London City 2003
By Art Burke (23 May 2003)
don't fly much in
England, either in real life or using Flight Simulator. However, I
was offered a chance to review London City, a new scenery package
from Online Simulation Solutions (OSS). Here's what I found.To get the scenery I went to the web site for OSS and downloaded it. The download isn't for the faint of heart or those connected with dial-up access - it's around 30 MB. The downloaded version came with a user guide (in the ubiquitous .pdf format from Adobe Acrobat Reader), a brief history of the real London City facility and access to other downloads to facilitate your use of the scenery in FS2002. (More about this later.) I say FS2002, because that's what I'm currently running. I didn't attempt to see if this scenery will run under FS2000.
In the user guide and on the web site are references to other software available for download. Apparently a popular package for VFR flying in the UK will not function properly with this software, (VFR Photographic Scenery) but purchasers may download a free "fix" for the package. I downloaded a fix for the AI aircraft present in this scenery.
Installation was very straightforward, simple and successful.
Installation of the AI fix was also rather simple, though I must
confess that (a) I fouled it up the first time because I didn't read
all the directions and (b) I think part of the installation (of the
AI fix) is easier if you already have at least some experience. At
any rate, it's still nicely explained and you'll need it!
The picture at the left shows me sitting at a parking spot on the ramp at London City. It's very late afternoon, stretching into early evening. Actually, I'm not really there, but the plane I'm going to fly is setting there in all its glory! London City is not a particularly large airport, even by general aviation standards. It's only 3,934 feet from tip to tip (with runway 28 on one end and runway 10 on the other). I was a little puzzled therefore, when I saw a couple of four-engine jets parked further up the ramp from me. They don't look big enough to be 747s or some other similar wide-body aircraft. I didn't hang around the airport long enough to see if they ever took off. Maybe a polite reader can correct my impression - I honestly don't know anything about this type of plane. There were also some other, smaller planes in the vicinity, including some single-engine private aircraft and some regional turbo-props. The largest plane I have in my hangar other than a big jet, is the "stock" Beechcraft King Air 350. I decided that would be my test aircraft for this scenery.
Here's my KingAir again, with the view toward runway 28. You'd better
not be in too much of a hurry for takeoff. The only taxiways present
are on the edge of the ramp and a couple of entrance/exits to the
runway. To take off, following ground/tower clearance, you must taxi
down the appropriate runway. Traffic can get surprisingly "stacked
up" with planes coming and going and only a single plane permitted on
the runway at a time. And, speaking of slow traffic, you'd better get
yourself a pretty zippy computer if you don't already have one. This
is some of the most dense scenery I've experienced. I'm running an
AMD chip a little over 2 GHz with 512 MB DDR RAM. While on the ground
and near the facility, I experienced frame rates around 8 - 10 fps.
FS2002 seems to function far better with slower frame rates than its
predecessors, but it's still pretty slow. While flying over greater
London, my frame rates seemed consistently around 30 fps, by
comparison.
With the scenery properly installed, you can "goto" the airport via the standard menu structure and your plane will be parked correctly. One of the interesting aspects of London City is that all the planes are "parked" with their tail toward the terminal instead of the nose. If you pause for just a moment during your parking maneuver you'll see this little guy (at least he's smaller than the plane!) attempting to direct your efforts.
I don't know really what he's trying to tell me - mostly he just
waved his arms up and down. On a positive note, he was very
persevering - his arms never did seem to get tired!
There's probably only one note of "artificiality" in this scenery. Other, more familiar flyers may notice more than I as I don't fly in or near London on a regular basis. The user guide points out the really steep (5.5 degrees) approach path to the runway threshold. The approach to runway 28 really doesn't have any blocking buildings or other structures (at least, not that I could see), yet the approach pattern is the same steep angle used for runway 10. The runway indicator lights (VASI) will help you be well aware of whether you're too high or too low (as will the tower!), but, in my opinion, it's artificial when approaching runway 28.
Now runway 10 on the other end, is a different story.
Here I am, looking back toward London City. You can see a couple of
rather large structures near the tail of my aircraft. When taking
off, you'll need a reasonably steep climb to clear a couple of
buildings, indoor stadium and some large construction cranes. When
you come back in the other direction, to land on runway 10, it is
certainly a moderately harrowing approach. I think if I had to make
this approach on a daily basis, I'd find somewhere else to keep my
plane!
Ignoring the "artificial" aspect of the runway 28 approach, I would still rate this scenery an 8 out of a possible 10. By the way, it isn't free, but it seems reasonable. In my approximately 10 years experience in flight simming, it seems the better planes, utilities and scenery has become shareware or straight payware. This scenery is listed at $24.95 on the OSS website.
For comparison purposes to your own setup, my equipment is as follows:
