Not Bad, FeelThere? KTUS

[aniiran 440]

I was browsing flightsim.to today after work, picking up up dates and mods and I instantly was drawn to a picture of a of Tucson's Control tower.  So I got irrationally excited, thinking maybe a high level developer did Tucson...

But... As my eyes made there way toward the bottom of the frame I saw.  Sold by feelthereinc... sigh.

Well, almost.. lets look for some new repaints.  

But I kept coming back to the page. So I decided to check the screen shots. Oooof 20 bucks... Bargaining with myself.  Well, It's a little more up to date and it says airline codes are assigned.  

So of course I bought it.  

TL:DR Not worth 20 bucks but not bad.

Overall, the texture quality is higher than BullffrogSim but of course its free vs $20 so...  Note: only one of these airplanes is at the wrong gate. Gate numbers and ground markings are accurate. The jetways are a bit simple.

The overall look in the daytime is not bad, a few minor inaccuracies, but for feel there I feel this is a big leap.

I'm actually pretty impressed with this area, they got the tar snakes down,  the tower looks good, there is a mix of GA on the ramp.  

At night the terminal doesn't look great, it has a simplistic 2D photo, no parallax and certainly no 3D interior. Things I would expect for $20 dollars.

Landside is pretty simple, ground textures are stock , that's not a concern to me, but it is to many of you.

Where this scenery starts being a bad value is the GA area.  For some reason (legal liability) I assume, Feel There never does actual brands on any of their scenery.  So Tucson Jet Center, Million Air, Atlantic, not branded at all.  Really kills the immersion.  At least they added some GA airplanes.  Maybe an intrepid Fs.to creator could add them... but probably not.

The Guard area doesn't look bad,  BullfrogSim went with a generic style and generic buildings in this area so this area does look quite a bit better and more realistic.  Of course, those should all be F-16s.  There are also no squadron logos or military insignia.  One thing that impressed me, is they actually modeled the 2 smaller flow throughs and the run houses.  Ground textures overall are much more realistic than BullfrogSim.

This area is lacking detail.  There should be tons of derelict airbuses and 737s being torn apart here.  Notice they did put TUCSON INDUSTRIAL CENTERS because it is not a brand.  This is what leads me to believe, it's legal,  not a lack of wanting to add brands or logos.

The tower, SkyWest CRJ MRO hangar, and Bombardier are all modeled.  The MRO hangar has bays 1-4 labeled which is realistic. At night the lights should be orange.  The FedEX767 is FSLTL and I guess they used generic stand ins for CRJs.

The ground markings are pretty well done and are pretty dang close to realistic,  the sun here destroys everything including asphalt and concrete and has to constantly be replaced or covered in tar snakes.  You can see they used generic models for the CRJ graveyard, those jets get moved from time to time so I'm not sure why they tried to include a depiction, I would guess Google Earth.  The two jets on the hot pad are FSLTL.  The famous TAXI area looks pretty good.  One issue but not really an issue is that the AI in FSLTL favor the closest runway,  So they will use 29L which is unrealistic.  However, they will use 11L for takeoffs.  I have not gotten them to use 21.  but 21 is rare outside of winter or monsoon so not a big deal. 

Performance is perfect,  60FPS all day long.  with FSLTL about 37fps. A 40% loss with FSLTL with my system is normal. 

ILS 11L works, FSLTL does it best to park in the right spots,  it's obvious they did assign gates properly but FSLTL does it's own thing sometimes.

I think a good price point for this scenery is 9.99.  I paid 21.99 for Flytampa EHAM so $20 for this feels wrong.  The BulfrogSim V2 version of KTUS is coming sometime and it looks like it was going to be highly detailed.

If you are attached to KTUS it might be worth it, but if not the free BulfrogSim version has served me well for years.  I'm excited to see what they come up with for V2.  For now I will be using this, since I mostly fly big metal.  The ground markings are superior and texturing in general is better.  The airport is in a more current state and airlines are assigned correct parking.  

 

[phmcr 98]

2 hours ago, aniiran said:

I paid 21.99 for Flytampa EHAM so $20 for this feels wrong.

Right, my initial feeling too......

[chapstick 2,794]

$20 for FeelThere? Full on rip off. Please stop supporting them. 

[blueshark747 1,958]

Feelthere are overpriced....

[Flying-Hare 233]

Thank you! This is a useful report. 

[Mace 2,014]

This is probably the only KTUS we'll see and therefore Feelthere knows they can charge $20.  I mean outside of Bullfrog and this one...

In other words they're betting that a FlyTampa type dev is not going to make a KTUS.

[Fiorentoni 4,653]

51 minutes ago, Mace said:

This is probably the only KTUS we'll see and therefore Feelthere knows they can charge $20.  I mean outside of Bullfrog and this one...

In other words they're betting that a FlyTampa type dev is not going to make a KTUS.

You can bet someone like BMW&Amsim will do it. They churn out an airport every fortnight.

[aniiran 440]

On 10/14/2023 at 12:57 PM, Fiorentoni said:

You can bet someone like BMW&Amsim will do it. They churn out an airport every fortnight.

It's funny you say that because when I first saw it I fully expected that was going be the developer.  A BMW/AMISIM version may still come.  I never in a million years would have thought they'd do KDAB or KCOS and I certainly never would have guessed that Dominic Design was going to do El Paso.  So it may come to it.  It is oddly popular for such an obscure airport. the Bullfrog Sim version has 10k downloads.

[mobeans10 204]

There's a sale on their website. Just picked this up for $11.99. My kind of airport , plausible airside and frame rate friendly 😁

[solwell1 45]

very good freeware version...

 

https://flightsim.to/file/20641/ktus-tucson-international-airport

Edited November 19, 2023 by solwell1

[Jazz 1,047]

I've never quite understood the name "FeelThere". It makes no sense to me at all and seems weird. What is the logic behind that name? Anyone know?

I think about this every time I see the name crop up 😆

[PilotPete99 920]

7 minutes ago, Jazz said:

I've never quite understood the name "FeelThere". It makes no sense to me at all and seems weird. What is the logic behind that name? Anyone know?

I think about this every time I see the name crop up 😆

I think maybe they’re getting at “you feel like you’re there” when you use their scenery? I actually thought about that myself a while back. 
 

Cheers, Pete