Belfast City - yet another new airport

[scianoir 610]

The veritable avalanche of new airport releases continues! This time it is Belfast City (EGAC) from Eiresim, the development of which has been kept fairly quiet. I already have all of Eiresim's other airports and certainly their more recent ones are pretty good but unfortunately their website seemed to have been hacked some time ago and their support forum essentially destroyed. I see now that the forum has disappeared from their website completely, the only 'support' being an extremely limited number of FAQs and an e-mail link, but in saying that, my personal experience with Terry in the past was that help was quick in coming from him when contacted.

 

The available screenshots of EGAC on the Eiresim site seem pretty good although the production does not quite seem to be in the Fly Tampa / FSDT league, but the asking price is very reasonable which is nice to see in this increasingly expensive flightsim age! All that I need to know now before I decide to buy this is confirmation that it is compatible with FTX-Northern Ireland but that information doesn't seem to be available anywhere yet. Maybe Terry could confirm if he reads this?

 

Bill

[ryanbatc 12,846]

YANA hehe you could trademark that!

[1st fltsimguy 466]

I can't be too sure but I would think I could sit nicely into the FTX as long as it is set for higher priority.

 

You say you own the others and by the sounds of it you might own FTX Ireland as well so how do the other sit in relation to FTX that might answer your question.

 

There could be some mesh issues but my scan of my Ireland FTX doesn't seem to show any special mesh included.  I am using FS Genesis NextMap mesh for Europe including Great Britain and everything FTX seems to fit nicely.

[scianoir 610]

I can't be too sure but I would think I could sit nicely into the FTX as long as it is set for higher priority.

 

You say you own the others and by the sounds of it you might own FTX Ireland as well so how do the other sit in relation to FTX that might answer your question.

 

There could be some mesh issues but my scan of my Ireland FTX doesn't seem to show any special mesh included.  I am using FS Genesis NextMap mesh for Europe including Great Britain and everything FTX seems to fit nicely.

 

Hi Bryan,

 

The other Eiresim airports all sit well with FTX Ireland providing you deactivate the landclass files that come with Dublin and Cork (they cause vast areas of forrest to appear where they shouldn't be and in many cases, long distances from the airports!). The landclass files that come with Shannon don't seem to cause a similar problem but I deactivated them anyway. I love the Eiresim version of Cork and Shannon and if EGAC is of similar quality I will be happy with that. I now however use Aerosoft Dublin and have uninstalled the Eiresim version.

 

By the way if you do fly to/from/in Ireland and want some of the regional airports/airfields, there is great quality freeware (payware standard IMO) available on Avsim from George Keogh which is quite compatible with FTX-Ireland with a few tweaks of scenery files.

 

With regard to mesh, FTX-Ireland does not come with an embedded mesh and, although I had been using FSX Genesis Next Map mesh for Ireland, I uninstalled it as it did cause me some issues with Eiresim EICK. However FTX-Ireland even with the default mesh does look pretty realistic.

 

Bill

[scianoir 610]

OK, bought this as it was good value and I thought there was little to lose! I can confirm that it does seem broadly compatible with FTX-NIR after deactivating the 3 EGAC files within FTX-NIR. When I say 'broadly', I have not been able to get rid of the FTX versions of the Harland and Wolff cranes, as there isn't any file that I can clearly identify as containing them, so I now have 4 cranes! The other issue is that some of the AI traffic on the surrounding roads is travelling on the adjacent grass but I am not sure if this is a compatibility problem with FTX or not. Still I can live with these issues, as overall this scenery is a definite improvement on the EGAC scenery bundled with FTX-NIR (although that isn't bad) and it certainly adds more immersion to the experience of flying into EGAC.

 

Overall, in summary I am very pleased with this purchase - it is really great value (other developers please take note!) and, although not quite FlyTampa in quality, it is an excellent addition if you plan to fly in this area on a regular basis and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested.

 

Now Eiresim, try to clean up / salvage / recreate your support forum which I note is accessible through the download link, but remains a complete mess!

 

Bill

[kiki 89]

Is the Paypal only method for payment?

[scianoir 610]

Is the Paypal only method for payment?

 

Looks like it - although all sorts of credit card symbols are beside the 'pay' link, the only option that seems to come up is Paypal!

 

Bill

[Dillon 2,197]

The veritable avalanche of new airport releases continues! This time it is Belfast City (EGAC) from Eiresim, the development of which has been kept fairly quiet. I already have all of Eiresim's other airports and certainly their more recent ones are pretty good but unfortunately their website seemed to have been hacked some time ago and their support forum essentially destroyed. I see now that the forum has disappeared from their website completely, the only 'support' being an extremely limited number of FAQs and an e-mail link, but in saying that, my personal experience with Terry in the past was that help was quick in coming from him when contacted.

 

The available screenshots of EGAC on the Eiresim site seem pretty good although the production does not quite seem to be in the Fly Tampa / FSDT league, but the asking price is very reasonable which is nice to see in this increasingly expensive flightsim age! All that I need to know now before I decide to buy this is confirmation that it is compatible with FTX-Northern Ireland but that information doesn't seem to be available anywhere yet. Maybe Terry could confirm if he reads this?

 

Bill

 

 

Someone needs to suggest putting in the Titanic museum in the scenery since it sits so close to the airport (well within reason).  The museum is a landmark and adds to the scenery.

[scianoir 610]

Someone needs to suggest putting in the Titanic museum in the scenery since it sits so close to the airport (well within reason).  The museum is a landmark and adds to the scenery.

 

Well the scenery seems to be just in the immediate vicinity of the airport. I have no idea where the Titanic museum is as I have not set foot in NIR since the late 60s when a bullet came through the adjacent window of our train from the Republic as I was travelling to Belfast with my parents! The rest, as they say, is history and I won't get into a political discussion here!

 

Bill

[1st fltsimguy 466]

Hi Bryan,

 

The other Eiresim airports all sit well with FTX Ireland providing you deactivate the landclass files that come with Dublin and Cork (they cause vast areas of forrest to appear where they shouldn't be and in many cases, long distances from the airports!). The landclass files that come with Shannon don't seem to cause a similar problem but I deactivated them anyway. I love the Eiresim version of Cork and Shannon and if EGAC is of similar quality I will be happy with that. I now however use Aerosoft Dublin and have uninstalled the Eiresim version.

 

By the way if you do fly to/from/in Ireland and want some of the regional airports/airfields, there is great quality freeware (payware standard IMO) available on Avsim from George Keogh which is quite compatible with FTX-Ireland with a few tweaks of scenery files.

 

With regard to mesh, FTX-Ireland does not come with an embedded mesh and, although I had been using FSX Genesis Next Map mesh for Ireland, I uninstalled it as it did cause me some issues with Eiresim EICK. However FTX-Ireland even with the default mesh does look pretty realistic.

 

Bill

 

So by the sounds of it most are reasonably compatible, I'm thinking of getting Belfast City so thanks for the report.

 

I do have George Keogh's freeware, someone else recommended him to me sometime back when Ireland came out.  I had to do some tweaks, can't recall what right now, to make them look more appealing, I think I took out the background in a couple of them and used the base FTX. 

[Ayster 73]

Looks like it - although all sorts of credit card symbols are beside the 'pay' link, the only option that seems to come up is Paypal!

 

Bill

 

You can pay by credit card with paypal without setting up a paypal account click on 'Don't Have a Paypal account' on the paypal login screen, you can then fill in your credit card details and optionally create a paypal account, but its not required.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

Compatibility with FTX Ireland.,.....

 

There are mesh issues short of both runway thresholds.

The FTX area underneath the photo image does not seem to be excluded, so you can see a part of it "sticking out" at the northern tip of the airport.

 

In addition......

 

Runway 22 does not have a proper turn around for the AI planes, so they turn almost onto the grass when they reach the end of the runway, and it looks rather unrealistic.

Lack of numerous ground markings that are present at the real airport.

The car parks do not look very good to me. Too few cars, and they are scattered rather haphazardly.

No parking spots on the GA Apron.

Annoying "marks" near aircraft parking spots that do not look all that great to me.

 

You may not be able to remove the FTX H&W cranes, but you can remove the ones included in the EGAC Belfast City package. Just look for a BGL file with "hw" in it. The FTX ones are larger, but at least you only have two cranes instead of four.

 

I have actually modified the car parks on my PC, added four parking spots to the GA Apron, and also corrected the runway 22 turn around problem. Unfortunately, I would not be able to send anyone the files for copyright reasons. However, if you want to correct the turnaround problem yourself (and add GA parking spots), you just need a copy of Airport Design Editor. You would need to add an extra AI pathway (green line) from each parking spot, extend this new taxi path to the taxiway exit nearest to the runway 22 threshold (don't attach it to the runway link at this spot), and then extend it up to the runway 22 end, and form a loop in the turnaround area before attaching this to the runway end. This seems to work fine on my PC. As for the car parks, well.....I am a beta tester for another flightsim developer, so I have access to a library of models.

 

I am also intending to learn how to use the GP Editor that is included with ADE, so that I can add a few more ground markings at the airport.

[smithte 12]

Hi folks,

 

Fix is currently 90% completed for all of the above issues (including adding more 3d cars) and I intend to release it on Sunday evening so please keep an eye out on the home page on Eiresim Sunday night (Irish time).

 

I'm also dedicating the weekend to getting the EIresim forum back up and running. I've been extremely busy with real life work over the past 2 years and have let that part of Eiresim slip. This is not acceptable and I intend to get a fully working, responsive forum back up and running over the weekend. As ever I am always available on the support email if there are any issues

 

Terry

[Christopher Low 5,353]

Thanks, Terry. I look forward to seeing the updated version.

[shamrock122 0]

We are pleased to release an update for Belfast City Ultimate which includes the following fixes:

Flatten problems when using Eiresim Belfast + FTX have been fixed

Unwanted extra FTX objects around the airport have now been removed

Eiresim version of Harland & Wolff cranes will now appear instead of the FTX version

Afcad conflicts when using Eiresim + FTX have been resolved

Traffic driving on grass instead of the road around the airport has been fixed

Airstairs have been scaled down a more realistic size compared to before

Airbridge has been scaled down a more realistic size compared to before


More info available here