Barcelona is the second largest airport in Spain, and a popular tourist destination. Right on the ocean, it offers beauty, Spanish culture, and is the twelfth most visited city in the world. It was home to the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, and it is the second largest hub for the airline Iberia, flag carrier of Spain. Which is rightly so, Barcelona is on the Iberian Peninsula, where the name of the airline is derived. This city is home to 3,000,000 people, is the largest metropolis on the Mediterranean Coast, and is a beautiful setting for your next Flight Simulator destination.
Barcelona International Airport, is commonly known as El Prat Airport, and is 12 miles from the city of Barcelona. It is a hub for Spanair and Vueling and is a target destination and primary point of departure for Iberia, next to Spain. El Prat is the second largest airport in all of Spain, and the largest for the region of Catalonia. It is a relatively big airport, it has three runways, 07L/25R, 07R/25L and 02/20, and all are asphalt concrete runways, large enough to accommodate a 747. There are two terminals, Terminal 1 is the original terminal, receiving an upgrade (and featured in this product) in 2009. Terminal 2 was installed to expand the airport for the 1992 Olympic Games. Both terminals have fully animated jetway, and high-resolution jetways.
This airport has extremely well modeled and textured taxiways and runways that look like the real thing, with skid marks, paint, lights, and signs all in their right places, and that have easy to read and high quality textures. There are lights at taxiway hold short points down the runway and fully modeled ILS approach lights, with their physical structures.
As in the real Barcelona Airport, the gates are in their proper positions and they all have jetways, and even lighted signs that tell you when to stop at the gate, a very handy feature. The jetways are fully animated, with AES traffic scurrying around both on the taxiway, and near the buildings.
AES or Airport Enhancement Services allows the airport to have fully functioning AI ground vehicles travelling around the airport, for cars to be driving outside of the airport, as if entering the terminals, plus tugs and the whole lot. It is a great step up from the default AI services, and makes this an entirely new and realistic experience.
All the buildings in Barcelona X are custom buildings, made to look exactly as they appear in real life. From terminal shapes, to the control tower, and company buildings, and static aircraft, these are all well modeled objects that make a fun experience and great destination for flying.
I am more than impressed with this airport, it has features that are top-notch, with high-quality textures, great custom buildings, AES lite operations with realistic and 'smart' ground traffic and a complete, and amazing package. For those who fly Iberia in FSX, or those who just love Spain, or recreate their past vacations or even careers, this is one of the best airport add-ons for flight simulator, and is a definite go-to destination, for international travel. Add-ons like this are what make FSX better than its predecessors are; with the most realistic features.
High quality taxiways, runways, buildings, and vehicles, awesome satellite scenery with great clarity, quality and a full set off innovative features.
This product only covers the airport and not all Spain!
I'd like to take this time to tell you all about the aircraft you've seen in this review. I have featured the Wings of Power III: P-47 with Accusim by A2A Simulations, the PMDG 747-400X, PMDG 747-8X, Just Flight 757 Captain (by Captain Sim), Legends of Flight DC-3 by Just Flight, Constellation Professional by Just Flight and the 727 Captain from Just Flight (by Captain Sim).
Peter Carlson
petersnoopy@sbcglobal.net
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