OSS Gatwick 2004 for FS2002 and FS2004

By John Cantwell (5 February 2004)

ur aircraft came out of cloud just before we picked up the localizer, with the English countryside coming into view as the autopilot began to turn us onto the approach heading for Gatwick runway 26. We had left another UK airport only a short time previously for the short flight to Gatwick, with the plan being to see the newly installed Online Simulation Software (OSS) version of Gatwick airport for the first time during an approach to land. This seemed like a good alternative to my usual procedure of installing new scenery software and jumping straight there to check out the sights. Instead, today my first glimpse of the new airport would be just like the real life initial arrival at an unfamiliar airport: my preliminary impressions would be formed on the basis of quick glances between scans of the instruments and runway ahead.

So, it was with some anticipation that I made the appropriate flap and gear selections while peering ahead to where the airport was finally beginning to emerge from the haze. Faint hints of the approach lights were followed a few moments later by the appearance of large structures within the airfield perimeter. These quickly resolved themselves into impressive complexes of many buildings in three main groups to the north, east and south of the main runway. The sheer scale and diversity of building types promised some interesting exploration later on. On short final, more details of the airport rapidly sprang into view. Vast car parking areas spread out beneath the approach path, surrounded by clumps of trees, with a railway and roads running into the terminal area. I briefly caught sight of the Hilton Hotel to the half right, but by now I had only a few seconds left before crossing the threshold.

A rapid glance to the left side of the runway revealed a British Airways hangar among dozens of other maintenance facilities with, unexpectedly, a church spire rising above the rooftops in the near distance. A hasty look to the right took in much of the terminal and movement areas, with office buildings, terminal complexes, blast screens, jetways and vehicles flashing past the side windows. A quick check ahead confirmed that all was well for the landing, allowing time to take in the nicely rendered runway surface and surrounding grassed areas. Another surprising visual touch appears – a safety vehicle waits a short distance back from the threshold of runway 26 on one of the narrow access roads, a small but realistic embellishment. I caught a glimpse of sharply defined and accurately portrayed runway markings as we flared for the landing, before focusing on the remainder of the rollout. As the aircraft slowed and we turned onto a taxiway, there was time to take in the airport from the perspective of a new arrival.

As I taxied past the older secondary tower, a feast of details presented themselves. Ahead loomed the main tower and accompanying buildings, complete with vehicles parked outside, along with fences, various signs, light poles, docking stations, storage tanks and mobile stairways, all displayed with impressive accuracy.

Nearing the North Terminal I selected the appropriate frequencies to activate the PAPA/AGNIS docking systems. These systems, which use lights to assist the crew in parking the aircraft accurately, are explained in the short but clear PDF-format manual. The AGNIS system uses a simple pair of lights to keep you lined up on the center of the parking bay while the PAPA board displays different stop points for various types of aircraft. I was slightly perplexed that the B737 was not among the half-dozen aircraft types listed on the board, so I used the A310 marker. Once stopped I flipped to the "activate" frequency and was rewarded with the jetway on my left slowly elevating to match the height of my aircraft, while a very nicely animated baggage vehicle and trailers rolled out to meet me, along with a catering truck and an external power cart. I was slightly disappointed that the jetway only moved vertically, not swinging laterally to engage with the aircraft, and that the catering truck blithely drove into my wing. I thought that perhaps the system would work better with different aircraft whose type was included on the PAPI board, but I had similar results with the default B747 and other third-party aircraft in various positions. I don’t wish to dwell on this small problem area, because I have experienced similar glitches with moving gate equipment from other developers, and the technique undoubtedly pushes the envelope of what can be done in Flight Simulator. I'm sure there are simmers who love this sort of feature and they will appreciate the docking routine, but to me it is more of a novelty that I would rarely use in regular flight simming.

With the aircraft safely parked (except for that bent wing from the catering truck) it was time to get on with some serious exploration of the airport. Having cleared the weather and jumped to slew mode, I was free to roam the OSS scenery. The painstaking effort taken to achieve an overwhelming sense of ‘being there’ is evident in every detail, from the beautifully designed models making up the airport structures to the excellent textures wrapped around them. Crisp markings on the taxiways, accurate signage, subtle shading on buildings and apron surfaces, all add up to a very pleasing visual display. There are literally scores of buildings all over the airport area, representing the many different styles built over the years, and all blending perfectly into their surroundings. Near the main terminals, elevated roadways, traffic signs, hotels, and other large buildings cluster together, creating a highly lifelike effect.

Near the perimeter, hangars, maintenance facilities and commercial buildings complete the picture. Nearby roadways, complete with roundabouts, merge nicely with the default scenery. The high grassed embankments surrounding parts of the airport are well done, as is the animated monorail that shuttles around the airport. Some very pleasing effects only become obvious when you go exploring, like the faithfully modeled and illuminated interior of the control tower, which also boasts a rotating radar and strobe lighting. Other small features add to the feel of the place, such as the low protective barriers at the base of the light poles, the ground crews waiting for incoming aircraft, or the tiny light fittings along the edges of the taxiways, or even the tables and seats outside the nearby pub! Larger items, such as the jet blast barriers near the main terminals plus various groups of vehicles and equipment contribute to the convincing clutter. Another nice touch is the fire crew practicing their drills at the western end of the airport, where for an hour each day (1200-1300) smoke belches from a mock up aircraft while the firemen play their hoses over the ‘wreckage”. The jets of water appear to use one of the FS2004 special effects (the fireworks effect, I would guess) and it works very well.

At night, the picture is even better. Night texturing is an area which many add-on designers seem to struggle with, as evidenced by the large number of odd "glow-in-the-dark" aircraft and scenery textures from both freeware and commercial developers. This is definitely not the case with the OSS team. The night textures are simply the best I have seen in any scenery to date. The subtle use of shading, the way the light fades gradually into darkness, the excellent interior and exterior lighting; all generate an outstanding night time effect. With the FS weather settings providing some rain and reduced visibility, the visual image at night is a real winner.

I must admit that I had to look really hard to find anything to criticize in this great rendition of a modern airport. Purists might suggest that some of the building textures look a bit too clean and fresh, lacking the grime and dirt typical of any airport. Also, the OSS trees around the airport are rather dark in color, considerably more so than the nearby Autogen trees, and this contrast occurs in all seasons. I found one ground texture tile on the edge of the scenery that didn’t quite fit as well as its neighbours but this is a small complaint in a product of this scale. The one texture which seems a little odd is a green triangle between taxiways on the edge of the runway, near the threshold of runway 26, which I initially thought might be a missing tile or poorly colored texture. When I queried the OSS designers about this, Oliver Minchin, the OSS scenery team leader, sent me several photographs of the real Gatwick airport clearly showing the green triangle. I guess it is painted concrete or something similar, and the fact that is reproduced in the OSS version shows that the guys really did their research for this project. Unfortunately, the photographs also showed that the dreaded green triangle, whatever it is, is in the wrong spot in the OSS airport. It should be at the next intersection along the runway, as can be see by clicking on the image of the triangle, on the right. When the glitch was pointed out to the OSS staff, they advised that the problem would be fixed in a forthcoming update for the airport. To be fair, the problem detracts nothing from the quality of the product and could be happily ignored by all but the most finicky of users (and reviewers!).

As always with complex sceneries of this type, the big question is the extent to which the scenery affects frame rates. Just looking at the quality and density of the objects in the airport, I expected to see a substantial drop in the smoothness of the simulation. The good news is that the OSS team has delivered a very frame rate friendly simulation, by keeping the polygon count down to a reasonable level in the models, and by reusing objects from an object library. Some common objects such as shrubs are simple 2D objects that turn to always face the viewer (you have to watch carefully to see it happen), a bit like the ‘imposter’ clouds used for distant clouds in the FS2004 weather engine. This technique has been cleverly employed in this scenery. On my higher-end system (a 3 GHz processor with 512 meg DDR RAM, matched to a GeForce4 Ti4200-8X graphics card) I was getting at least 20 frames per second most of the time, dropping no lower than 18 frames per second. What's more, that was with the FS2004 settings at or near the maximum levels and with the Ultimate Traffic add-on installed, producing dozens of AI aircraft. Even higher frame rates would be possible with more modest FS settings. The combination of great scenery and good frame rates is a rare one, and the OSS team has done very well to achieve it. By comparison, one of the SimFlyers airport sceneries I tried recently produced around 13 frames per second at best, and that was without the static scenery installed.

Speaking of AI traffic, for some time the OSS support forum included enquiries about the release date of an updated AI package for the FS2004 version. As I was finishing off this review the awaited update for FS2004 was added to the OSS website. It includes AFCAD files for default AI and third-party AI (such as Ultimate Traffic) along with a complete set of custom-made AI aircraft. Basic instructions are included for installing the OSS AI aircraft and using Lee Swordy’s Traffic Tools to un-compile and re-compile the FS2004 traffic (bgl) files. These should present no problems for experienced users but the procedure might daunt those not familiar with modifying AI traffic. Given that users of commercial AI traffic programs will be unlikely to require the OSS AI aircraft, it was a little disappointing that the revised AFCAD files were not offered separately to the AI aircraft update package, instead requiring these users to download the entire 12.5 megabyte patch just to obtain a tiny 28 kb AFCAD file. The OSS staff has advised me that they are considering making the AFCAD available separately and that in the meantime they will provide a copy on request. That’s great, but I have to wonder why they just didn’t offer it on the website in the first place. Incidentally, a workable AFCAD file for the OSS Gatwick scenery is also available from the major flightsim websites, called ossegkk_upd_afcad2 by Gareth Shaw, but it isn’t of the same high quality as the OSS version.

Enough with quibbling over details. The OSS Gatwick 2004 scenery is an outstanding scenery package which will continue to impress long after it has been installed. Every time I load the scenery I find some new item of interest, and despite the many times I have flown into and round the airport in the course of preparing this review I still find myself marveling at the quality of the models and textures. Lead Modeler William Dawes and Lead Texture Artist Oliver Minchin have both done a brilliant job, as have the other members of the OSS team. The 74 megabyte download is reasonably priced at US $24.95 (around £14 or EUR20 or $AUD34). This is a very convincing and detailed re-creation of a complex and busy airport, and one which I highly recommend.

John Cantwell

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