Newport Photo Real SceneryX - St. Louis and Kalaupapa Hawaii

By Don Filer
25 May 2009

I've been a fan of photo realistic scenery since I downloaded a package of San Francisco a few years ago. I also recall several download files of the Louisville area at FlightSim.Com about a year ago, so when the opportunity arose to review the new scenery package of St. Louis, I jumped at it. Without going into the technical details, these scenery files are made from satellite photos and converted for our use. The St. Louis scenery is a 753 MB zip file and the Kalaupapa scenery is much smaller. Both will extract to an executable and text file. Installation is easy and as long as you haven't changed the location of your Flight Simulator X, the scenery will be copied in the right place. You do need to make sure your Addon scenery folder is enabled in your list of scenery files and you have to add the Kalaupapa scenery to the list as well.

Gateway to the West

At one point in the development of the United States, Missouri was the limit of the western expansion before Lewis and Clark blazed a trail to the Pacific. To mark this fact the city of St. Louis erected a monument to the spirit of those pioneers who settled in the west. And speaking of spirit, Charles Lindbergh's plane which flew across the Atlantic Ocean to France was dubbed the "Spirit of St. Louis." A Midwestern city, St. Louis is in the heartland of the United States. This photoreal scenery covers St. Louis and the surrounding Missouri and Illinois suburbs.

Newport Photo Real SceneryX above. Some buildings appear flat.

In the FSX default scenery you can see the monument from above the St. Louis Downtown Airport.

This is the default FSX Scenery.

And this is Newport Photo Real SceneryX.

To test this photoreal scenery, I took several complete flights. The first was from Standiford International in Louisville, Kentucky over to Ft. Knox to compare the scenery with the default Flight Simulator textures. I flew between Arrowhead, Lambert, Spirit of St. Louis and Downtown airports in the St. Louis area and then flew from Lambert to Naperville, Illinois and from St. Louis to Kansas City, Missouri. The pictures show the results.

Nice detail shadow of the arch in the photoreal version.

Newport Photo Real SceneryX.

The river appears more blue in the default FSX Scenery above.

Hawaiian Island Of Molokai

If you have ever visited the Hawaiian Islands you know how beautiful the scenery is and the Photo Real Scenery of Kalaupapa is no exception. Tyler Newport has outdone himself with the addition of chirping seagulls, singing whales, sailing boats, racing dolphins, and ocean spray with authentic wave action seamlessly integrated into the scenery. You have to see this to believe it, or take our word for it. Originally a leper colony, the island of Molokai is now an undisturbed beautiful tourist get away with sandy beaches aromatic gardens and breathtaking views.

Kalaupapa is a small village on the island of Molokai located on the Kalaupapa peninsula at the base of the highest sea cliffs in the world, dropping about 3,315 feet into the Pacific Ocean. Kalaupapa peninsula was created when lava erupted from the ocean floor near Kauhako crater and spread outward. This was the most recent volcanic episode on the island, occurring after the formation of the cliffs by erosion. Today the dormant crater contains a small lake more than 800 feet deep.

Whether flying at jet speed 15,000 feet above, cruising in a prop job at 5,000 feet or hovering in a rotary wing aircraft, I could spend hours enjoying the treasures that abound on this island paradise. There are two main airports with paved runways one at sea level with the ocean spray pounding against the rocks at the end of the runway and one on the plateau 3000 feet above. Some of the bothersome features of photoreal scenery are not evident here since there are fewer houses and the area is smaller and surrounded by water, the terrain does not seem flat and you cannot detect any seams on the edges of the photoreal scenery.

The Newport photoreal scenery packages are frame-rate friendly but here is one thing you should know before making your purchase, the text file includes a disclaimer that Newport does not provide refunds. Make sure you order the correct version the first time. The scenery reviewed here are for FSX. As with most photo realistic scenery, the author suggests flying at an altitude of 3000 feet or better to best appreciate the ground textures.

Conclusion

I couldn't be happier with a scenery package and Newport has done a good job with these two.

Test System

Processor: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
Memory (RAM): 3.00 GB
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO
Gaming Graphics: 1406 MB Total Available Graphics Memory
System Type: 32-bit operating system Vista Home
Number of processor cores: 4
Total size of hard drive: 931 GB
Primary monitor resolution: 1680x1050