Would Prestwick be a good first introduction to Gary's work?

 

My typical routes have been concentrated in the US and Canada, but with OpenLC EU and FT Copenhagen, I will be heading to Europe quite often this month and would like to set myself up with a few good bases.

 

I'm planning on getting FT Vienna, Aerosoft Bergen, and Vidan Sonderborg. I'd like to add a good UK airfield to the mix. EGSS is my favorite London area airport (or should I say aerodrome but the uk2000 version is rather old and due for an update. I'm not too interested in heathrow, and since Prestwick is the latest release, I'm tempted to don my finest Scottish brogue and give it a try. Should I go for it or would there be a better uk2000 airport to get first? I will be flying heavies so need a nice long airstrip. Recommendations?

Luton is good! Can get lightly loaded 777s in and out ok too.

Depends on what you're flying - prestwick is a bit of a ghost town in real life and only has 1 or 2 commercial flights a day with Ryanair.

 

As for airports you've mentioned I would say get one of the hubs first- Manchester, gatwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham possibly or even stansted is really good.

Gatwick is a good airport for accommodating different types of aircraft and I think is the one of the busiest single runway airports in the world. However Luton is a very nice rendition and is pretty new.

Depends on what you're flying - prestwick is a bit of a ghost town in real life and only has 1 or 2 commercial flights a day with Ryanair.

 

...which makes it an interesting airport to keep an eye on with a good mix of interesting types passing through as well as training flights. It's the only place I've seen the one and only An-225, Concorde doing touch&goes (back in the day), vintage and many military visitors. And it is a long main runway for heavily laden big iron should you enjoy flying freight.

Andrew,

 

Do you want to see lots of AI airliners at your new European base? If so, then Prestwick isn't really what you are looking for. However, if you are more interested in runway length, then Prestwick would be a decent purchase. It has the longest runway in Scotland, and only two airports in England have appreciably longer runways.

 

If you do want to see lots of AI airliner activity, then I would recommend Manchester. It has two runways that are the equal of Prestwick's main runway in length, and there is plenty of traffic arriving and departing.

Thanks all, I appreciate the input.  I will definitely look into Manchester, Luton, and Gatwick.  AI isn't a big concern so I think I will go for Prestwick first and branch out to other UK destinations as soon as I get a feel for the area!

Manchester, while a fantastic purchase is an older UK2000 airport, it's missing the new tower (though it can be added by downloading a mod).

 

You might want to look at Heathrow, beware it's very heavy on your system, using the PMDG 777, ASN overcast, MyTraffic and the V3 Heathrow i struggle to get 7FPS.

I'm biased because I live only 3 miles from Manchester Airport but it has a daily Emirates A380 flight as well as daily Continental, AA, United and Delta flights plus loads of others to mainland Europe.

 

Located centrally in the UK it's a good hub for flights to other UK airports. London and Dublin are 40 minutes and Glasgow around 50 mins. Schiphol is around 1 hour.

 

Two 10,000ft runways means they're long enough for any aircraft including Concorde and 747s. And the BA Concorde G-BOAC is located in the Aviation Park which is modelled in Gary's EGCC Xtreme.

You can't really go wrong buying any of Gary's airports. I have all except Luton (only because I had previously purchased the Eiresim version and I was trying to exercise some sort of self control!) and they are all of very high quality and certainly very good value at the moment.

In terms of choice of an airport for heavies, the Prestwick runway certainly fulfills that requirement and Gary's version is excellent but sadly, although it has a great history and was busy during the early years of transatlantic travel, it is now almost a 'ghost' airport. Heathrow is great but can tend to bring a system to its knees particularly if you are flying some of the PMDG types and have fairly active AI. I think Ray's suggestion of Manchester is a very good compromise - adequate runway lengths, plenty of airline activity and not too heavy on a system. But, as I have said, none of Gary's airports will disappoint particularly from a visual quality and realism viewpoint.

 

Bill

 

 

Would Prestwick be a good first introduction to Gary's work?

 

Luton is my favorite, maybe a little bias there as that is where I fly from most often when I go on holiday (vacation) but it is a real gem.

To be honest you may as well resign yourself to buying all of them.

 

 

I was trying to exercise some sort of self control!

 

How did that work out?, never had much luck with it myself.

Luton is my favorite, maybe a little bias there as that is where I fly from most often when I go on holiday (vacation) but it is a real gem.

To be honest you may as well resign yourself to buying all of them.

 

 +1 (Flew to Lanzarote from Luton in late October and the UK2000 rendition is very realistic.)

 

However, another gem, although not as busy as the larger airports, is Leeds Bradford. This is a beautiful rendition and is, in my opinion, the most atmospheric of Gary's offerings.

 

Gary

As far as atmosphere goes, I think it's EGSS London Stansted that needs to be updated most. It feels a little bit "empty" around the main terminal at the moment (due to lack of clutter). However, I sincerely hope that Gary concentrates on EGPD Aberdeen before that, and then EGTE Exeter. Those are the two airports that I would like to see get the Xtreme treatment most of all after version 3 of EGBB Birmingham is completed.

 

 

using the PMDG 777, ASN overcast, MyTraffic and the V3 Heathrow i struggle to get 7FPS.

Wow 7 FPS?  I am not an owner of any UK2000 scenery yet, nor do I fly in Europe currently.  Are there a list of UK2000 rated for performance with the heavies like PMDG?  Also for those who fly heavies in Europe,  could you share what's special about European sky?  Airliners are pretty much the same when you are up in cruise, so I wonder what the difference, says flying KJFK/KLAX versus EHAM/EGLL?  What are the good pair of airports in Europe?

 

Thanks in advance

If you fly Cargo Prestwick, East Midlands, Stansted and Heathrow all have dedicated Cargo Parking. Stansted is also a Fedex Hub with it's own parking area. I have been using quite a lot of Gary's airports and never had any issues, they also work well with Orbx Vectors. For a real challenge try landing a B737 or Airbus A318/320 into London City Airport, which is outstanding.