Introduction Arlanda Airport, the largest airport in Sweden, and the third largest airport in Scandinavia (2006 data) had almost 18 million passengers in 2007. It officially opened for air travel in 1960, and today has three runways and four terminals with 64 gates. In addition, there are 5 terminals for cargo and 5 aircraft hangars located on the field.The commercial traffic at Arlanda is dominated by SAS, a Star Alliance partner, and there are numerous other airlines offering service to all corners of Europe and the world. Furthermore, Arlanda is also a hub for domestic and connecting flights, as well as the cargo destination for British Airways, SAS, Cathay Pacific, UPS, FEDEX, DHL, Korean Cargo and others responsible for distributing all those IKEA pieces all over the world.According to the information I found on Wikipedia, the airport officials claim that Arlanda airport is the best when it comes to snow removal, and field is never closed due to snow.The scenery of Arlanda airport includes the airport itself, and does not include any of the surrounding areas. Included with this scenery are dynamic and animated objects, high-resolution day and night textures, high-resolution aerial photo textures, seasonal textures, and docking systems. The airport is compatible with AI traffic packages.Installation and Documentation The Mega Airport Arlanda comes as a 133 MB download, and installs by double clicking on the executable file. The installation is straightforward and once installed, the scenery activates automatically within FS9.
Documentation includes one PDF file and one HTML link to Swedish Civil Aviation Authority, where you can view and save the charts for free. The PDF manual comes in two languages, German first and English second. The manual is very basic and gives a short geographical overview, basic requirements, performance tips, and ILS and VOR frequencies associated with the field.
Let’s Explore
Unlike some other airport add-ons this one has few
moving scenery objects, and no moving cars on the roads in vicinity of
the airport. On the airfield, several moving buses, and service
vehicles mostly stay out of the apron area. The gates are not animated,
or if they are that feature is not documented in the scenery manual.
However, there are active docking guidance systems in place, which do a
pretty good job in lining up the airplane with the static gate.
While the lack of the animation for the gates is somewhat disappointing, if you expect such a feature, the textures of the buildings and gates are done very well. According to the Aerosoft’s web page many photographs were used to make “the most important buildings” at Arlanda. One other feature that some airport designers include, the interior of the buildings, is not modeled. The ground textures for the airport were done using aerial photography, and look great when viewed from the top, yet they occasionally lack the 3d effect as you get lower or just taxi around. For example, on one of the parking stands you can clearly see the silhouette of the airplane, if your vantage point is located above the field. On the contrary, when viewed from the ground, it is a flat area with a mysterious looking blob/pixel. The lack of static airplanes can also be noted, but that situation can be fixed by enabling your AI traffic package. I have installed Project’s AI SAS traffic package and all of the AI airplanes at the airport park and taxi precisely where they should. Some of the detailed airport packages include service vehicles that pull up to the airplane, but this one has none. Unless your airplane comes equipped with special servicing options, you will get none here. One thing that would be nice to have at this Nordic airport, is some sort of animated deicing equipment, but again I couldn’t find anything in the docs pointing to that feature.
The textures that come with the airport are done quite well and they do mesh in seamlessly into the surrounding area. The runway textures, as well as the taxiway textures, are custom made and I have found them to be quite realistic and well laid out. Moreover, the different shades of concrete and asphalt provide additional realism and go a long way of making this airport add-on quite different then its default cousin.
Night lighting is appropriate, but I have found the taxiway lights too flat and not quite up to standards for the custom type of scenery. In addition, they occasionally seem to flicker and distract from the overall night experience of this package.
Performance Performance is fluid and if I experienced the slow downs and stuttering, it was mainly due to the AI and lots of texturing of the numerous buildings at Arlanda. Even with all the dynamic add-on scenery turned up, and autogen at extremely dense, I had little or no frame rate impact while flying or driving around. Nevertheless, when quickly panning around in the direction of the buildings, with lots of AI in sight, the frames dropped momentarily to occasional 16-17 from my limit of 27.
Closing RemarksThis airport is modeled well. There are lots of buildings, terminals, gates and hangars to see. In addition, many parking stands and gates have excellent details, albeit somewhat static in their nature. I wish there more vehicle movements and at least a few moving gates or service vehicles, together with the animated de-icing areas. The textures and night lighting are very good except for the previously noted taxiway lights. If you have to fly north, and would like to add a great Scandinavian hub to your virtual skies, Arlanda is just what you need. If you have the need to add another fairly detailed airport to your FS9, Arlanda also fits the bill well. However, if you are a virtual airport junkie who spends more time checking out the scenery then flying, you might find this airport lacking in some areas that distinguish the very detailed add-on airports from the rest.
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