GB Airports
By Robert Jubb (16 May 2002)
he developer of GB
Airports, Barry Perfect, first began designing and publishing payware
software back in 1998 with English Airports 98. This scenery, which
included Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted, Birmingham and Luton was
at the time, some of the most ground-breaking ever released. This same
package was patched and re-released two years later as English Airports
2000, this time, for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000. Next from Barry
Perfect, came GB Airport 2001, which included six brand new airports
(Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Newcastle, East Midlands and London City),
for FS2000. With the advent of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 in recent
months, both English Airports 2000 and GB Airports 2001 have been patched
and have been released in Barry's first FS2002 release, GB
Airports.Once the wonderfully colorful box, covered in no less than eight screen shots has been opened, one of the most delightful sights for any flight simmers greets us. That is, a 128-page manual, on paper, that you can actually hold. This fantastic manual covers everything from installation, updates, static scenery and frame rates, scenery features, specific bullet-point information on each airport, what static aircraft are at what airport, the gate guidance system, the marshaller, and just over 90 charts taken from the software package Final Approach, to enhance your flight simulator experience.
The installation procedure is quick, simple and straight forward. Once the CD has been inserted, the installer, designed by Martin Wright, then auto-runs and installs the product.
Frame rates are, as always in FS2002, very good. On our system of a Athlon XP 1.4, 512 mb PC2100 RAM, GeForce Ti200, we were experiencing frame rates of up to 27 fps in sparsely populated areas of airports. This did however, drop to as low as 14 fps in the most densely populated areas of some airports, notably Stansted.
Aberdeen
Aberdeen Airport is located in North Scotland, and fuels many helicopter support flights to the many oil rigs located off the Eastern Scottish coast. The airport is served, on the whole, by airlines operating shuttle services to London and Amsterdam, namely Scot Airways, British Airways and KLM being the notable operators.
This GB Airports version is a pleasure to arrive and depart out of, with
effective replacement textures and a host of realistic static aircraft,
ground vehicles and marshallers adding to the bustling airport scene of
this out-of-the-way Scottish airport.
Birmingham
Birmingham Airport is located in the West Midlands, and handles just over 500,000 passengers per month from its two terminals. The airports act as a hub for British Airways subsidiary Maersk Air, as well as being served by numerous European airlines such as Lufthansa, Air France, Aer Lingus and Crossair.
Comparisons are always going to be made to Gary Summons and his UK 2000
Scenery series, and here, it is no exception. The Birmingham terminal
buildings have been remade, static aircraft added, and the apron textures
replaced, but that is about it. We believe that not enough attention has
been paid to this small, bustling airport, and is not on a par with the
Gary Summons offering.
East Midlands
East Midlands Airport was created in the 1950's and 1960's after a new site had to be found for Derby airfield. British Midland, a new airline at the time, had been growing, and needed a new home. So the site near Castle Donington village was chosen, and this is where the airport lies today. The airport currently boasts the second highest control tower in the United Kingdom, as well as being the second busiest airport in terms of Cargo throughput each year. During the 1990's, this airport has experienced tremendous growth, with a new Departures hall, the completion of Cargo Terminal 4, as well as the opening of DHL's new European hub. The airport is served mainly by BMI British Midland, with a moderate charter throughput. During the night hours, the airport is the busiest in the country in terms of movements on its single 09 / 27 runway.
The GB Airport rendition of East Midlands is certainly one of the better
airports in the package. In the past few years, the runway has been
extended from 7,480 feet to just over 10,000 feet, and the new taxiways
that have been laid down with a much darker colored tarmac are visible,
and look very realistic in this simulated rendition. The static aircraft
have been well chosen and appear on the correct stands. The DHL warehouse
has had to be completely designed from scratch, and Barry has made
sterling work of it.
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is located in Eastern Scotland, and the airport serves as the regional hub for the city. There are regular services to Heathrow, care of British Airways and BMI British Midland. Edinburgh is also well connected to the rest of the UK Domestic network, with help from airlines such as Scot Airways, British European, Maersk Air, Go and BMIBaby to name but a few.
The Edinburgh offering in this scenery is also one of the best in the
package. This Scottish multi-runway setup has been faithfully reproduced
and contains some of the most beautifully rendered buildings, as well as a
fair selection of static aircraft. The well varied passenger and cargo
areas of this scenery add to a great atmosphere at a beautifully rendered
airport.
Gatwick
London Gatwick Airport is situated to the South of London, and is the second busiest airport in the United Kingdom. The airport acts as a primary hub to British Airways, as well as being a major gateway for many charter airlines, such as Britannia, Monarch, JMC and My Travel to name just a few.
This Gatwick scenery is largely the same as the Heathrow offering, with
replacement ground textures, and additional terminal buildings. The static
aircraft are numerous, and well placed alongside their real-world
counterparts, but it's the same old story that the developer needs to pay
more attention to how many stands and gates are located along each side of
the pier, and this NEEDS to be replicated authentically in Flight
Simulator for this product to be a viable market leader. Unfortunately,
Gatwick falls short of the standard set by Gary Summons.
Glasgow
Glasgow is located in Western Scotland, and the airport operates on a similar role with Edinburgh, in that it supplies many domestic flights to other regional around the UK, as well as feeding London and destinations further afield.
The Glasgow rendition is quite possible the dark horse of this entire
package. The quiet combination of static aircraft, accurate buildings and
well placed extras, such as floodlight poles, make for an excellent single
scenery based around one of the UK's busiest regional airports.
Heathrow
London Heathrow, situated to the West of London city, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom, handling well over 1,000,000 passengers per week through its four terminals. Further expansion at this airport has been planned, with a fifth terminal to be added later this decade, to increase the congestion on its runways that are nearing bursting point.
On initially arriving at this London Heathrow, we thought "Where is the
traffic?" The airport, in the way of static aircraft, is very sparsely
populated. It could also be argued that the buildings are not much of an
improvement on the default FS2002 scenery. To be fair, numerous gates and
docking systems are added, but Barry Perfect really needs to pay more
attention to the charts for this airport and put the correct amount of
stands and air-bridges in the correct places. What is normally a large,
busy airport, feels like a baron military airfield, with very little
atmosphere.
London City
London City Airport is located in the very heart of London, in the Royal Docks. Due to this central location, only aircraft that can land without engaging reverse thrust can land here, due to the increased noise restrictions. The major operators are VLM, operating to Belgium, Crossair to Switzerland, Scot Airways to Scotland, and British European operating domestic services within the United Kingdom.The London City rendition is very accurate. All stands, major buildings and taxiways have been located in the correct places on the right scale. The "Tate & Lyle" building located just behind the main terminal building has also been added, and introduces a "city" atmosphere into this airport.
Luton
London Luton Airport is located to the North of London as is most famously known as being the primary hub of low-cost airline easyJet. The airport is also officially home to both Britannia and Monarch Airlines, but both airlines have very few flights from this regional airport.
The Luton airport rendered before us is genuinely delicious! Both the
Britannia and Monarch maintenance centers are rendered beautifully, with a
wonderful array of Britannia, Monarch, easyJet and British European
aircraft populating the apron. Simply stunning.
Manchester
Manchester airport is located in North-West England, and is seen by many as the 'gateway to the North.' The third busiest airport in the United Kingdom behind Heathrow and Gatwick, and handles, on the whole, charter flights operated by Monarch, JMC, Britannia, Air 2000 and My Travel. There are also numerous schedules operators including British Airways, US Airways, American Airlines, Ryanair, SAS, Lufthansa and KLM.Barry Perfect has recreated the airports more faithfully than the Microsoft default scenery, and the airport has an authentic touch with the "Manchester Airport" signs on each air-bridge. The cargo sheds have been well re-created, and have a clear, defined shape. The static aircraft have been well spread around, but this airport has certain downfalls that make it feel largely unfinished. Many buildings and car parks behind terminals 1 and 3 have been omitted, as well as part of terminal 2. The story of the number of gates and air-bridges rings true again.
Newcastle
Newcastle is located in North-East England and operates as the main regional airport for this area. There are regular services to London served by British Airways, as well as numerous charter flights into Europe served by Britannia, Monarch and My Travel.The Newcastle rendition in this scenery has been well completed. The General Aviation apron has been included to an accurate scale, and the main terminal has been well drawn and modelled and is surrounded by a selection of well-chosen static aircraft.
Stansted
London Stansted in located North West of London as is the low-cost airline hub of the UK. Buzz, Ryanair and Go all have fleets of aircraft based here competing on routes domestically within the UK and well as into Europe. The airport also touts a large freighter network, with Federal Express, Asiana Cargo, Malaysian Cargo and Atlas Air all being regular visitors.The London Stansted Barry has produced is one of the most accurate in the entire package. The new glass terminal building has been faithfully reproduced, along with all piers of the main terminal surrounded by a fine selection of low-cost static aircraft. At the opposite side of the runway, the General Aviation apron and the maze of maintenance taxiways have also been well reproduced, making this airport one of the best in the box.
 
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Conclusion
So what do we think? This product is, on the whole, good. Some of the things we really like are the thick, informative manual, the several beautifully rendered airports, and the good frame rates. The product does however, fall short on a few basic items, as we have outlined above, and because of this, we award the product 78 points out of a possible 100. It would be fantastic to see Barry Perfect produce a patch for this overall good product to raise that score and bring the scenery more in line with the UK 2000 Scenery offerings from Gary Summons. Carrying a price tag of only GBP £19.99, US $ 29.99, we can't complain too much, and this product would really suit a flight simmer just getting to grips with the United Kingdom, or a flight simmer running a slower computer that perhaps cannot cope with the high demands of the UK 2000 Scenery.
Robert Jubb
rob@rjubb.co.uk
