Canadian Airports 1 from Oryx Simulations

AVSIM Commercial Scenery Review

Canadian Airports 1

Introduction

Canadian Airports 1 is a package containing all four Canadian airports that were released as of December 31st 2011 from OryxSim.   The four airports are Kelowna International Airport, Okotoks Air Park, Castlegar – West Kootenay Regional Airport and Chilliwack Regional Airport.  Each airport is also available to purchase individually. Below I will briefly describe each of these airports.

Kelowna International Airport (CYLW) is located approximately 10 minutes or 7.1 miles northeast of Kelowna British Columbia. According to the City of Kelowna, in 2010 the airport was one of the busiest Canadian airports in terms of the number of passengers served. Kelowna International Airport offers 62 daily non-stop commercial flights with Air Canada, West Jet, Alaska Airlines, Central Mountain Air and Northwestern Air serving Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Seattle, Victoria, Prince George, Edmonton and Red Dear. Seasonal service is also available to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cancun. The airport has an elevation of 1421 feet and has a single 8900 foot runway.

Okotoks Air Park (CFX2), is located 17 miles south of Calgary, Alberta and is the first private airpark community in Canada. It is a small airport that is primarily used for VFR flying. This airport has a field elevation of 3601 feet and has a single paved runway measuring 3025 feet by 50 feet.

Castlegar-West Kootenay Regional Airport (CYGG), is located 2.3 miles South-Southeast of the City of Castlegar, British Columbia and is owned and operated by the City of Castlegar. The airport is surrounded by high hills and is one of Canada’s most challenging airports to approach and land at.   Castlegar is only open during daylight hours with the Dash 8-300 being the largest aircraft to be able to operate there.   The field elevation of the airport is 1624 feet and has a single paved runway measuring 5300 feet by 150 feet.

Chilliwack Regional Airport (CYCW) is located adjacent to Chilliwack, British Columbia and is well known as the “Fly For Pie” airport due to the popularity of the pies at the airport café that attracts pilots from the lower mainland of British Columbia and the United States. Chilliwack Airport is home to approximately 75 private and commercial aircraft which includes both fixed wing and helicopters.  There are over twenty businesses based at the airport including: flight schools, charter companies (both fixed wing and helicopter), aircraft paint & maintenance shops as well as other aviation related businesses. The airport field elevation is 32 feet and it has a single paved runway that is 3990 feet by 75 feet.

Approaching Kelowna

Olympic Air Park in Calgary

Installation and Documentation

If you do not have the Orbx Pacific Northwest and Northern Rocky Mountains regional scenery installed, the installation of this product is very easy.   Just run the setup program and on the next screen, select “Install”, select the “Default FSX” version of the program and then select “Next”.

If you have the Orbx scenery’s installed select the appropriate version for which Orbx products that you have installed. I am going to install the scenery with the Orbx products disabled first to compare the airfields to the FSX default scenery, then reinstall with both Orbx products activated. Agree to the license agreement and on the next screen the installation routine should automatically find your FSX location or click the browse button to find your FSX location then select “Next” to install the scenery.

Kelowna – FSX default scenery

CYLW – Orbx default scenery

CYLW – OryxSim scenery without Orbx installed

After installation, the program gives you the option to view the manual and to verify that the “Add OryxSim Canadian Airports 1 Version 1.0 to the Scenery Library” is checked. This procedure is exactly the same if you have the Orbx products installed, just remember to add an Insertion Point for the Orbx scenery in the FTX Central program.

General Scenery

Since Canadian Airports 1 is compatible with the Orbx Pacific Northwest and Northern Rocky Mountains regional scenery, I decided to take some comparison screenshots. I tried to use the same parking spot for a starting location, but unfortunately that was not possible, so I tried to get it as close as possible. I made a screenshot of the FSX default scenery, Orbx default scenery and one of the OryxSim airport without Orbx activated.

I did make a couple of screenshots with both Orbx and the Canadian Airports package activated but other than some terrain and auto traffic enhancements, the scenery looked the same. All of the other screenshots in this review have both Orbx and OryxSim products activated in the Scenery Library.

I want to mention that I would do these same comparison screenshots with the upgraded Orbx airports to show how they complement the regional sceneries and not make this an OryxSim versus Orbx review. As you can see from the included screenshots there is a major upgrade over the default FSX scenery and some improvements over the default Orbx airport scenery.

The Canadian Airport 1 package adds accurate airport buildings, signage, static aircraft and ground vehicles. The first time that I load newly installed scenery, I like to explore the airport from the ground first.  This allows me to review the quality of the scenery textures from the ground level.   I then like to pilot a slower moving aircraft with good visibility (default Trike or another slow flying aircraft), to see what the airport scenery objects and surrounding scenery area looks like from the air.

All of the airport buildings and signage look great, without any blurry textures.   Even though the windows and doors look like they were painted on the buildings, the frames around them are of a different color which gives them an almost three dimensional look, which is nice.

All of the static aircraft and ground vehicles look three dimensional but the parked cars and trucks all had an angular shape to them instead of the more realistic look that parked aircraft have. What I do not like about the static aircraft is that some of aircraft do not have North American registrations which would be more realistic for Canadian airports.

OryxSim has also included many landmarks with the scenery, mostly in the Calgary area and these landmark look good from the air with exception of the Banff Resort scenery object which does not blend very well with surrounding terrain.

Static aircraft and vehicles.  The Cessna 162 Skycatcher in foreground is my aircraft.

The Banff Resort

FSX default scenery for Calgary/Okotoks Air Park

CFX2 – Orbx default scenery

CFX2 – OryxSim scenery without Orbx installed

FSX default scenery for Castlegar West Kootenay Regional Airport

CYCG – Orbx default scenery

CYCG – OryxSim scenery without Orbx installed

FSX default scenery for Chilliwack Regional Airport

CYCW – Orbx default scenery

CYCW – OryxSim scenery without Orbx installed

Extra Features

This is normally the section of the review where I comment on sounds, animations and extra features.

Canadian Airports 1 does not contain any animations and sound effects.  Normally, I would be disappointed about the absence of custom aircraft traffic, other animations and sound effects with a premium scenery title, but with this product this does bother me at all. The price of the scenery either individually or as a package is low and performance at the airports is very good.

If you own the Orbx regional scenery products, the improved roadway traffic from those products are visible at these airports. There are other products on the market that add realistic AI traffic and airport ground vehicle animations for FSX, if these things are important for your flight simulation experience. The only animation and sound effect that I really miss from this product are birds. Birds flying near the airport can add to the challenge of landing at airports and I do not believe that the associated bird animation and sound effects would greatly decrease performance.

The best extra feature is the compatibility with the Orbx products and the ease of the installation if you have these products installed.  OryxSim has done a very good job with the lighting effects. The one feature that I like but I think could be improved upon is the three dimensional grass. It is too tall for my taste. The user manual provides instructions on how to remove the grass if performance is an issue; it was not on my system.  It would be nice if a simple control panel was provided that allowed you to choose between tall, short or no grass.

Castlegar at dusk

Farm near Castlegar

Nanton Air Museum – South of Calgary

Parked at Kelowna

Scenery near Okotoks

Summary / Closing Remarks

I think Canadian Airports 1 is a wonderful product and greatly improves these airports over the default FSX airports. This product is compatible with Orbx Pacific Northwest and Northern Rocky Mountains regional scenery and compliments those products nicely.

If you require custom aviation traffic, animations and sound effects then you will be disappointed but this product is sold for a very good price and performance should also not be an issue.

The small things that I think could be improved upon are the angular shapes of the parked cars & trucks, static aircraft should North American registrations, and some of the included scenery objects (Banff Resort) do not blend well with the surrounding scenery and I would like to see shorter grass.

Again, these are small personal preference issues and do not change my view that this is a wonderful product and I look forward to new Canadian airports from OryxSim in the future.

What I Like About Canadian Airports 1

Great looking airport textures Easy installation and Orbx compatibility Wonderful value for the money
• Good lighting effects
• Good frame rates
• Lots of landmarks included with the scenery

What I Don't Like About Canadian Airports 1

• Static aircraft should have North American registrations
• Would like to see a control panel to select short, tall or no three dimensional grass
• The parked cars and trucks have sharp angles
• Some landmark scenery objects do not blend well with the surrounding scenery