Airport 2000 Volume 3

By Andrew Herd (20 July 2001)

here is no doubt that Wilco's Airport 2000 series is a classic. I still remember the excitement of receiving the box which contained Volume 1, and now, twenty-one busy international airports later, here we are at version 3. To be quite honest, when I first saw the title on the box which began the series I thought that "Volume 1" was a bit of a joke; just how many Flight Simulation add-ons ever get to a second version? But I have to admit that I was wrong to be so skeptical, and Wilco deserves some kind of award for their dedication to increasing our enjoyment of the hobby. While Airport 2000 has had its ups and downs, on the whole it has been an excellent series and each new volume has brought improvements and even the occasional break-through. The good news is that volume 3 is the best yet - but it is just about the hungriest scenery I have ever seen as far as frame rates are concerned, and for many people this will be a signficant problem.

The package comes on a single CD, accompanied by a slim manual. Once the registration key is entered, installation is automatic and requires about 150 Mb of disk space. According to Wilco the minimum spec is a 400 MHz Pentium with 64 Mb of RAM, but this statement is hopelessly optimistic. Although it is possible to run the scenery on that sort of setup, you would need to pull the detail sliders right back in order to get frame rates beyond low single figures. A 600 MHz machine with 128 Mb of RAM and a 3D card is Wilco's preferred option - which I regard as the absolute minimum spec for running the scenery, and my advice is that if you have such a machine, you should still think hard about buying this product, because you will find yourself flying approaches with single figure frame rates.

So, much though I hate putting anyone off buying this fine package, I am going to reinforce the point that you really do need a fast machine to see the airports in their full glory, let alone to enjoy the dynamic scenery. To give you some idea of the magnitude of the impact, sitting in the default 182 on Orly's runway 8, I got only 9 fps on a 1.7 GHz Pentium IV with 256 Mb of RAM and a GeForce 3, although admittedly I had dynamic scenery active and all the sliders maxed out. The same setup on a 733 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM and a GeForce 2 gave me 4-5 fps, which is unusable. The reason is that this is a very complex scenery, and complex sceneries are slow. The bad news is that Airport 2000 Volume 3 is almost too detailed to run on existing machines, and this may prove to be its Achilles' heel in terms of sales. But if you do have a machine which is fast enough to run it, there are benefits. Take a look at the control tower below - how many others have you seen with transparent windows and detailed interiors? Not many.

The documentation is a little disappointing compared to previous releases - in times past the Airport 2000 series was famed for the quality of its glossy enclosures, which included approach plates and aircraft specs. While the information is still there in Volume 3, the printed manual has been slimmed down to mere 20 pages, if you exclude the ads at the back. There is just enough stuff in there to get you started, while the serious reading has been relegated a group of pdf files lurking in the documents folder on the CD-ROM, so if you use an ink jet, now is the time to buy a new cartridge. Personally, I can put up with this sort of economy when the saving in printing costs has so clearly been spent on the airports, but it adds an extra complication for beginners and there is a good deal to print out. The scans included in the pdfs have a slightly samizdat air to them, but they are perfectly readable and are extremely comprehensive - there are 36 pages of charts for Tegel alone. On the other hand, the pdf relating to the aircraft is brief in the extreme, with the text limited to a brief description of the start up procedure and a key to help with operation of the panels. It would be good to see this document expanded, because there isn't quite enough text to get a beginner up and running with the panels, and even I took some time to find my way around. Documentation is available in English, French, German and Dutch, with the exception of the charts, which are in English, apart from the ones relating to Paris Orly, which are in French.

Although Volume 3 is much more than a collection of sceneries, the airports are the feature which will interest most people. A full installation includes seven:

Paris Orly
Copenhagen Kastrup
Berlin Tegel
London Gatwick
Denver International
San Francisco International
Seattle Tacoma

... and you also get ten adventures, three of which link with airports in previous volumes (which aren't necessary for installation of volume 3, or even for flying the adventures, in case you are wondering); and three new planes in a variety of liveries. Forty bucks surely goes a long way when you spend it with Wilco.

The planes are an interesting assortment - an Airbus A320, Boeing 737-800 and a Dornier 328 Turboprop. The A320 is provided in Air France, United and Dolphin liveries; the 738 in Delta, KLM and Odysseus; and the Do328 in StarFlight and US Airways. While we are up to our ears in A320 models for FS2000, 737-800s are fairly thin on the ground and Do328s are vanishingly rare, so this will be a popular selection. Each plane has a custom panel and a generic FMC is included.

I will deal with the airports first, because they are the meat of the scenery. Wilco's press release states that the airports are "recreated in detail" and this must be the understatement of the century. I haven't actually got down and counted scenery objects, but my impression is that Volume 3 is well up there with the most detailed sceneries ever released for Flight Simulator. The airports come complete with satellite terminals, towers, ILS arrays, hangars, office buildings, maintenance buildings, interior views of buildings and walking passengers. As if that isn't enough, there is dynamic traffic all over the place, including buses, refuelling trucks, service vehicles, trains, planes and automobiles. The ground details are absolutely superb, and include numerous little cameos of aircraft being serviced and resupplied, with almost all the vehicles meticuluously crafted in 3D. Some of the modelling is simply fantastic, like the bridge at Denver (shown in the screen shot above), the control tower at Paris Orly, and the main concourse at Kastrup; but there are so many good features in the scenery that I can't possibly comment on them all. Within the limits of what can be done in Flight Simulator, the airports are fairly accurate, although there are the inevitable missing buildings - probably a good thing in view of the frame rate issues. The dynamic scenery is up to a high standard, with ground vehicles zipping about at all the airports, and some unexpected treats like the passengers walking from one building to another at Orly, which kept me glued to the departure gate for quite a while.

There are docking systems at all the airports which require careful alignment of the aircraft at the gate if you want your passengers to disembark. The jetways are animated, moving up and down to adjust to the height of the aircraft as it approaches. This is a great feature, except for the fact that the code is a wee bit too sensitive and the gate does a distracting little dance every time you hit the brakes and accidentally dip the nose. All the gates are numbered and every one features a graphic of a ground attendant patiently waiting for you to get it right. If anyone knows what the attendants get up to when the computer is switched off I would be glad to hear from them.

The textures are superb, with taxiways well up to the standard we have come to expect from high end FS2000 sceneries, with correct ID signs and good night lighting effects. The pavement shows landing tire marks and there is even a texture simulating oil leaks - in fact the only thing I can quarrel with Wilco about here is some of the textures on the buildings. There are a few textures which show 2D service vehicles on the ground stories of some of the buildings and they are pretty naff close to. Perhaps these will be retired when Volume 4 appears?

The dynamic traffic includes dozens of airline liveries, including several of the planes included in the package, which is a nice touch. On reflection, I have seen better statics, but the aircraft models Wilco have chosen no doubt contribute to keeping the frame rates down and they are perfectly acceptable.

Now for the planes. On the whole the visual models are excellent, with full moving parts, transparent cockpits, 3D pilots, and nice animations of the gear and flaps; and the air files are very good indeed. You might dispute the choice of liveries, but the reason for the fictional ones will become clear if you fly the adventures. The panels aren't the best bits of graphic design I have seen this century, but they are functional, and perfectly acceptable provided that you haven't been spoiled by Wilco's 767 Pilot in Command. That being said, they are orders of magnitude better than the ones included Volumes 1 and 2, though it is clear that far less effort has gone into the panels than the planes or scenery. Perhaps this is fair enough, given the enormous scope of the package, but the meticulous detail of the airports only serves to show the panels for what they are. While they may not be state of the art, the panels are usable, and at least the developers have managed to get the displays centered within their bezels - which is more than one of their competitors managed to do in a recent best-selling bizjet package. These are multi-part panels with overheads, pedestals and separate radio stacks, but don't get too excited about them on my account.

The instrument placement on the panels is broadly correct, and the instruments are much more readable than they were earlier volumes. If you would like to see what the panels look like please click on the screen shot on the right and then select the panel you want from the montage. Every plane features a 360° view with multiple inside views, including main panel, overhead and pedestal, but one of the most pleasing features of the package is the inclusion of a basic Flight Management Computer (FMC) which will be instantly familiar to ProFlight 2000 fans, and which handles lateral and vertical navigation for the aircraft. The FMC can process leg data and waypoints, as well as showing flight plan progress in real time. Holds are implemented, and this FMC makes a good introduction to the subject for simmers who want to do a bit more than fly from place to place using the default autopilot.

It has become a tradition for Airport 2000 releases to include adventures and Volume 3 is no exception - their inclusion explains the adventure display window which loads with FS2000 after installing A2V3. Although helpful for beginners, many users will find this new window irritating, and while it can be switched off by clicking on the "modules" item on the FS2000 menu and unchecking the relevant box, that will only remove it until FS2000 is restarted, at which point it will return to haunt you again. In its default location the adventure text box obscures the Airbus radio frequency window, so don't go looking for it on all the other panels like I did.

While adventures are probably the least popular feature of FS2000, the ones in this package are worth a look because they have been created with AETI's excellent ProFlight 2000 utility and include Dave March's S-Combo Module, which means that you get to listen to a co-pilot and cabin crew as well as ATC. All the flights are based around a theme of flying for the fictitious Wilco Alliance Group, which accounts for the Dolphin, Odysseus and Starflight Express liveries in the package. Although tutorials are graded by difficulty, there is no way you are going to fly even the easy ones without reading the pdfs very thoroughly, as the most generous airspeed tolerance you are allowed in any of the adventures is 30 knots - anyone who isn't familiar with approach plates might like to read my series on the subject. The flights begin with a short hop in a Do328 from Gatwick to Orly and finish with a long haul in a 737 from JFK to San Francisco, a journey which should challenge the most ardent adventurer.

I was unimpressed with the EGKK-LFPO adventure, which crashed FS2000 spectacularly on several occasions on two different machines, each time with an error in panel.dll, requiring a hard reboot on one machine. I had no better luck with the second and third adventures, both of which use the same plane, the Do 328, though curiously, the Dornier loads perfectly well on its own and the crash only seems to occur if it is loaded as part of an adventure. Moving rapidly on, I tried tutorial 4, the EKCH-EGKK adventure, which uses the Dolphin A320 - fortunately this one loaded without trouble. I managed to take-off from Kastrup without getting lost on the airport, but after that the plane exhibited some truly weird behaviour in what is known as PIC Plus mode, with the heading bug hunting all over the place and the plane following it around in about as snaky a track as you can imagine. There were also the inevitable problems with S-Combo chatter treading on ATC instructions and when all was said and done I was glad to finish the adventure and fly with a quiet cockpit. In their current state, a beginner would find these adventures frustrating and some bug-fixing is urgently necessary.

Even using the ProFlight engine it has always been tricky getting adventures working in FS2000, but, I don't think that the problems I experienced would prevent me from going out and buying Airport 2000 Volume 3. Far from it - I think this is one of the best add-on sceneries it has ever been my pleasure to review, and I just hope that it works OK with FS2002 when it arrives, because otherwise I may just have to stick with the older version just so I can taxi under that bridge at Denver. But - and it is a very, very big but - this scenery severely impacts on frame rates. I don't think I would consider buying it unless I had at least a 1.0 GHz Pentium.