NMG Trading Western Cape Scenery

By Erick Truter (17 May 2004)

Cape Town International
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For those not familiar with the Western Cape of South Africa let's look at the history. Cape Town as we know it today was found in 1488 when a Portuguese sailor by the name of Bartholomeu Dias as he tried to find a sea route around the tip of Africa. Dias landed near Mossel Bay after a storm blew his ship around the Cape. He nicknamed the Cape as the Cape of Storms, a name that is in use to this very day! In 1498, Vasco Da Gama became the second Portuguese sailor to set foot on South African soil. He landed near St. Helena Bay and then continued his journey onwards, reaching India a year later. For several years, the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch used Table Bay as a way station to repair their ships and for sick sailors to recuperate on their way to and from India. By 1651 however, the Dutch decided to set up a permanent way station at the Cape. Jan Van Riebeeck was appointed by the 17 directors of the Dutch East African Company (Here Sewentien) to set up a permanent way station at the Cape. On Friday the 5th of April 1652, Jan Van Riebeeck arrived on his ship, the Drommedaris, in Table Bay. He did however not go on land until the next morning, the 6th of April. The country's natural beauty and the wildlife are the two main reasons given by tourists why they want to visit South Africa.

Cape Town International
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The main focus of this add-on for Flight Simulator 2004 is Cape Town International airport. With the Western Cape being one of South Africa’s prime tourist destinations traffic through Cape Town International Airport reaches over 60,000 aircraft and four-and-a-half million passengers a year, with passenger numbers expected to increase to 6.5 million by 2004 and 14 million by 2015. Cape Town International has won the title “Leading Airport in Africa” at the World Travel Awards for the last four years running. The airport is 22 kilometres from the city center. Four terminals within easy reach of each other cater for both domestic and international flights. The new International Terminal, capable of handling 950 arriving international passengers per hour, opened in March 2001. In addition, Airports Company South Africa will be spending R1.5 billion on extending existing terminal buildings and constructing two new satellite terminals, an expanded runway system and new parkades. Airlines visiting Cape Town international include Air France, Air Mauritius, Air Namibia, Air Zimbabwe, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, Britannia Cargo, British Airways, Caledonian, Comair, Egyptair, KLM, Lufthansa, Nationwide, South African Airways, Swiss WorldCargo and Virgin Atlantic to name but a few. Located next to the picturesque Table mountain makes this a favourite airport of many.

New Installer Program

Cape Town International
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Greeted by a new installer program the Western Cape scenery will be installed into your main Flight Simulator 2004 directory under SCENERY/Western Cape on your hard drive. The installer also now requires a unique key that is emailed to you after you purchase the product. The installation is effortless and should be mastered by even a beginner flight simulation enthusiast. Looking at the default Microsoft Flight Simulator airport and compare it with Nico’s new 2004 compatible version it is a vast improvement. The main terminal buildings now include the docking arms on the international terminal. Also added is the new apron currently under construction at Cape Town International. Apart from the airport looking more like it does in real life Nico has added a lot of extra details not seen in the default scenery. The apron is covered with service trucks next to the parking bays that immediately give the impression of a busy airport. Cargo containers, trolleys and tractors including clearly marked areas really add to the quality of the airport. Although the red and white makings on the apron next to the parking bays show the clear areas where trucks, containers and trolleys may be parked, I personally feel the color shades to a bit too “bright”. They stand out from a distance and compared with the taxiway makings they could have been a shade or two less contrast. The parking bay markings on the apron are clearly marked and you clearly can identify where you are parking. Once you turn into your parking bay the marshal waving you into you parking slot will greet you. This gives it that added realism as one can see the marshals waving in the planes from the terminal building in real life.

Athlone Cooling Towers
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Moving away from the terminal looking at the airport in a whole Nico added a nice feature. Because of the graphic insensitiveness of this package, he has limited some of the objects of the detail to the “dense” and “very dense” scenery settings in Flight Simulator 2004. If your system is set up to fly under “normal” scenery setting or lower, then you will not see all the detail this package has to offer. Now this certainly makes the scenery more frame rate friendly for those with lower spec PC’s. One thing I did miss from the scenery is the photo realistic textures we have become accustomed to from many other scenery add-ons available from Flight Simulator these days. Nico did some modifications to the default scenery textures on the approach to Cape Town International on runway 01 to make it look like it does in real life. Although it is an improvement from what it was, it is still default textures.

Ysterplaat Airport
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Fisantekraal Airport
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Moving away from Cape Town International airport to the west we come across Ysterplaat Airport. This primary function of this airport is a military base for the South African Air Force. As with Cape Town International, Nico has improved this airport from the default version. The default scenery only shows the runway of Ysterplaat. Nico has included the hangars, apron and even the helipads at the airport. Fencing in real life surrounds the airport and this is visible in Flight Simulator too. To the North of Cape Town International is a small airfield namely Fisantekraal Airport. Again the default scenery only shows one runway with no hangars or aprons. Nico has designed a more realistic looking Fisantekraal Airport and corrected the textures surrounding it. Included are the hangars, buildings and a windsock. East of Cape Town international is the well known local Stellenbosch Airport. The Microsoft development team left out this very popular airport that even hosts airshows in South Africa. It is nice to see it included in the Western Cape add-on. With detailed hangar positions and clubhouse make is look like the real “little” airport many real life pilots love.

Stellenbosch Airport
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Scenery does not just consist of airports but also landmarks that surround it. Landmarks such as the Athlone Cooling Towers and the Ratanga Junction amusement park have been added. Although there is a roller coaster where Ratanga Junction should be, it again lacks a more real looking model. Also the Canal Walk shopping center was also left out. This shopping center is huge and is a clear landmark next to the theme park. The Muizenberg area has been updated by adding Sandvlei, Marina da Gama, Rondevlei and the Princess Lakes to the Western Cape scenery. The Cape Town city center has also been improved adding most of the major buildings such as LG House, Sanlam, ABSA, Shell House and the Civic Centre. These buildings have been placed as close to their original world coordinates as possible. The Shell House building has a helipad on the roof that you can land on. This helipad can also be selected from the Flight Simulator 2004 world menu. Although this adds to the experience of the local flight simmer being able to identify these buildings, I have to ask the question where is the harbor? Cape Town started off as a harbor yet this main part of Cape Town was left out. For foreign visitors they will also miss the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, a popular tourist destination point. Robben Island has also not been updated but maybe we should not focus too far outside the updated area of the Western Cape.

Table Mountain
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City Centre
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This scenery package also has a small AI traffic file that will direct AI traffic to fly between the above listed airports. The AI traffic consists of default aircraft that is available in the default Flight Simulator 2004 setup. A DEM file will correct Table Mountain and the surrounding mountains which gives it a much more realistic look than the default mesh. Unfortunately some areas around the mountain range got too close to the sea. Now you have blue texture on sloped land that I am sure will be updated in the next version of Western Cape. The Cape Point area has also been worked on to give a more realistic “green” look as the real life nature conservation area looks. A nice feature Nico added in his documentation is a list of all the BGL files and what the purpose of each file is. According to Nico “We know that there are users the sometimes which to remove part of our scenery in order to run another scenery package. For that purpose we have included this breakdown of files so that you will know what to remove and what to leave”. This is nice to see that a developer thinks outside of the boundaries of his development to allow people to use the add-on as they would like to.

In conclusion if we looked at Microsoft created with the default scenery and compare it with Nico’s Western Cape scenery add-on for Flight Simulator 2004 we must say it is a job well done. This product adds detail to the Western Cape area surrounding Cape Town and will be enjoyed by many people that know the area. It adds more realism and people can get a better idea of what it actually looks like. Although this scenery creates a good foundation it could have been so much more. It lacks that “wow” expression but at the end of the day it is still a good product. Would I keep it on my simulator? The answer is a simple yes! For more screenshots and to purchase this add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 visit the NMG Trading website here.