Manhattan Scenery By Aerosoft

By Brian Smith (14 July 2005)

’ve spent a lot of time online flying in Manhattan. No, I don’t mean at JFK, LaGuardia, Teterboro, or Newark. I have spent hundreds of hours with Metro Helicopters, www.metrohelo.org, flying helicopters through downtown Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. This means I have also downloaded and used a lot of freeware and payware add-ons to try to increase the reality of my flights, and thereby increase my enjoyment of that time.

Manhattan Scenery by Aerosoft was created to cater to those who really enjoy VFR, helicopter flying or just want a more realistic version of Manhattan to fly around. Not really much to see for the big tin IFR jet jockeys, this is made for those of us who like to get close to the ground and fly visually. In fact, there are some VFR approaches and helicopter routes that are very difficult to fly without this scenery. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Let’s face it, in Flight Simulator 2004, as with previous versions, there seems to be a desire by Microsoft to simulate a lot of scenery with “paintings” that look good as you pass quickly overhead. Just don’t go looking for particular streets or details. Thank goodness for our add-on community. What really makes Flight Simulator worth owning is the availability of a seemingly endless stream of additions. I really love scenery add-ons. They can replace airports or areas the size of Switzerland.

If you like to fly something other than big tin, you probably share my suffering in my quest for good VFR flying. There are lots of scenery add-ons to buy that help us in our quest, some freeware and some payware.

You don’t have to suffer the stock scenery if you are willing to put a little money into add-ons. Microsoft did not put a lot of work into the details, and when you fly helicopters, or VFR, you notice it rather quickly. Lately there has been a trend towards more detailed scenery closer to the ground, (see my Misty Fjords review or take a look at the number of sceneries accurately placing USA roads and railways and rivers). To those of us who fly IFR, as in “I Follow Rivers, Roads or Railways”, this is a welcome relief.

Manhattan Scenery seems to be riding the wave of high quality, high detailed scenery. It is also compatible with the MegaScenery New York, though I cannot verify this as I do not own that package at this time, but Aerosoft assures the MegaScenery user in the Aerosoft forums, and I have spoken to some users of both products and they appear to get along well.

When I saw the “I (heart) NYC” banner ads on FlightSim.Com advertising scenery for Manhattan, I clicked on it and was taken to online purchase web site. After a good look at their webpage, I put the purchase in my cart and checked out.

The installation is easy. As with most payware, it comes with an auto-installer/un-installer. It also has a .PDF manual that includes information about the scenery, the location of heliports, and the helicopter routes through the scenery. I have flown all of these routes online with Metro Helicopters, so I was glad to see them included.

In the past, flying the routes has been a bit of a guessing game. Microsoft made some fuzzy lines representing roads, and at night, sometimes you could make out what was intended to be a line of cars.

With the Manhattan scenery, you can clearly make out the roads, day or night, and thereby navigate the helicopter routes accurately and safely. Especially at night. The roads come alive in a wash of street lights and headlights. I’ve always wanted to know the exact route of Sierra, and other published helicopter routes. At night with Manhattan, there is no question. But it’s not just roads and detailed scenery tiles, it’s also full 3D buildings in Manhattan.

With the Manhattan Scenery, you not only get Manhattan Island populated by 3D buildings, but you get neighborhoods. You can pick out the borders of certain areas now because there are actual buildings there. Occasionally the autogen caused problems, but after a few uses, I noticed it was no longer an issue, so it may have been a problem on my machine.

My only other gripe is a few missing details that could have made this a great package. The famous landmarks are all there. The job done on the landmarks is remarkable. You can see the Statue of Liberty, Pier 17, Wall Street, Ellis Island, Governor’s Island, the U.S.S. Intrepid Air and Space museum and more. In fact a lot this scenery does a fantastic job and looks a lot better than the stock items. Central Park is much better with this scenery installed, and many buildings have been enhanced. But there are items missing that most Americans would go looking for. Like Trump Towers faceted face, or the eagle head gargoyles on the Chrysler Building. Those details are ones I would like to see. But on the other hand, you want good frame rates as well.

Speaking of frame rates, I got no drop in frame rate with this add-on running on my PC. This is always a sign to me that the designer knows how to create good scenery by deleting the hidden polygons. In fairness, I was testing it on a 3.8 Ghz machine with 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM and a NVidia 6800 256 meg video card, so I wouldn’t expect to take a hit.

The package also includes a number of repaints for the stock Bell 206 helicopter, but the repaints are not very well done. In fact, the paints are just mirrored from one side to the other, and any text is backwards on the mirrored side. For example, the DHL helo says DHL on one side and LHD on the other. I don’t use the repaints, and that is a problem. It is supposed to be one of the added value items with the package, and it doesn’t deliver. It may have been better to leave them out all together if they had this problem. There are a couple of liveries without text that do not have this problem, but the ones that do are an issue.

The scenery is a nice addition for anyone who likes to fly those VFR approaches into New York’s airports, take a flightseeing tour, or fly helicopters. The heliports are VERY well done. The detail level is very high. All the right signs are there, and the scenery has signs of wear, which is a very nice detail. Sometimes scenery is created and looks pristine and in turn lacks that lived-in feel. The Aerosoft Manhattan feels alive. You almost expect exhaust fumes from the traffic on the overpass at the 6N5 Heliport.

Overall, this package is very well done and it is clear a lot of work went into its production. The few minor issues with it shouldn’t keep anyone from making the purchase. If you like New York, or if you love New York, you will get your money’s worth out of this package. If you fly for a VA based in the New York area, you need to get this package.

Until this package was released, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska were my favorite VFR locations. If you are getting tired of evergreens and grizzly bears and want something more cosmopolitan for a change, pick up this package and enjoy your time in the skies of Manhattan. If you want to fly online in your scenery, rest assured, the NYC VATSIM group of controllers is used to VFR helo traffic and they will be more than capable of providing service.

PROS: Very detailed scenery and heliports, lots of atmosphere and landmarks

CONS: Poorly done repaints of the Bell 206B, Autogen issues

Brian Smith
brnsmth@mo-net.com

Learn more here

[ Back | Home | Main Menu | Logout | Help ]