Antigua from Tropical Sim

Tropical Sim - Antigua

 

 

Introduction

 

Antigua, a nice location off the Caribbean coast with lots of lovely aerodromes with approaches over the ocean. If you have a light aircraft, you can almost guarantee your take off and landing to be done somewhere near the ocean. This makes the scenery incredible.

 

Antigua's airport, V.C. Bird International Airport, is located just off St Johns, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda. Tropical Sim have used this opportunity to create a dynamic and detailed scenery for VC Bird Intl. Airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 and FSX.

 

Settings used while testing the scenery

Installation and Documentation

 

The installation procedure for this product is simple and similar to most other installations. It just requires a few well explained steps for the purpose of installation to get the scenery up and running. For the ease of adding the Scenery to the Scenery Library, they have included an extra program that just runs a script to install the scenery.

 

The Documentation is also very simple. It is a 4 page PDF file that briefly explains the history of the airport, its location and details, the Installation procedure and some other information. It has been laid out very simply and the required knowledge before seeing the scenery in action is very little so you can be flying sooner.

 

The Buildings

 

The Buildings included in this scenery is everything within the airport perimeter plus a few extra buildings and roads around the terminal. All the buildings have substantial detail on them and make them identifiable with real life imagery (such as pictures of the airport and Google Maps locations).

 

The terminal buildings have been accurately reproduced in regards to their shapes, features and colour. The entire terminal in VC Bird Intl' Airport has been designed as well as the access roads leading up to it. The building includes significant details such as the name of the airport written on the side and has all the included walkways, access paths and even some trees in its immediate vicinity.

 

 

There are also other airport buildings included in this scenery such as the Liat Building, the Government customs buildings and the hangars on the secondary runway. All of these have been located strategically and include significant detail to increase its level of realism, such as the Liat logo placed on the building in the scenery. The hangars from the crossing runway have also been included and have been positioned realistically, some of them with open doors.

 

 

Other surrounding buildings in the area have also been included such as the airport operational buildings and the Cricket Ground, just off the airport perimeter.

 

 

There are however, minor errors in the buildings such as the placement of "Antigua" on the Tarmac side of the Terminal.

 

 

In summary, Tropical Sim has included all the buildings that are relevant to the airport scenery so when you as a pilot are flying into Antigua, it is similar to the real thing.

 

Ground Textures

 

The ground textures in Tropical Sim's Antigua scenery have a high level of detail. The grass is more realistic, the runways look fantastic, and the taxiways are sensational with a hint of tyre marks. It is noticeable that Tropical Sim has gone o great lengths to ensure that their ground textures are accurate and detailed as it is an essential part of the scenery. Tropical Sim have also focused in detail on the surface type and colour so as to provide an accurate depiction of the real life counterpart. There is also a significant level of photorealism for the scenery that is outside the movement surfaces such as grass markings, etc.

 

Note: Tyre marks and Photo Realism

Although the ground textures are great, the disadvantage is that there is a clearly distinguishable difference between where the scenery finishes and the Flight Simulator textures continue. Although one may not observe this, those who are nit-picky about sceneries may find this a bit of a turn off. From a greater distance when looking at the "whole picture" however, this isn't that noticeable. So, for the operational usage of the scenery it may not make a significant difference.

 

 

Traffic

 

Every time you conduct a flight in Flight Simulator half way across the ocean, position yourself perfectly on the runway or make a smooth landing, you always feel like a real pilot. The animated ground traffic significantly helps in this feeling. Tropical Sim have included moving vehicles including Airport vehicles within the perimeter and cars on the outside. Moving vehicles are personally one of my favourite parts of the scenery and it's just absolutely fantastic that Tropical Sim has these moving vehicles.

 

The unfortunate thing however is that the vehicles play 'ghost' on you. A vehicle might be happily driving down the side of the apron when all of a sudden it disappears into nowhere. If analyzed properly, it is noticeable that Tropical Sim have placed a pattern on the vehicle movements across their whole Antigua Scenery. This means that the traffic is on a continuous loop and unfortunately, the end of the loop and the beginning of the loop haven't been aligned so the vehicles do a bit of a "jump" through the transition.

 

This doesn't feel very nice when you're looking at the traffic for a long time, nevertheless, we are flying airplanes and the fact that we actually have animated ground traffic makes you feel much more like a real pilot. On top of the animated ground traffic, there are also numerous static vehicles around the airport and in the Car Park which add a further sense of realism to the functionality of an airport environment.

 

The yellow vehicle is animated	Static vehicles
Static vehicles	Sky Chefs vehicle is animated

 

Little Features

 

In any scenery, the little features make a significant impact in your perception of the design. Tropical Sim have really looked into this by placing items such as 3D Taxiway Lighting in the scenery that really does make a difference. Other items such as light posts, numerous trees and the air station with satellite dishes at the end of the secondary runway really make a difference to the situation. This reality is significantly improved by these relatively smaller items and increases the level of detail of the design.

 

 

Night Scenery

 

Night time scenery is almost as equally important as the day time scenery. There is a good chance of aircraft operating during day and night, especially with commercial aviation. Tropical Sim have positively designed the scenery to include features in their night time scenery, such as lights for the apron, stadium and the taxiways (on the 3D taxiway lights).

 

A good scenery is one where there is a natural flow in the transition from day to night and Tropical Sim have made this transition very well. The only critical perception could be the lack of flood lights actually illuminating the ground as opposed to an equal shade of light across the whole surface. Although this isn't really major, the night scenery still stands up great in its entirety.

 

 

Terrain

 

The terrain difference in the vicinity of Antigua Airport is very little. In real life according to pictures from the internet, Antigua is almost at sea level. However in this scenery, the elevation seems to be slightly higher, probably caused by the limitations placed by Flight Simulator. Unfortunately, in the test scenery the cliff at the end of the runway just prior to the ocean has a bit of a drop off.

 

The scenery has been designed in a manner that the runway and the actual aerodrome perimeter overhangs the cliff. Since the runway has been hardened, operating on/off the runway doesn't make a difference but if the pilot goes off into the grass, they drop off "through" the scenery till they reach the original point of the elevation. This only happens when operating off the runway from the waterside but can be somewhat disorientating if it's unexpected.

 

A normal landing can still be properly made although there is an optical illusion of the ground "running" away from you while flying towards the runway.

 

Buildings placed on airport scenery is actually higher than terrain

Trees are from terrain and "cut" the airport scenery	Fence on higher airport scenery	Visible overlay of airport scenery on lower terrain

 

Although this error was found on my personal system, it doesn't guarantee that it'll be on other Simulators due to computer settings.

 

Performance

 

The performance in this scenery is absolutely fantastic. There is very little, if any, lag at all in Tropical Sim's Antigua. There was no noticeable performance variations on a numerous number of aircraft types in many situations around the scenery.

 

Summary / Closing Remarks

 

This is one of those sceneries that has its ups and downs. With all specifications out the window, the advantages certainly out-weigh the disadvantages.

 

In proper day to day Flight Simulator flying, the scenery has everything you need. Good ground scenery, good surroundings and good details are included in the scenery. Its flaws, if not specifically seen, are not easily noticeable. If you virtually operate into or out of Antigua often, this would be a very good collection for the extra added eye candy.

 

What I Like About Antigua

Simplistic Detail

Includes the "little" things (taxi lights, moving vehicles)

Accurate buildings

No drop in performance

 

What I Don't Like About Antigua

Lack of detail in specifics (car jumps, noticeable change in textures)

Runway ends "float" due to terrain sloping below the scenery

 

Test System

Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0 GHz

2.00 GB Ram

Nvidia Geforce 9800GTX/9800 GTX+

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3

Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick