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I have heard a few opinions on add ons such as Airport Scenery enhancements, and some of these comments were why spend money and development effort on creating these enchantments. After all, it is a "Flight Simulator", and the majority of the time is spent in the air, operating your particular aircraft. These folks, as do all flight simmers, want the most realistic flying experience that is possible, so as to virtually lose themselves in the simulator. I had said that the majority of the time is spent flying, not all of the time. The remainder of your flight sim experience is spent on the ground, at an airport or airfield, either at a gate, ramp, or ready to go on the runway. Here's my point. If we all want the sim experience to be as "real as it gets" (a term that I personally think is over used, but appropriate!), then why not have that realism not only in our aircraft, but at the airports as well? I must admit that there is a certain amount of satisfaction when you pull up to a jet way after a long flight that you've successfully navigated, and have it roll on out to your aircraft as you perform the shut-down sequence, feeling good about a job well done! Don't kid yourself either! It takes quite a bit of skill to make some of these aircraft dance through the wild blue!
It takes skill also, to navigate your way around some of the larger airports throughout the world. I enjoy a product like Aerosoft’s France 2, which takes the realism a step further, allowing you the opportunity to start or complete your flight with the same realism that we've come to expect out of our aircraft models.
Paris CDG - LFPG
Biarritz - LFBZ
Toulouse Blagnac - LFBO
France 2 is the follow up airport scenery enhancement to France 1, which I had reviewed on an earlier date. France 2 covers the airports of Paris CDG - LFPG, Biarritz - LFBZ, and Toulouse Blagnac - LFBO, home of the Airbus.
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) is the largest airport serving Paris and the second busiest passenger airport in Europe after London's Heathrow. Located 23 kilometers (14 miles) north-east of Paris, Paris CDG Airport was one of the first airports in Europe to have an integrated train system serving it: the RER rapid TGV train service reaches central Paris in approximately 45 minutes, Disney World in ten minutes and Lille and Brussels in an hour. Charles de Gaulle Airport - also known as Paris Roissy - has three modern terminals offering travelers quality facilities and services. .
The three terminals are connected by free shuttle buses and handle over 200,000 passengers daily. Terminal 1 handles international flights, excluding Air France, Terminal 2 Air France and other airlines flying to European destinations and Terminal T9 handles charter flights exclusively. Terminal 2 currently has five separate halls and construction is ongoing in order to handle an eventual capacity of 50 million people by 2010.
Biarritz (LFBZ) is located in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the Aquitaine region in France. It's right next door to Bayonne and Anglet and 11 miles (18 kilometers) from the border with Spain. It is in the traditional province of the French Basque Country, Labourd. Vikings who invaded Gascony in 840 settled in Biarritz, which was a good whaling place. Biarritz is not a Basque name. Bjarnihus (the house of Bjarni) became Biarnitz and then Biarritz. Scandinavians settled in the area above the beach whose name "gardague" is also Nordic.
Biarritz was originally a whaling village, but in the 18th century doctors recommended that the ocean at Biarritz had special healing properties and many took the cold plunge for their health. It was probably the shock of the cold water that woke them up!
Biarritz's fame arose in 1854 when Empress Eugenie (the wife of Napoleon III) built a Palace on the beach (now the Hotel du Palais). The British royal family regularly took vacations in Biarritz. European royalty such as Queen Victoria, Edward VII, and Alfonso XIII of Spain were frequent visitors.
Toulouse-Blagnac (LFBO) airport is managed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry as part of a franchise agreement granted by the French government until 2008. With 5,612,559 passengers, Toulouse-Blagnac also maintains its position as the no. 1 freight airport outside Paris. LFBO is ranked 4th outside Paris (after Nice, Lyon and Marseille) with 5,612,559 passengers.
The areas represented in this product are finely detailed, all having something different to offer, just as in real life. Paris CDG is probably the most detailed, which is only logical, since it is bigger than the other two airports and is spread out over a wider area. The nighttime textures at CDG are just awesome! Realistic lighting on and in the buildings, gates, taxiways, and runways make for a very nice and secure nighttime atmosphere, adding even more to the already true-to-life feeling that you are there. Yes, there is in fact the so called "eye candy" that really has nothing to do with the flight sim experience, but it does offer the opportunity to fly into a live, bustling airport, and not a ghost town!
Most parking positions at CDG have Marsheller's to guide you. I found this to be a very cool addition to the overall realistic feel of this scenery. You may have to adjust your eye level if you are in the full cockpit view in order to see him, or just switch to the no panel view for an unobstructed view. He will signal you to stop the aircraft when you are properly positioned at the gate. Each of the parking positions are meant to accommodate a certain sized aircraft, and you will find that each of the spaces have markings as to where your front tire should be resting.
Jet ways are fully animated and can be activated when you are in the proper parking position by tuning your Nav 2 frequency to a specific setting for that particular parking position. This is an improvement over the France 1 Scenery, where all jet ways in your parking area would activate upon tuning in the frequency. There are also some massive hangers that you can pull into after you have completed your flight. There are four different types of hangers, each with its own particular Nav2 frequency to get them to slide open. It takes a few seconds for the doors to activate, but once activated, they slide open smoothly. Changing your Nav2 frequency will either pull the jet ways back away
from your aircraft, or close the doors. Once again, this is scenery eye candy, but that's what this product is all about! If you would like to know more about the actual airport, click here.
Flying into or out of the Biarritz airport is also a pleasure. The airport is located 3 kilometers from both Biarritz and Anglet, on the French Basque coast. 800,000 plus passengers pass through this airport each year to enjoy the beautiful coast and sites in this historical area. The primary carriers that utilize this airport are Air France and Ryanair, and it also serves as a connection to many of Europe’s major cities, such as London, Dublin, and Geneva. Biarritz has only one runway, and is not as large as CDG, but the same amount of detail and activity is also present with this area of scenery. The jet ways, however, are not animated at this location, but it still offers great realism
level of realism that I constantly talk about. Although flying around Paris is quite interesting, I'm a California boy, raised not a stone's through from the coast and forests, and the areas of Biarritz and Anglet satisfied the need to get out to the coast and then cut for the forests! This is some beautiful countryside to fly around in. By the way, for these screenshots, I had my autogen settings maxed, to see just how much there is to actually see. I can certainly understand why the "rich folks" enjoyed coming to this area! Click here for more info on LFBZ.
Toulouse - Blagnac, home of the famous Airbus Industry. the aviation history of this area dates way back to 1913, when flying shows were first starting out. In 1928, Blagnac was chosen for the site of an airport, next to Toulouse. By 1939, two runways were serving the area. Improvements continued throughout the years, and in 1968, one of the runways was adapted for the Concorde, which needed 3,500 meters for its unique needs. New control tower, expansion of terminals and other improvements continue to present day. The runways feature all the usual extras, such as ILS, High and Low intensity beacon lighting, and PAPI (position approach path indicator). Toulouse is the
Headquarters for the Airbus Industry since 1974. The components for the record breaking A380 are assemble here in Toulouse, arriving from Germany, England, and Spain. The first flight of the A380 took off from Toulouse in April of 2005. The ZAC Aeroconstellation company area is also represented in the scenery package with its huge hangers. Some of the screenshots that I have taken for this review are out of smaller planes, just to give you an idea of the massive size of both the aircraft and the hangers where they hang their hats. The area is home to many different aviation industries. Click here for more information on the actual Toulouse - Blagnac airport.
At each of the airports in this package, there are static aircraft that are parked, but they will not get into the way of AI traffic if you have that option enabled. You can eliminate the static traffic by removing some lines in the Paris/CDG folder. All of this is explained in the manual. I had the AI aircraft set to zero, to see what types of aircraft are supplied. Don't be surprised if you are taxiing along and all of a sudden a building or aircraft appears out of nowhere. This is done to help with the frame rates. If you are using add on land class files, suggestions are also made on how to get the best performance by making some scenery adjustments in the MSFS Scenery settings options. You will be able to see the photorealistic ground at Paris CDG, far better by heeding their suggestions.
As usual, I started with everything maxed out in my display settings, and the system did suffer a frame rate hit, but nothing that is too unbearable. Adjusting my settings down and turning off the shadows option provided smoother frame rates and the scenery still looked great! It's understandable, that with the amount of objects and their complexity, middle of the road systems may be slower, but with the higher end systems, higher settings are definitely possible.
I was very impressed with the markings, lighting, and various signs found throughout all the airports. Loads of detail, along with runway and taxi way surfaces. This is a very impressive scenery add on and it's quite easy to see how much work and effort went into it! I can't think of anything in the way of negative comments, just a couple of quirky things, like some of the vehicles not paying you or your aircraft any mind, and driving right through you! No big deal, as I really didn't think this impacted the sim experience to any serious degree!
A quick comment on photoreal textures. They look flat from low level flight, but from higher altitudes, more realism is rendered.
The charts that come with the products are very detailed and include all the information you need on each of the airports. I find that the inclusion of this book of charts is an extremely big plus for these Aerosoft airport scenery add ons! Just another touch of that realism! There is one thing about the charts however, they are written in French. Though I do not speak, read, or write French, a chart is a chart and you should have no problems reading the necessary information if you are familiar with aviation charts already. The manual is short and sweet, with all the info you need for all the airports, including some interesting history, and it is written in English, Spanish, and German.
Installation from the disc was a breeze, and didn't take very long at all! A backup copy of your scenery files are made automatically for you also, along with the necessary adjustments to the AI traffic. Here's the minimum system requirements that are necessary to run this add on:
A 2 GHz processor or better
120 MB free space on your hard drive (yes, this is a chunk, but normal for these type of add ons)
512 MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
A 3D video card with at least 64 MB
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (obvious, I know, but you have to cover all the bases!)
Here's the lowdown direct from the Aerosoft site:
Old price: 34.99$ now for 29.99$. France 2 contains the mega airport of Charles-de-Gaulle Paris, the airport of Toulouse, home of the Airbus and Biarritz the popular holiday destination. Built in G-max and using brilliant textures, this add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 is one of a kind and lets the PC pilot discover these highly interesting airports. These airports are included in this package: - Biarritz - Paris Charles-de-Gaulle - Toulouse Each Airport has been recreated with many details and typical objects to ensure that this is as realistic as possible and represents the typical French charm. Many dynamic objects make the airports come alive. Jet ways move directly on to the aircraft, dynamic service vehicles make the airports come alive without having a great impact on frame rates. Paris CDG with million passengers each year is a true reflection of the real airport. Toulouse also contains the Airbus hangars and the ATR manufacturer’s buildings and Biarritz is the charming airport on the Atlantic coast. Again the team of simwings have stretched the technical limits to ensure a scenery designed in the latest technology to reflect all the features possible in FS2004. France2 is fully AI Traffic compatible and comes with a printed manual and printed XL charts!
Once again, the question of who would enjoy this product comes to mind, and once again I would have to say anyone that's into flight simming! Especially if you are a VA pilot and these airports are part of your route. You're flying for the realistic fun and enjoyment that your sim can bring to you, and for $29.99, you get a whole lot of realism! Great job on another great product Aerosoft!
For more information on this product and other fine Aerosoft products, visit www.aerosoft.com.
The best way to let you know what you are going to get with this product, or any scenery product for that matter, is in the screenshots. So without further ado, here you go...
Aerosoft's France 2
Reviewed by Farmboyzim
