. |
There are large parts of the world that flight simmers often overlook. Among them are Africa, Central Asia, most of South America, and so on. Western and Central Europe draw plenty of attention, while places on the periphery of that continent are sometimes forgotten. A group of simmers has been hard at work designing scenery for their home country of Sweden. The SwedFlight Pro project has given us a nice scenery package for the airports ESSA (Stockholm/Arlanda), ESMS (Malmö/Sturup), and ESGG (Gothenburg/Landvetter).
|
Reader Survey
This survey is intended for those that have used this product or add-on. If you have used it, please let your fellow simulation enthusiasts know how you rate it by taking this survey. Please, if you have not used this product, do not take this poll (you can view the poll from the "Results" link below).
|
|
|
Stockholm, the capital, is the Swedish city most non-Swedes are probably familiar with. Gothenburg is best known as the home of automaker Volvo, and is located on the western coast of Sweden, along the Kattegat – the body of water that connects to the North Sea. Malmö is in far southern Sweden, just a short hop from Copenhagen, Denmark.
The three airports currently in the SwedFlight package (more are planned for the future) are available separately or as a group (total cost 28 Euros). I will be talking about the entire group of airports for purposes of this review. This scenery is most commonly available as a payware download that, once installed, and all updates are applied, will take up 147mb of hard drive space. (Be sure you have installed Service Pack 1 for the scenery, as well as the AI traffic compatibility updates.) There are some nice .pdf files that contain maps and histories of the airports, instructions on setting up the scenery, and descriptions of the docking systems, and things like that. All in all, this is a very thorough package, even though it is download-only.
My first flights were to/from the largest of these three airports, indeed the largest in all of Sweden—Stockholm Arlanda (ESSA). This airport gradually replaced Stockholm Bromma in the 1950s and 60s. Arlanda looks good, with very complex and impressive terminal buildings, taxiways, and so forth. It is worth noting that many of the lesser important buildings are not included in the scenery as of yet. They are promised for a future service release of this scenery. There are enough terminal buildings, jetways, and static aircraft that you won't miss those other buildings very much. It would be nice to have everything complete, but I guess we'll have to be patient, and check back with the SwedFlight crew regularly. One interesting decision I see the designers made was to use photo-realistic textures for the central (non-terminal) parts of the airport. I didn't really notice while I was on the ground, but when over-flying the airport around 5-6,000 feet the effect was noticeable. I'm not always a fan of photo-realistic textures mixed with actual three-dimensional scenery objects, and I had mixed feelings about the visual appeal here.
Test System |
Pentium 4 2,400MHz Asus P4B266
512mb DDR Memory
Windows XP
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128mb
CMedia 8738 Sound
CH Products Flight Yoke
CH Pedals
Dell P991 19" Trinitron Monitor
|
Gate 14 at Gothenburg Landvetter
Terminal 2 at Stockholm Arlanda
Malmö Sturup
Nighttime at Sturup
The SwedFlight Team
Departing Landvetter
Approaching Landvetter - Notice all the lakes
Overflying Stockholm Arlanda - Photo Realistic?
|
|
Flying between Stockholm and Gothenburg, you realize how much of Sweden is on or near water. The coastline on both sides of the peninsular country is jagged with inlets, and there are thousands of lakes in the interior of the country. On approach into Gothenburg Landvetter (ESGG), I noticed how good the night lighting looked—both the runway/taxiway lights and the large floodlights that illuminate the ramp areas. Landvetter is complete in terms of the extra buildings that Arlanda is lacking. Things like cargo centers, parking garages, hotels, and warehouses are all present. One "old school" scenery design trick that the creators have used to good effect is to put a ring of trees around the airport to make the airport look like it blends in to the surrounding terrain. The visual effect is especially good in this case.
I did a little exploring at Landvetter, and found a billboard with pictures of the scenery designers on the road leading away from the airport. Nice touch! From Gothenburg, it was on to Malmö by way of Copenhagen Kastrup. The terminal buildings at Malmö Sturup (ESMS) are distinctively yellow—very Scandinavian. Sturup is a much smaller airport than Arlanda, about on par with Landvetter. After following the docking system's instructions and getting parked, I did some exploring of the airport area. This airport is complete just like Landvetter, and if Arlanda is completed to the same degree, it will be very impressive.
While there are only three airports in this package, it is the basis for what should be a very nice collection of airports. Future plans include coverage of Copenhagen Kastrup (EKCH - hooray!), Stockholm Bromma (ESSB), Kristianstad (ESMK), Sundsvall (ESNN), Trollhättan (ESGT), and Jönköping (ESGJ). It would be especially nice to see some attention paid to the buildings and monuments of Swedish cities and towns, for those of us that do a lot of VFR flying. Overall, this is a good scenery package, and if you have an interest in all things Swedish, you should give this one a look. For more information, please visit the SwedFlight website.
Credits:
Johnny Andersson
Björn Härlin
Bo Wiberg
|
