Misty Fjords For FS2004
By Brian Smith (4 June 2005)
finally got to visit Alaska last June. I went to Anchorage to
run in the Midnight Sun Marathon during the summer solstice, the
longest day of the year, and as it turned out, it was also one of the
hottest days on record for Alaska. We flew in from the lower 48 to
the upper one on a 777. The view out of the cabin was spectacular as
we began our approach into PANC. As you can see from the photo
(right), the rivers were still icy, and the mountain tops capped with
snow. I made a similar trip to Wyoming last year and found the
drought had set most of the state a blaze and there was no snow on
the peaks, and most of the mountains we did see were just tree
covered bumps, no snow covered faces of granite until you get to the
Tetons. Alaska was going to be different, I could tell.Of course being a flightsim junkie and a lover of bush flying, I had to go to Lake Hood, the largest float plane base in the world. I stopped in at the local FBOs and like a good flightsim addict, I bought merchandise. I have ball caps from four flightseeing services, including Rust’s and Alaskan Air Taxi. I spent about three hours just watching the Cessna 185 and 206s taxiing and taking off and landing. And of course it was a thrill to see de Havilland Beavers departing along with their Otter brethren.
While I was admiring the planes, I bumped into a priest from Portugal who also had an interest in the planes. Together we went to the Bush Pilot Museum that is situated nearby.
I arrived home a few weeks later (I spent two weeks in Florida before ending my vacation), but I still yearned for Alaska. No one could spend time in Alaska and not believe there is a God who created that land. It is indescribably beautiful. I did what any love sick fool would do and I spent time with Alaska virtually. I fired up FS2004 and spent a lot of time visiting the places I had seen. But it just wasn’t the same.
Along comes Misty Fjords by Holger Sandmann. What is Misty Fjords? Do you like flying in the virtual bush? You sure you haven’t heard of it? You must have been under New Eddystone Rock for a few weeks then.
Misty Fjords is a recreation of the Misty Fjords National Monument area of Southeastern Alaska. Not sure how big an area that covers? It’s roughly the same size as Switzerland. And no, it is not just mesh. And it is not just scenery. It’s a mesh, texture set, scenery, living and practically breathing step into Alaska. You want to visit but can’t afford the trip? This is as real as it gets. This is not just my opinion. Here are some comparisons for you to look at. Here is a photo of the real Punch Bowl Lake and the Misty Fjords version:
 This is Punch Bowl Lake, a very popular flightseeing destination. |
 This is Holger's Punch Bowl Lake. |
What, you say it’s just a mesh? Oh, to the contrary, it is much more. First, let’s start with the improvements to the airports, Ketchikan International now has accurate taxiways and the floatplane base with jetties, not to mention Ketchikan harbor is recreated along with the water front, the cruise lines docked alongside, the accurate placement of roads. There is also AI ship traffic that makes the journey through the Inside passage. Yes, they really do follow real-world course and you can follow the ships if you have the time. There are also the U.S. Forest service cabins, Antelope Ranch, and did I mention that there are lighthouses and all of the waterway markers from the real-world nautical charts? After you read this, pop over to www.fsaddon.com and look at the webpage for Misty Fjords. They have done a nice series of screenshots to compare the default MSFS mesh with the Misty Fjords scenery. I could post the shots for you here, but I don’t want to claim them as my work. So do yourself a favor and go check it out. I know I have left out some of the feature, but I am not trying to sell you this product, I am trying to review it, so for more info, go to the website.
There is a down-side to all of this candy. First, you can literally spend days upon days of your life exploring this stuff. Second, it is pricey. The cost is 39.44 Euros, which breaks out to $52.28 US.
A heavy tag for scenery or any add-on. It seems the price of add-ons is steadily climbing. I recently have purchased airplanes from Captain Sim that are running up price tags close to that amount now.
In fact, this purchase has kept me from purchasing several add-on planes I would like to add to my collection. I wanted to grab the FSD Porter, the Aerosoft SuperCub, and the RealAir Simulations Scout to review for you, but those reviews will have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I make due with flying the freeware Maule, the freeware Cessna 206, and the Aerosoft Beaver in the bush of Misty Fjords. So I have had to make a sacrifice to own this product. I had to chose between planes that my friends have recommended I look into, and owning Misty Fjords.
After spending so much money, there are two important questions I asked for purposes of this review: do I feel foolish like I wasted the money? Do I regret the purchase? Not really. I got more than my money back from this product in a different way.
There has sprung up around this product a fan-base that is second-to-none. It seems to have caused more of a stir than the original “Super-Reality” add-on, Emma Field by Lago. There are several websites dedicated to this add-on now. And, there are literally dozens of developers creating freeware add-ons for this add-on. Doug Linn and his son Dan run a website called Misty Moorings, Inc. (www.mistymoorings.com) where most if not all of these additional gems have been gathered. Doug has a collection of screenshots and movies for you to view there if you are still skeptical. He also has three photo comparisons he has done. Check out his website and see how it matches up to the real world. Doug has also created VFR flight directions to nearly everything in Misty Fjords, including the freeware add-ons that are being released faster than doves in an Olympic opening ceremony. They are just flying out of the box now!
Of course the quality of all the add-ons has generally been good, but sometimes the freeware can hit the frame rates depending on how they were designed.
Misty Fjords, on the other hand, is smooth as silk on the machine. I have an old PC by most standards. It is a 800 MHz Athlon with 256 megs of RAM. Here is a screen shot to prove this claim: I maintain between 14 and 28 fps in the Misty Fjords area. This is with all the sliders set to max.
If you combine this scenery with the Glacier Bay National Park freeware add-on you can download from FlightSim.Com, you will have pretty good coverage of the panhandle of Alaska done in the quality workmanship of Holger Sandmann.
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